The birth of new criticism : conflict and conciliation in the early work of William Empson, I.A. Richards, Laura Riding and Robert Graves / Donald Childs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Childs, Donald J.

Contributor:

eBOUND Canada, manufacturer.

Series:

Canadian Publishers Collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

New Criticism--History.

New Criticism.

Empson, William, 1906-1984--Criticism and interpretation.

Empson, William.

Richards, I. A. (Ivor Armstrong), 1893-1979--Criticism and interpretation.

Richards, I. A.

Riding, Laura, 1901-1991--Criticism and interpretation.

Riding, Laura.

Graves, Robert, 1895-1985--Criticism and interpretation.

Graves, Robert.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 399 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal [Canada] : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2013]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Amid competing claims about who first developed the theories and practices that became known as New Criticism - the critical method that rose alongside Modernism - literary historians have generally given the lion's share of credit to William Empson and I.A. Richards. In The Birth of New Criticism Donald Childs challenges this consensus and provides a new and authoritative narrative of the movement's origins. At the centre stand Robert Graves and Laura Riding, two poet-critics who have been written out of the history of New Criticism. Childs brings to light the long-forgotten early criticism of Graves to detail the ways in which his interpretive methods and ideas evolved into the practice of "close reading," demonstrating that Graves played such a fundamental part in forming both Empson's and Richards's critical thinking that the story of twentieth-century literary criticism must be re-evaluated and re-told. Childs also examines the important influence that Riding's work had on Graves, Empson, and Richards, establishing the importance of this long-neglected thinker and critic. A provocative and cogently argued work, The Birth of New Criticism is both an important intellectual history of the movement and a sharply observed account of the cultural politics of its beginnings and legacy.

Contents:

""Cover""; ""Copyright""; ""Contents""; ""Acknowledgments""; ""Introduction""; ""1 - An Old Anxiety about Influence""; ""2 - A Question of Conflict""; ""3 - Mediating The Poetic Mind: “as many meanings as possible�""; ""4 - The Limits of Poetic Consciousness""; ""5 - Models of Practically Ambiguous Criticism""; ""6 - Defence of Poetic Analysis""; ""7 - The Ambiguous Grammar of Romantic Psychology""; ""8 - Associations""; ""9 - Taxonomies of Types""; ""10 - Remembering Graves in Revision""; ""11 - Richards and the Graves(t) Danger""; ""12 - How Graves Shapes Richards�s Principles""

""13 - Conflict Theory in Science and Poetry""""14 - Riding Corrects Richards (and Graves)""; ""15 - Asserting the Poem�s Autonomy contra Richards""; ""16 - From Slow Reading to Close Reading: Escaping the Stock Response""; ""17 - Taking New Stock of Stock Responses""; ""18 - Poetry, Interpretation, and Education""; ""19 - Anthology Culture, Self-Reliance, and Self-Development""; ""20 - Slow Wit, Slow Close Reading, and Paraphrase""; ""Notes""; ""Index""

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed February 6, 2014).

ISBN:

9780773589247

0773589244

9780773589230

0773589236

OCLC:

872601159