1.Background and History2.Definition3.Representatives and Key Ideas4.Close-Reading and Key Terms5.Contribution and Limitation• 1. The emergence of New Criticismmbolist poets experimented with poetic language.Expressionists proposed externalization and art dichotomy (二分法).The aestheticism insisted on the autonomous existence of art.The European literary movement found their response in the US.• 2. Three periods of the New CriticismThere are different ways to periodize the New Criticism. Most critics would divide it into three periods:the initiative (1910-1930)the formative (1930-1945)the dominant (1945-1957)New Criticism was a movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object.T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)I. A. Richards (1893-1979)Allen Tate (1899-1979)John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974)Wimsatt (1907-1975)& Beardsley(1915-)Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994)He was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century.He was also a forerunner of the Anglo-American New Criticism.Tradition and the Individual Talent“The poet must develop or procure the consciousness of the past and that he should continue to develop this cons ciousness throughout his career.” (tradition) “ The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.”(depersonalization)Ivor Armstrong Richards was an influential English literary critic and rhetorician.Richards is often labeled as the father of the New Criticism, largely because of the influence of his first two books of critical theory, The Principles of Literary Criticism and of Practical Criticism.Richards defines poetic language in terms of non-referential pseudo-statement(非指向性的伪陈述) as opposed to scientific language.New Criticism emphasizes explication, or close reading, of the work itself.Close reading describes, in literary criticism, the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. Such a reading places great emphasis on the particular over the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order in which sentences and ideas unfold as they are read.1. Ambiguity (含混)Also called polysemy (一词多义), ambiguity arises from what William Empson calls “any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language.”2. Context (语境)The context of New Criticism refers to textual context.In the synchronic level, it means all the things related to the word in the same period.In the diachronic level, it means the historical and cultural accumulation of the word.3. Metaphor (隐喻)A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangiblething to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea.e.g. “Her eyes were glistening jewels.”4. Paradox (悖论)A statement that initially seems to be illogical or self-contradictory yet eventuallyproves to embody a complex truth.In the New Criticism, the term is extended to embrace any complexity of language that sustains multiple meanings.. Hence Cleanth Brooks’ claim that “the language of poetry is the language of paradox.”New Criticism offers us an critical approach, that is, the close-reading.New Criticism provides us with plenty of rhetorical devices such as irony, paradox, ambiguity and so on.In its insistence on excluding external evidence, New Criticism disqualifies many possibly fruitful perspectives for understanding texts.It can even be perceived as elitist, because it excludes those readers who lack the background for arriving at the "correct" interpretation.Preference of certain poets (e.g. T.S. Eliot, the Metaphysical Poets) and certain genres (e.g. poem, short story, but not diary or essay)意义含混该术语由燕卜逊引入新批评，指文学语言的多义形成的复合意义。
换句话说，意义含混指的是一个语言单位（字、词）包含两种或两种以上的意义，一句话可以有多种理解的现象，是指某种修辞手段所产生的多种效果。
意义含混以往被视为文学创作的一大弊病，而新批评则把它视为诗歌语言的基本特征，使之大致接近“丰富”、“巧智”的意思。
意义含混这一术语的提出和运用将使我们从语言学的角度更好地对诗歌的复杂性和幽微曲折性加以解释，从而丰富诗歌的意蕴。
反讽布鲁克斯对反讽作了最详备的解释。
他把反讽定义为“语境对一个陈述语的明显的歪曲”。
语境能使一句话的含混意颠倒，这就是反讽。
诗歌中的所有语词都得受到语境的约束，它们的意义都受到语境的影响，因而都存在着一定程度的反讽。
反讽可以表现在语言技巧上，如故意把话说轻，但听者却知其分量。
反讽也可以表现在整个作品结构之中。
张力张力原为物理名词，由退特引入文学批评中，成为新批评的重要概念。
所谓张力就是指诗歌当中由词的字典意义与延伸意义所产生的相互牵制、相互依托的关系，诗歌的张力便来自于词的全部外延与内涵所表现的各种意义的统一。