The New Criticism literary theory emerged in the U.S. This method did not appreciate subjective and emotional criticism. Rather, it was systematic and objective. In this theory, it was thought that the structure and meaning of the text were connected so the author’s intention and historical and cultural contexts were excluded. For example, in poetry, the New Criticism gave a careful and detailed study. In addition, formal elements such as rhyme, meter, characterization, plot were used to identify the theme of the text. Ambiguity, irony and tension are considered. All this would help to have a better interpretation of the text. Although this type of literary model is no longer used in the United States, what is still used is the idea of doing a careful reading. Some people criticize this method because the historical context is not considered.
Then, in the “The Purloined Letter” by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator and C. Auguste Dupin are smoking pipes in the dark, then G—, the head of the Paris police appears. He tells them that the royal lady got a letter and another royal entered the room but she didn’t want him to read it, so she wanted to hide the letter but she ends up putting the letter on the desk, with the address showing. Then, he continues and says that the minister D realizes the royal lady wants to hide the letter from the royal man, and he switches it with one of his own. He did that in front of everyone, but the royal lady didn’t stop him since she is afraid that he will show the letter to the royal man. After that, the police G is called to find the letter for the royal lady thinking that D has the letter in his home or is carrying it with him. Months pass and the letter doesn’t appear until G offers to pay fifty thousand francs to whoever can recover the letter. Dupin got interested and asks for a description of the letter inside and outside. After G leaves the money, Dupin tells how he found the letter. Dupin went to the house of D and realizes the letter is disguised as another letter in a box near the fireplace. He took it, and puts a copy in place of the original and inside the fake letter leaves a note.
For example, we can apply the New Criticism theory to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Purloined Letter”:
“I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when the door
of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance, Monsieur G–, the Prefect of the Parisian police.
We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not seen him for several years (Poe, 1845)”.
In the extract above, we will look for details and not general, by noticing how the door was open, and from the welcoming, we know there is familiarity between those characters. Then, there is a part in the story that says: «Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at fault,» said my friend (…) «Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain,» said Dupin (Poe, 1845). Here, there is an explanation of how the whole story will develop.
The story is shaped by the theorical lens, when this is appreciated looking the form as contributing for the meaning of the text. “New Criticism is not interested in form for its own sake, but in form as contributing to a text’s meaning (Bertens, 2014).” For the New Critics, it’s impossible to determine an author’s meaning, and it is irrelevant even if they could. The meaning derives from the existence and interaction of literary forms. They value literary features like paradox, irony and ambiguity. Then, they can be discovered through close reading of the text which is usually a poem. Close reading means line-by-line and word-by-word. The idea is not to understand what the author meant to say but instead what he or she actually said.
References
Bertens, Hans (2014). Literary Theory: The Basics. Third ed., Routledge.
Module One (2021). LIT-300 Literary Theory. Southern New Hampshire University.
Retrieved from:
https://learn.snhu.edu/d2l/le/content/794553/viewContent/13816181/View
Poe, Edgar Allan (1845). “The Purloined Letter.” Retrieved from:
Cantos by Ericka Koehler 
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