Murray Krieger And The New Criticism

This dissertation is on the subject about the relationship between Murray Krieger, one of the most important American critics in the later 20th century, and the New Criticism, the most influence critical theory during the 40-50's.Later fifties and earlier sixties was a turning point in American critical history. The New Criticism got its peak influence and declined quickly. Myth Criticism, Construction Criticism, Deconstruction Criticism, etc, showed more activity in the literature critical field. Although there were many differences among them, their attacks on the New Criticism were the same. The formalism tendency of the New Criticism became the scapegoat for the past critical theory. In that time, it was much more urgent to acknowledge the value of the New Criticism and to inherit its critical theory. My dissertation can be considered as a small part of this critical cause.Murray Krieger was both a critic and a critical theorist. The later Krieger is who I am concerning here. His critical thought can been deliberated in two relations, they are the relation between him and the New Criticism and the relation between him and the Deconstruction Criticism, specially Derrida and Paul De Man. The first one, which is my subject here, is the major aspect of his theory and the basic of the later. On this subject, Murray Krieger and the New Criticism, there is a center question that I discovered. This question is a dilemma, which Rene Wellek called the key point of the New Criticism and those critics had never made clear statements on it. Murray Krieger asks how can poetry's context both closed and open at once? It is closed for it is a self-contained system object, and it is open for its referential to outside word and our experience. The dilemma is the key of the theory of Murray Krieger and the also the key to my dissertation.My dissertation can be sketched as following.Chapter one is an introduction, which deals with three subjects: the rise of the New Criticism and its ideas, Murray Krieger's view on critical theory and critics. Murray Krieger was not a fashion chaser. He knew that any critical system was not sufficient to literature, for system was fixed and dead while literature experience was alive and flow. Great critic was not stick to his theory in order to correspondence to literature rightly. But still there is need to make a coherence theory system for theory's sake.Chapter two studies how Murray Krieger viewed the history of western critical history. In his view, the opposition between Mimetic and Expressive theories is deceptive. Both of them consider poem, in its large meaning, as a transport of some object pre-existent, for Mimetic theory the object is something outside and for Expressive theory it is inside man. So they are both mechanical. And there is another theory opposes to this mechanical theory call organic theory, which sees the form and content united as one. Organic theory is the mainstream in the history of western critical theory. The key conception of organism is'form', and this conception is developed from the beginning of the literary theory. And the meaning of form is changed from time to time. Aristoteles, Alexander Pope, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Matthew Arnold, those four great critics were very important in the development of form theory. Murray Krieger gave very close attention to their theory and found the influence between them and T. S. Eliot and I. A. Richards, both were the pioneer of the New Criticism.Chapter three is about Murray Krieger's systemized study of the New Critics. He called those critics contextualists and their theory was name accordingly as contextualism. He researched those critics including T. E. Hulme, T. S. Eliot, I. A. Richards, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Cleanth Brooks, Kenneth Burke, etc. He formalized their theory into three sections: the imagination theory in creative process, the aesthetic object and the function of poetry. After his study of them, Murray Krieger found there was dilemma in the New Criticism contextualism which I have said before.In Murray Krieger's coherence theory, the contextualism should including five basic points. Firstly, it should see aesthetic experience as a different kind experience to cognitive or moral experience. The later two experience lead us beyond the object and aesthetic experience block us in the object. We cherish the object as end, not use it as tool. Secondly, the aesthetic value should be seen as the quality of the object not something belongs to the subject, so that the aesthetic correspondence wouldn't too individual to communicate. Thirdly, the aesthetic object is an self-contained object and a closed system. The meanings of its parts were in inter-relationships in the context, and can not be got outside the object. The first principle of the context is unity, and in that united object there are full of tentions, ironies and paradoxes so that it is dramatizing. Forth, the media of this object is language. The language of poetry is not the same as other discourses, such as science or philosophy. The poetry language like stone in the sculptor hand has plastic quality. Fifth, the contextualists don't approve the slogan"art for art's sake", they see poetry has intimate relationship to society and life. Poetry get this function not as the same way as other discourses but as its own. Although it is self-contained, the complexity of the poem is a symbolic representation of our experience. Poem is a micro-universe. When a reader come to the world after reading, he will find something he didn't aware before.Chapter four is very important, for it deals with the reversion by Murray Krieger to the New Criticism Contextualism. When he saw the dilemma clearly, he tried to reply it theoretically. Neither did He abolish any part of the dilemma, nor did he conciliate the dilemma. On contrary, he insisted both of them are correct. He said"both now". In doing so, he extended the New Criticism in two ways. On one hand, he united the form analysis with the thematic study. He found the existential basis of contextual criticism. On the other hand, he broke the parochial of the New Criticism study limited in strict genre of poetry. Applying himself to the thematic study in novels, Murray Krieger explored the tragic vision and the classic vision of modern literature and classic literature.At last, I introduce a debate on contextualism as my conclusion, Murray Krieger is one of the participants. The opinions of supporters and of attacker are juxtaposed here. Thorough their debate, we can understand contextualism more profoundly and also can value the success and failure of the New Criticism as while as Murray Krieger more justice.