Research On Ransom’s Ontological Criticism

The New Criticism was an important theoretical school in the literature of Britain,America and even the whole western world. As one of the most important schools of20th century in the west, it had such a profound impact that some of its major advocatesand methods have left inerasable marks in literary criticism of western countries,especially in America. As the leader and the theoretical founder of the New Criticism, J.C. Ransom established an ontological theory which proved to be the origin of varioustheories of the New Critics. The formation and development of Ransom’s ontologicalNew Critical theories can be divided into three periods: the “Refugee” period, theAgrarianism period and the Kenyon Review period. In the “Refugee” period, Ransombegan to develop his concern on “thinginess,”“world” and “nature of poetry” whichnaturally set a starting point for his meditation about ontology; during the Agrarianismperiod, Ransom constructed his ontological aesthetics and ontological poetics based onhis Agrarianism; in the Kenyon Review period, Ransom started to abandon his Agrarianappeals in social and economical aspects and to concentrate his academic concern onliterary criticism. He gradually consolidated and reinforced his theory to found a literaryrepublic, which governed American literary world for as long as20years.Ransom’s ontology is the foundation of his aesthetics, poetics and literary criticism.His ontology is not a paradox as what the traditional Chinese scholars have summarized.It is not only a methodology as some scholar has understood. Actually, Ransom’sontology is a modern ontology based on the sensible intuition. The traditional ontology isin itself a “noumenon ontology” and a “logic ontology.” A careful introspection willreveal its problematic nature. Modern ontology overthrows the traditional ontology andthus smashes the fetter of noumenon’ on the actual “being” so that the “being” is open tothe human world. However, the challenge against traditional ontology creates a paradoxof “self-correlation,” which means that “das seiende” as a part of being is introspectingthe “being.” Different ontological theories are trying to solve the problem from variousaspects, Ransom’s theory is one of them. Ransom’s ontology is neither pointing at theultimate absolute noumenon nor the abstract conceptualized truth in his pursuit of the ontological world. He takes the advantage of the transcendence of arts to discern theontological world by the sensible intuition from the perspective of Dasein of AnwesenThe world is flowing, full of live individuals, characterized by particularity, contingencyand heterogeneity. It is a generating organism.The formation of Ransom’s ontological new critical theory was derived fromdifferent philosophers from Aristotle to Immanuel Kant, Bendetto Croce, Henri Bergson,Arthur Schopenhauer and so on. Driven by irrationalism, Ransom launched a battleagainst scienticism and instrumental rationality. Ransom believed that Platonismpresupposed an abstract essence. He was strongly against Platonism, and attributed theharmful effects of rationality to the Platonic, abstract and predatory cognitive way.Ransom believed that obscured by the modernity, the ontological world has been lost andthe “world’s body” has been broken. The disenchantment of rationality has ruined theautonomy and integrity. The value, morality and integral world image based upon thereligion fell apart to pieces. Modernity, due to the inborn paradox and fission cannotsolve the problems faced by the modern society. Only arts and aesthetics can cease thedamage that instrumental rationality and scienticism have done to the world and thereforehelp people to know the whole image of the world, to find the world’s being, and tounderstand the existential status of the world by sensible intuition. In this way, peoplecan return to the original harmonious world and the freedom of innocence people used tohave. Ransom takes this philosophy as the premise of his aesthetics. Ransom creates atheory of “the Third Moment” to advocate that people should restore the innocence andharmony in the modern society. The Third Moment is not a stage same as the simpleprimitive social life, but to restore the innocence and harmony in the spiritual sphereupon the modern material affluence to enter the third dimension.Ransom’s ontological New Criticism is a language ontology, but the conclusionshould not be stablished upon a supposition that the New Criticism is a formalism.Actually, the New Criticism has some essential distinctions from Russian formalism andother formalist theories. The real quality that makes Ransom’s ontology a languageontology is his poetic language goes beyond a tool for communication and a sign to referin the traditional understanding. His poetic language is a metaphorical “being” of theworld. His ontology is different from representational ontology aesthetics and expressive ontology aesthetics, but an aesthetics in between, which regards the poetic language as“being” itself. It is in this sense that Ransom’s ontology falls into the category oflanguage ontology.Ransom’s ontological poetics advocates that a real poetry should be of the featuresof metaphysical poetries, which is composed of “structure” and “texture.” The structurecontains the logical substance of poetry, while the texture is the body of the literary,irregular substance that overflows from the structure. Poetry is an autonomy. By tension,poetry integrates these heterogeneous elements into an organic whole. What is moreimportant is that this pattern of poetry resembles the autonomous organization of theworld, which forms a perfect isostructural composition between poetry and the world. Itis the heterogeneity of poetry that restores that whole body of the world from thedestruction of the rationality. The world again shows its abundant heterogeneous andinfinitive body. Ransom’s ontological literary criticism opposes the psychologicalcriticism, ethical criticism and historical and biographic criticism. He proposes a criticalmethod centered on the text. Ransom’s critical theory limits science to its domain anddraws a line between science, arts and ethics. His ontological criticism is both a literarycriticism and a philosophical criticism; both an aesthetic criticism and a social criticism;both a textual criticism and a cultural criticism; both a form criticism and a valuecriticism. Ransom’s ontological criticism is generated in the dilemma of industrializedsociety, which is of some significance to the construction of cultural theory for theindustrializing China.