The Analysis Of "The Snow World" And "The Remote Town" With The Theories Of The New Criticism

The New Criticism is a western modern literary theoretical faction, and it is born inEngland in the1920s and occupies a dominant position in the1950s. The theories of The NewCriticism and the way of close reading are very important guiding action on the analysis ofthe concrete works. The New Criticism theorist Alan Tate proposes the concepts of “tension”,“extension”, and “intension”, and the concept of “tension” occupies a very important positionin the history of The New Criticism so that The New Criticism is called “tensional poetics”.William Van O’ connor Who is deeply influenced by The New Criticism also proposes that“tension” exists “between the rhythm of poetry and the rhythm of prose”,“between thegeneral and the particular”, and “between the abstract and the concrete” in the works, and soon,and there are the dialectical and unitary relationships between these contradictory andinterrelated factors. Later literary theorists extend the concept of “tension” to the variousdialectical and unitary relationships of contradictory and counterbalancing factors in theworks. Generally, the outstanding works have “extension” and “intension”, as well as opposedand contradictory factors so that the concept of “tension” is very applicable to analyze theworks. William Empson proposes the theory of “Seven Types of Ambiguity”, and “ambiguity”also becomes a core terminology of criticism of The New Criticism which are used in literarycriticism as well as “tension”. In addition, Cleanth Brooks stresses the concept of “wonder” inthe works. We may say that that “tension”,“ambiguity”, and “wonder” become threeimportant keywords that are stressed in the theories of The New Criticism and practicalcriticism.By using the three terminologyies of criticism, this paper carefully read and analyzetwo famous works which have received great attention, and the two ones are “The SnowWorld” wrote by Kawabata Yasunari who is a modern Japanese writer and “The RemoteTown” wrote by Shen Cong Wen who is a modern Chinese writer.At the same time the papperanalyzes the keywords of the two works which is stressed by William Empson and apply “thetheory of globality and unity” other theorists of The New Criticism propose to practice.Thepapper is divided into the four parts:The first part is to analyze the differentiations and relations among the three terms ofcriticism after describing the conceptions of “tension”,“ambiguity”, and “wonder”. Therelations between “tension” and “ambiguity” are complex and subtle so that the focal point ofthe papper is the analysis of the relations between them, especially differences.The concept of “tension” which Alan proposes is different in comparison with the concept of “ambiguity”which William Empson proposes: first, the concepts of “extension” and “intension” areclearly proposed in Alan Tate’s the theory of “tension”; second, Alan Tate advocates the unityof “extension” and “intension” and the unity of a representation and an abstract idea; thirst,we can understand what is the “intension” by understanding the “extension”, and it is true ofthe works of excellence in particular; fourth, Alan Tate distinguishes between two differingcases which are the failure of “extension” and the one of “intension” respectively. Comparedwith “tension”,“ambiguity” is also different:“ambiguity” is divided into seven kinds byWilliam Empson, and he points out emphatically that many meanings of the text togetherconstitute a whole.The second part is to use the three terms of criticism of “tension”,“ambiguity”, and“wonder” to analyze “The Snow World” and “The Remote Town”, and by using the kind oftheories of The New Criticism which has remarkable depth to analyze the concrete books, wecan deeply discover lighting point and excellent places of the two books.The third part is to find out the keywords and analyze the ones. According to thefrequency of occurrence of the words and the theme and character of a literary work, WilliamEmpson find out what the keywords are, and then analyzes and interprets the works in an allaround way by analyzing the keywords. It provides some references for the research of thekeywords of “The Snow World” and “Remote Town” in theoretical aspect.First,in accordancewith the frequency of occurrence of the words and the theme and character of a literary work,I find out several keywords of “The Snow World” and “The Remote Town”, and thenanalyzes the following aspects: whether the keywords correspond to the inherent logic of thestory development or not; the characterization in the works is directly illustrated by using thekeywords; the papper analyzes deaistic and emotional meanings of the keywords; whether thekeywords are used artistically and naturally or not; a frequent word is subdued by the plot ofthe story to a certain extent.The fourth part is to analyzes “The Snow World” and “The Remote Town”with“thetheory of globality and unity”. The New Criticism also advocates the separate parts of theworks were mutually linked and together constitute a harmonious whole.The redundant partsof the works and other parts of the ones cannot blend together,and the redundant parts areunfavourable for the expression of the theme.I have a detailed and close examination of theworks,by adopting “the theory of globality and unity”, and have talken about the problems inthree aspects: first, how the parts of the texts constitute a whole;second,to discover the waythat the separate parts of the texts relate to each other is to have common theme, to view androuse each other, and to repeat some contents; third, there is harmony among the parts. The theories Of The New Criticism offers much food for thought, and it makes usanalyze the works from the new angles.From the angles of “tension”,“ambiguity”,“wonder”,“keywords”, and “the theory of globality and unity”, the papper analyzes “The Snow Worldwrote” and “The Remote Town” deeply and elaborately. This kind of theoretical analysis ofthe works is different from the kind of the one depending on emotions and Impressions on theworks merely,and through this kind of theoretical analysis,the papper draw innovativeconclusions which are different from the ones our predecessors have drawn.