"New Criticism" (Strategies)

New Criticism: views meaning as a product of the text itself. The meaning (of the story, poem) is soley the words on the page.

*we always view a text through the "lens" of our own experiences*

Critism Lenses:
1.) Imager and Symbolism: makes claims about a piece of literature that look at descriptions or descriptive details = "Mental pictures"
-authors use imagery/ symbols to create an impression.
(ex: spring = life, autumn = age, darkness= danger, setting of sun = death)

2.) Similies and Metaphors: literay comparisons to understand even subtle meaning in a text.
Similies: compare 2 distinctly different things using LIKE or AS
(ex: My love is LIKE a rose)
Metaphors: Merge 2 distincly different things with out asserting a comparison so that one essentially becomes the other.
(ex: My love is a rose)

3.) Connotation and Denotation: study of single words can bring understanding to our reading of the text. Provides us with evidence to support different types of claims.
Connotation: associated meaning (ex: fire = heat, light, flames)
Denotation: dictionary meaning ( ex: chemical change by heat and light)

"Ethics"
This poem is a good one to practice using the tools of "new criticism".

In this poem they mention the theme or art vs. life

The author uses imagery and symbolism to give the reader ideas and mental pictures. For example the author uses color imagery such as "darker" twice and "browns", dark color imagery can represent danger. The author also uses the word "burn" which is ironic considering the poem has to do with a fire taking place. The word "autumn" can also be considered as a symbol for age, meaning that the old woman's younth has passes and now she will face death regardless of the fire.

Practice 6D:
In the poem, "The Flea", the author uses metaphors as characters names, for example, the author uses "the flea" to represent the speakers ex girlfriend, which the poem is about. I believe the author used the metaphor as a flea because everyone hates fleas because they're irritating, they're bugs in which we want them to disappear so they won't hurt us or bother us anymore. Which is what the speaker thought of his girlfriend. The speaker hated his ex girlfriend and wanted her to disappear so the speaker used a "flea" to represent her character in his poem. In this poem there's a theme or the word "blood", the speaker constantly used "blood" as a symbol for hurt, pain, and humans because blood is what makes up a human but is only seen when someone is hurt (for which they bleed).

Practice 6E:
To me, I associate my grandmother with mostly holidays. Within those holidays I think about cooking with my grandma for thanksgiving, shopping for christmas presents, going to the New York city ballet and going to the circus near christmas, and to birthday visits and birthday shopping sprees. When I think about my grandmother it reminds me of the summertime at our beach house with all my aunts, uncles, and cousins, and thinking about when I was younger how I would play dress up with her clothes, have tea parties with her antique tea sets, to singing and putting on shows for her.