Preliminary Class Business

1. Evolving Theory of New Criticism

2. Practice of New Criticism

Story of arrival of the New Criticism in the classroom at Yale U., 1938-41

• Cleanth Brooks & Robert Penn Warren, ed., Understanding Poetry (1938)
• "Letter to the Teacher"
• Selected examples of readings and exercises in the anthology
• Wikipedia article on Understanding Poetry
  

• Some Yale English Dept. faculty members in the late 1930's-1940's who are relevant to the story (History of the Department):
• Maynard Mack
• Louis Martz
• John Pope
• Richard Sewald
• Chauncey Brewster Tinker
• W. K. Wimsatt,
•  Cleanth Brooks hired at Yale 1947; Robert Penn Warren hired at Yale 1961

Examples of the practical criticism of the New Critics

• Cleanth Brooks, "Keats's Sylvan Historian" from his Well Wrought Urn (1947)
• Cleanth Brooks, excerpt from "Irony as a Principle of Structure" (1949)
• W. K. Wimsatt, "The Structure of Romantic Nature Imagery" (1949)

Example of the heritage of New Critical practice

• A recent "Close Reading" tip sheet reflecting the legacy of New Critical practice (originally from Sierra C., CA)

Example poem for close reading

• Sir Thomas Wyatt, "They Flee From Me" (1557) (instructor's annotated version)