New Criticism
E111191
New Criticism is a 20th-century literary theory movement that emphasizes close reading and analysis of a text’s formal elements while downplaying authorial intent and historical context.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| New Criticism canonical | 6 |
| The New Criticism | 3 |
| American New Critics | 2 |
| New Criticism movement | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T946658 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: New Criticism Context triple: [The Waste Land, influenced, New Criticism]
-
A.
New Formalism
New Formalism is a mid-20th-century architectural style that revived classical principles of symmetry, monumentality, and formal composition within modernist design.
-
B.
Bloomfieldian structuralism
Bloomfieldian structuralism is a behaviorist, empiricist approach to linguistics that analyzes language through distributional patterns of observable forms, emphasizing description over innate mental structures.
-
C.
The Mutability of Literature
"The Mutability of Literature" is a reflective essay by Washington Irving, presented as part of his Sketch Book, that meditates wryly on the transience of books and literary fame.
-
D.
paranoiac-critical method
The paranoiac-critical method is a Surrealist creative technique developed by Salvador Dalí that uses self-induced paranoid states and irrational associations to generate visionary, dreamlike imagery and ideas.
-
E.
Analysis and Metaphysics
Analysis and Metaphysics is a philosophical work by P. F. Strawson that offers a systematic introduction to central issues in analytic metaphysics, including concepts such as individuals, identity, and the structure of reality.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: New Criticism Target entity description: New Criticism is a 20th-century literary theory movement that emphasizes close reading and analysis of a text’s formal elements while downplaying authorial intent and historical context.
-
A.
New Formalism
New Formalism is a mid-20th-century architectural style that revived classical principles of symmetry, monumentality, and formal composition within modernist design.
-
B.
Bloomfieldian structuralism
Bloomfieldian structuralism is a behaviorist, empiricist approach to linguistics that analyzes language through distributional patterns of observable forms, emphasizing description over innate mental structures.
-
C.
The Mutability of Literature
"The Mutability of Literature" is a reflective essay by Washington Irving, presented as part of his Sketch Book, that meditates wryly on the transience of books and literary fame.
-
D.
paranoiac-critical method
The paranoiac-critical method is a Surrealist creative technique developed by Salvador Dalí that uses self-induced paranoid states and irrational associations to generate visionary, dreamlike imagery and ideas.
-
E.
Analysis and Metaphysics
Analysis and Metaphysics is a philosophical work by P. F. Strawson that offers a systematic introduction to central issues in analytic metaphysics, including concepts such as individuals, identity, and the structure of reality.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (51)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
20th-century literary movement
ⓘ
critical movement ⓘ literary theory ⓘ |
| associatedConcept |
affective fallacy
ⓘ
close textual analysis ⓘ intentional fallacy ⓘ organic unity ⓘ |
| contrastedWith |
Marxism
ⓘ
surface form:
Marxist criticism
biographical criticism ⓘ historical criticism ⓘ poststructuralism ⓘ reader-response criticism ⓘ |
| criticizedFor |
formalism
ⓘ
ignoring historical context ⓘ ignoring political dimensions of literature ⓘ ignoring reader response ⓘ |
| developedDuring |
1920s
ⓘ
1930s ⓘ 1940s ⓘ |
| developedIn |
United Kingdom
ⓘ
United States of America ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| downplays |
authorial intent
ⓘ
biographical context ⓘ historical context ⓘ sociopolitical context ⓘ |
| emphasizes |
analysis of formal elements
ⓘ
attention to language ⓘ close reading ⓘ imagery and symbolism ⓘ paradox and ambiguity ⓘ structure of the text ⓘ unity of the text ⓘ |
| focusesOn | the text itself ⓘ |
| influenced |
close reading pedagogy
ⓘ
university literary studies in the United States ⓘ |
| keyFigure |
Allen Tate
ⓘ
Cleanth Brooks ⓘ I. A. Richards ⓘ John Crowe Ransom ⓘ R. P. Blackmur ⓘ T. S. Eliot ⓘ W. K. Wimsatt ⓘ |
| keyText |
Practical Criticism
ⓘ
New Criticism self-linksurface differs ⓘ
surface form:
The New Criticism
The Verbal Icon ⓘ The Well Wrought Urn ⓘ |
| method |
analysis of tension and irony
ⓘ
close reading of individual poems ⓘ explication of paradox ⓘ |
| reachedPeakInfluenceIn | mid-20th century ⓘ |
| treats | the literary work as an autonomous object ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: New Criticism Description of subject: New Criticism is a 20th-century literary theory movement that emphasizes close reading and analysis of a text’s formal elements while downplaying authorial intent and historical context.
Referenced by (12)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
The New Criticism
this entity surface form:
The New Criticism
this entity surface form:
The New Criticism
this entity surface form:
New Criticism movement
this entity surface form:
American New Critics
this entity surface form:
American New Critics
subject surface form:
New Historicism