In addition to their other works, the critic Wimsatt (1907–1975) and the philosopher Beardsley (1915–1985) produced two influential and controversial papers that propounded central positions of New Criticism, “The Intentional Fallacy” (1946) and The Affective Fallacy (1949). In the first of… Read More ›
Beardsley
Affective Fallacy
An important concept in New Criticism, coined by Wimsatt and Beardsley in an essay in The Verbal Icon, Affective Fallacy refers to the supposed error of judging or evaluating a text on the basis of its emotional effects on a… Read More ›
Intentional Fallacy
One of the critical concepts of New Criticism, “Intentional Fallacy” was formulated by Wimsatt and Beardsley in an essay in The Verbal Icon (1946) as the mistake of attempting to understand the author’s intentions when interpreting a literary work. Claiming… Read More ›
Close Reading: A Brief Note
A technique advocated by the New Critics in interpreting a literary work, Close Reading derived from (I A Richards’s Practical Criticism (1929) and William Empson’s The Seven Types of Ambiguity(1930). Endorsing the concept of “autotelic text”, that a text is… Read More ›
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