新批评是英美现代文学批评中最有影响的流派之一。该流派二十世纪二十年代发端于英国，三十年代形成于美国，四五十年代盛行于美国。“新批评”这一术语源于美国文艺批评家兰色姆1941年出版的《新批评》一书。“新批评”与旧批评相对，所谓“旧批评”是指传统的重在对文学家的分析的文学批评方法。“新批评”转向于对文本本身的批评。这种只重文本而不重作家、历史社会背景的封闭式阅读（close reading）理念虽然风行一时，但最终为世人诟病。虽然如此，但封闭式阅读的核心是careful scrutiny（精研细读法），其详细的文本解读步骤和方法至今依然有效，如果翻译理解时吸取新批评的精研细读，结合中国传统的文本解读的方法：知人论世和以意逆志，翻译理解将会更加准确。在此特将新批评及其文本解读方法与译文摘录如下。

                  New Criticism

                                     Charles E. Bressler

Assumptions

    New criticism begins by assuming that the study of imaginative literature is valuable; to study poetry or any literary work is to engage oneself in an aesthetic experience (the effects produced on an individual when contemplating a work of art) that can lead to truth. However, the truth discoverable through an aesthetic experience is distinguishable from the truth that science provides us. Science speaks propositionally, telling us whether a statement is demonstrably either true or false. Pure water, says science, freeze at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, not 30 or 31. Poetic truth, on the other hand, involves the use of the imagination and intuition, a form of truth that according to the New Critics is discernible only in poetry. In the aesthetic experience alone we are cut off from mundane or practical concerns, from mere rhetorical, doctrinal, or propositional statements. Through an examination of the poem itself we can ascertain truths that cannot be perceived through the language and logic of science. Both science and poetry, then, provide different but valid sources of knowledge.

    Like many other critical theories, New Criticism’s theory begins by defining its object of concern, in this case a poem. (New Critics use the word poem synonymously with work of art; however, their methodology works most efficiently with poetry rather than any other genre.) New Critics assert that a poem has ontological status; that is, it possesses its own being and exists like any other object. In effect, a poem becomes an artifact, an objective, self-contained, autonomous entity with its own structure. As W.k. Wimsatt declares, a poem becomes a verbal icon.

    Having declared a poem an object in its own right, the New Critics then develop their objective theory of art. For them, the meaning of a poem must not be equated with its author’s feelings or stated or implied intentions. To believe that a poem’s meaning is nothing more than an expression of the private experiences or intentions of its author is to commit a fundamental error of interpretation the New Critics call the Intentional Fallacy. Because they believe that the poem is an object, they claim that every poem must also be a public text that can be understood by applying the standards of public discourse, not simply the private experience, concerns, and vocabulary of its author.

   That the poem is somehow related to its author cannot be denied. In his essay “Tradition and the individual Talent,” T.S. Eliot states the New Critical position concerning this relationship between the author and his or her work. The basis of Eliot’s argument is an analogy.

….

   Dismissing the poet’s stated or supposed intentions as a means of discovering the text’s meaning, the New Critics give little credence to the biographical or contextual history of a poem. If the Intentional Fallacy is correct, then unearthing biographical data will not help us ascertain a poem’s meaning. Likewise, trying to place a poem in its social or political context will tell us much social or political history about the time which the poem was authored; although such information may indeed help in understanding the poem, its real meaning cannot reside in this extrinsic or outside-the-text information.

   Of particular importance to the New Critics, however, are individual words’ etymology. Because the words of a poem sometimes change meaning from one time period to another, the critic often needs to conduct his own research, discovering what individual words meant at the time the poem was written. The Oxford English Dictionary (a dictionary that cites a word’s various historical meanings chronologically) becomes one of the critic’s best friends.

    Placing little emphasis on the author, the social context, or a text’s historical situation as a source for discovering a poem’s meaning, the New Critics also assert that a reader’s emotional response to the text is neither important or equivalent to its interpretation. Such an error in judgment called the Affective Fallacy, confuses what a poem is (its meaning) and what it does. If we derive our standard of criticism, say the New Critics, from the psychological effects of the poem, we are often then left with impressionism or worse yet, relativism, believing that a poem has innumerable valid interpretations.

    Where, then, can we find the poem’s meaning? According to the New Critics, it does not reside in the author, the historical or social context of the poem, or even in the reader. Because the poem itself is an artifact or an objective entity, its meaning must reside within its own structure. Like all other objects, a poem and its structure can be analyzed scientifically. Accordingly, careful scrutiny reveals that a poem’s structure operates according to a complex series of laws. By closely analyzing the structure, the New Critics believe that they have devised a methodology and a standard of excellence that we can apply to all poems to discover their correct meaning. It is the critic’s job, they conclude, to ascertain the structure of the poem, to see how it operates to achieve its unity, and to discover how meaning evolves directly from the poem itself.

    According to New Criticism, the poet is an organizer of the content of human experience. Structuring the poem around these often confusing and sometimes contradictory experiences of life, the poet crafts the poem in such a way that the text stirs its readers’ emotions and causes its reader to reflect on the poem’s contents. As an artisan, the poet is most concerned with effectively developing the poem’s structure, for the artist realizes that the meaning of a text emerges from its structure. The poet’s chief concern, maintain the New Critics, is how meaning is achieved through the various and sometimes conflicting elements operating in the poem itself.

    The chief characteristic of the poem and therefore its structure is coherence or interrelatedness. Borrowing their ideas from the writings of Samuel T. Coleridge, the New Critics posit the organic unity of a poem—that is, the concept that all parts of a poem are interrelated and interconnected, with each part reflecting and helping to support the poem’s central idea. Such organic unity allows for the harmonization of conflicting ideas, feelings and attitudes, and results in a poem’s oneness. Superior poetry, declare the New Critics, achieve such oneness through paradox, irony, and ambiguity. Because such tensions are necessarily a part of everyone’s life, it is only fitting and appropriate, say the New Critics, that superior poetry present these human experience while at the same time showing how these tensions are resolved within the poem to achieve its organic unity.

   Because the poem’s chief characteristic is its oneness, New Critics believe that a poem’s form and content are inseparable. For the New Critics, however, form is more than the external structure of a poem, for a poem’s form encompasses but rises above the usual definition of poetic structure (that is, whether the poem be a Shakespearian or Petrachan sonnet, or a lyric, or any other poetic structure having meter, rhyme, or some other poetic pattern). In New Criticism, form is the overall effect the poem creates. Because all the various parts of the poem combine to create this effect, each poem’s form is unique. When all the elements of a poem work together to form a single, unified effect----the poem’s form----New Critics declare that the poet has written a successful poem, one that has organic unity.

    Because all good and successful pomes have organic unity, it would be inconceivable to try to separate a poem’s form and its content, maintain the New Critics. How can we separate what a poem says from how it says it? Because all the elements of a poem, both structural and aesthetic, get together to achieve a poem’s effect or form, it is impossible to discuss the overall meaning of a poem by isolating or separating form and content.….

Methodology

   Believing in the thematic and structural unity of a poem, New Critics seeks for meaning within the text’s structure by finding the tensions and conflicts that must eventually be resolved into a harmonious whole and inevitably lead to the creation of the poem’s chief effect. Such a search first leads New Critics to the poem’s diction or word choice. Unlike scientific discourse and its precision of terminology, poetic diction often has multiple meanings can immediately set up a series of tensions within the text. For example, many words have both a denotation, or dictionary meaning, and connation(s), or implied meanings. A word’s denotation may be in direct concerned with its connotative meaning determined by the context of the poem. In addition, it may be difficult to differentiate between the various denotation of a word. …This tension New Critics [call it], ambiguity. At the end of a close reading of the text, however, all such ambiguity must be resolved.

   Even on a surface level of understanding or upon a first reading, a poem from a New Critic’s perspective, is a reconciliation of conflicts, of opposite meanings and tensions. Its form and content are indivisible, so it is the critic’s job to analyze the poetic diction to ascertain such tensions. Although various New Critics give a variety of names to the poetic elements that make up a poem’s structure, all agree that the poem’s meaning is derived from oscillating tensions and conflicts that are brought to the surface through poetic diction. For example, Cleanth Brooks claims that the chief elements in a poem are paradox and irony, two closely related terms that imply that a word or phrase is qualified or even undercut by its context. Other critics use the word tension to describe the opposition or conflicts operating within the text. For these critics, tension implies the conflicts between a word’s denotation and its connotation, between a literal detail and a figurative one, and between an abstract and a concrete detail.

   Because conflict, ambiguity, or tension controls the poem’s structure, the meaning of the poem can be discovered only by analyzing contextually the poetic elements and diction. Because context governs meaning, meanings of individual words or phrases are therefore context related and unique to the poem in which they occur. It is the job of the critic, then, to unravel the various apparent conflicts and tensions within each poem and to show that ultimately the poem has organic unity, thereby showing that all parts of the poem are interrelated and support the poem’s chief paradox. This paradox, what the New Critics often call form or overall effect, can usually be expressed in one sentence that contains the main tension and the resolution of that tension. It is this key idea to which all other elements of the poem must relate.

   Although most New Critics would agree that the process of discovering the poem’s form is not necessarily linear (for advanced readers often see ambiguities and ironies upon a first reading of a text), New Criticism provides the reader with a distinct methodology to help uncover this chief tension. Such guided steps allow both novices and advanced literary scholars together to enter the discussion of a text’s ultimate meaning, each contributing to the poem’s interpretation. From a New Critical perspective, one begins this journey of discovering a text’s correct interpretation by reading the poem several times and by carefully noting the work’s title (if it has one) and its relationship to the text. Then, by following the prescribed steps listed here, a reader can ascertain a text’s meaning. The more practice one has at following this methodology and the more opportunities one has to be guided by an advanced reader and critic, the more adept one will undoubtedly become at textual analysis.

1. Examine the text’s diction. Consider the denotation, connotations, and etymological roots of all words in the text.

2．Examine all allusions found within the text by tracing their roots to the primary text or source, if possible.

3. Analyze all images, symbols and figures of speech within the text. Note the relationships, if any, among the elements, both within the same category(between images, for example) and among the various elements (between an image and a symbol, for example).

4. Examine and analyze the various structural patterns that may appear within the text, including the technical aspects of prosody. Note how the poet manipulates metrical devices, grammatical constructions, tonal patterns, and syntactic patterns of words, phrases, or sentences. Determine how these various patterns interrelate with each other and with all elements discussed in step from 1 to 3.

5. Consider such elements as tone，theme，point of view，and any other elements as dialogue， foreshadowing，narration，parody，setting, and so forth ----that directly relates to the text’s dramatic situation.

6. Look for interrelationships of all elements, noting where tensions, ambiguity or paradoxes arise.

7.After carefully examining all elements, state the poem’s chief overarching tension and explain how the poem achieves its dominant effect by resolving such tensions.

Questions for Analysis

(1) If the text has a title, what is the relationship of the title to the rest of the poem? Before answering this question, New Critical theory and practice assume that the critic has read the text several times?

(2) What words, if any, need to be defined?

(3) What words’etymological roots need to be explored?

(4) Wh at relationships or patterns do you see among any words in the text?

(5) What are the various connotative meanings words in the text may have? Do these various shades of meaning help establish relationships or patterns in the text?

(6) What allusions, if any, are in the text? Traces these allusions to their appropriate sources and explore how the origins of the allusion help elucidate meaning in this particular text.

(7) What symbols, images, and figures of speech are used? What is the relationship between any symbols or images? Between an image and another image? Between a figure of speech and an image？A symbol?

(8) What elements of prosody can you note and discuss? Look for rhyme, meter, and stanza patterns.

(9) What is the tone of the work?

(10) From what point of view is the content of the text being told?

(11) What tensions, ambiguities, or paradox arise within the text?

(12) What do you believe the chief paradox-or-irony is in the text?

(13) How do all the elements of the text support and develop the text’s chief paradox?

Quoted from Literary criticism：an introduction to theory and practice

讨论：新批评的文本解读方法是Close Reading，我国学界将其译为“细读”法，你认为是否妥当？

译文见下一篇博文。http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_453e50260100o7ll.html