When going through the concept of New Criticism and its replacement of Biographical-historical criticism, it mainly sets the common rule of interpreting only the text itself. This rule is put in place to view literature through a purer lens, looking only at the literature, thus cutting off connected subjects such as history. This intends for scholars to deeply think about the words on the paper without being distracted by all manner of related content. This unfortunately does not allow for all works of literature to be analyzed in a proper manner as some simply do not fit well into this form of literary theory, as shown in Brooks’ History without Footnotes, where even the title implies a lack of context. In the essay he quickly addresses the problem of some of the poem’s last few lines, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty”. The line creates a paradox that doesn’t fit well into New Criticism not only for the fact that it is a self defining definition with no end but also that it leaves the poem in a state of ambiguity despite leading up to such an end.

This type of breaking of the system brought to mind other works of literature that would achieve something similar, one such work being A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. Since New Criticism strictly deals with the text and chooses to cut out all accompanying context, the main focus of this essay is lost in translation. Swift writes about the problem of “beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms” (Swift). Swift states how poverty is the overall problem which is leading to many mouths to feed but no food to do it with. Swift follows that up with a proposed solution to such a problem saying “[Children], instead of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the feeding, and partly to the cloathing of many thousands” (Swift). Swift’s proposal ends up being exactly as he describes, eat the children and make clothes from them and while this is sickening it is easily explained through biographical-historical context. Swift was known for his satirical essays and therefore was not serious at all about his proposed solution. The entire essay is meant to be a longwinded effort to poke fun at the standing government’s treatment yet responses to the growing problem of Irish poverty in the early eighteenth century. Without the context of what Swift is known for writing and the history behind the situation he writes about the essay loses much of its meaning.

Looking through the essay using New Criticism will still allow a scholar to study the literary techniques used and the many complexities of the work, sure, but lacks its main points. Satire becomes far more difficult to detect using New Criticism as nothing plainly states its use in the essay and leaves the reader to a more surface view of the work. Works may be taken literally that were not intended to be and to bring in the intentions of the author to find such a singular meaning would break a core rule of New Criticism.

Brooks, Cleanth. “History without Footnotes: An Account of Keats’ Urn.” The Sewanee Review, vol. 52, no. 1, 1944, pp. 89–101.

Bruggink, Eric. “A Modest Proposal.” Public Contract Law Journal, vol. 28, no. 4, 1999, pp. 529–543.

John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” Bartleby.com, http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html , Accessed 5 November 2009.