New Criticism: You, as the reader, do not exist

So you wanna learn theory. Well, then you've come to the right place. Literary theories can be tricky, especially when taking into consideration the different viewpoints each theory comes from. The real question they're all trying to answer, though, is where does the meaning of the text lie? When it comes to New Criticism, the answer is simple: the meaning lies in the text itself! Easy, right? But what does it actually mean for the meaning to lie solely in the text? Where does the author or we, as readers, come into play?

Let me break it down for you. When reading a piece of literature from a New Criticism stand point, reader and author go out the window. Author's biography? Irrelevant. Your emotional response to the work? Useless. The intent that the writer had when he created wrote the piece? Who cares! What really matters is the actual writing and what can be gotten from that. Tools such as denotations, connotations, etymology, and symbolism are a New Critic's best friend.

This may leave you wondering, though, where a New Critic gets the right to say your opinion doesn't matter. Well, here's how it is; according to New Criticism, authors don't always plan or even understand their work. Therefore, whatever the author intended the meaning to be doesn't necessarily mean that's what they ended up with. A piece of writing could be seen one way by one person, yet mean something completely different to someone else. When emotions come into play, it's impossible to settle on one single meaning of a text. Taking this into consideration, it obviously seemed best just to do away with intents, emotions, and opinions all together. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Here's the catch, though. Many other critics found issue with this method for the sole reason that it's not quite possible to evaluate a text without utilizing some of your own emotions and experiences. It's like trying to take out your brain and heart and then going:

It just doesn't quite work.

So while the New Critics are off evaluating texts without any of their own input or allowing any input from the author, there are others who are still out there trying to find meaning without having to perform a self-surgery first. What do you think? Could you evaluate a piece of writing without allowing any of your own emotions to influence your findings in the meaning? How do you think this would be beneficial and how might it be a hindrance?

On the bright side, you've officially learned your first theory. I won't even deduct points if you let your emotions determine some of the meaning.

Citations:

"Heart." Heart. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2015.

"283 The, Human, Body Free Images." The, Human, Body. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2015.