Although the new criticism is called formalism, it is not directly related to the Russian formalism school that was born earlier. Its founders were British poet and critic T·S· Eliot (1888 ~ 1965) and critic Richards (Ivor Armstrong Richards, 1893 ~ 1979), and later because of American scholar John Croce. The book "New Criticism" (194 1) (1888 to 1974) was published and named after it. It refers to a group of scholars with formalistic tendencies, mainly American "Southern Critics". However, they never formally established a faction, issued a declaration, and no one even admitted that they were members of the faction. From the 1920s to 1950s, New Criticism was all the rage in America and spread to other countries.
Ontology criticism generally includes three contents, namely, the theory of works' autonomy, the theory of works' organic nature and the method of intensive reading, which are gradually enriched on the basis of Eliot and Richards' poetic thoughts and creatively developed by later generations. Relatively speaking, Richards' influence is various, and it is more direct and profound, although the new criticism has also resisted some of his views.
First of all, Eliot opposes poetry with emotional exposure, advocates "impersonal" poetics, and asks the poet to escape from emotion and personality and look for the so-called "objective counterpart"-that is, "a group of things, a situation and a series of events" that represent and stimulate emotion-to make it a symbol of independence and self-sufficiency in poetry works. On the other hand, he also advocates honest criticism and sensitive appreciation, and should not pay attention to the poet, but to the work itself; It is believed that the interpretation based on the poet's intention and emotion will inevitably damage the integrity of artistic works as art. 1 Ai Shi's poetics clearly shows the shift of criticism from the external factors of poetry to the internal factors. Richards should agree with the former that literature has unique knowledge and science fails to grasp it, and point out that poetic language is just the opposite of scientific language, which is a kind of "false statement", does not reflect the objective truth and does not care about the authenticity of the reference. In his view, the word "truth" can only be used in science, but in poetry, it is only an afterthought of experience or psychological satisfaction. He advised readers not to use the external standards of other disciplines to read poetry. This is equivalent to asserting that poetry is an independent language product, which has received several responses from new criticism. Chris Brooks (1906-) claimed that poetry criticism must start with "maximum careful study" to see what "poetry is poetry" is. W.K. Wenmsett and Monroe Beardsley (1915-) co-wrote two articles, The Intention Fallacy and the Emotion Fallacy, which opposed the judgment based on the author's intention and the reader's reaction, and emphasized the importance of the "internal" structure and factors of the work in order to cut off the relationship between the work and the author and the reader. They even think that the "I" in lyric poetry is also a creative thing, and should be the spokesman of the drama, not the poet himself. In addition, Li also realized that the universal habit of "expressing meaning" threatened the autonomy and integrity of poetry. Brooks agreed with this view without reservation, and simply explained the nature of mistakes to the world by "explaining heresy". In his view, poetry contains rich connotations and cannot be interpreted. 7 In the book Double Motives, R. P. Blackmur (1904- 1965) even declared that "anything left over from interpretation can only be understood without words." eight
Secondly, Richards draws lessons from predecessors' theories and defines poetry as the complex and exquisite harmony of various experiences. Therefore, poetry not only has autonomy, but also increases organic unity. Lanson, on the other hand, refurbished the long-used critical terminology to clarify this nature: "A poem is a logical skeleton with local muscles." According to him, the statement or exposition that occupies the central position in the poem is the so-called "logical structure", which is like the beam and wall of the house; Anything attached to the "skeleton", including words, sounds, images, and the implied meaning of the text content, is the so-called "local texture", just like wallpaper, smears or hanging objects on the wall of a house. Brooks suggested that when reading a poem, readers should not only read it as a poem, but also treat it as a whole. 1 1 More importantly, Li also believes that the organism of poetry is dynamic and full of vitality, and the balance of its opposing impulses is the fundamental solution to trigger the most valuable aesthetic response. 12 new criticism got the message. Under the guidance of this view, they established various theories about the mutual balance of internal factors, such as "tension", "irony" and "paradox" (see below). With regard to the meaning of poetry texts, Richard divided them into four different types, and this practice of 13 also inspired the British scholar Empson (1906-). The book "Seven Types of Ambiguity" written by the latter analyzes and summarizes the ambiguity of language with a large number of examples, which shows the feasibility and effectiveness of literal analysis, so this book was called "the classic of modern criticism" at that time.
Thirdly, Li believes that a word is often reflected in its context, and its meaning is often determined by the latter. Therefore, as a university professor, he has been advocating careful text reading among students, and clearly put forward "closed-book reading". This reading mode of 14 provides a concrete way for the new criticism to practice its various balance theories. New criticism's main positions are the Survey founded by Levi's (1895-) and the Ken Yong Review founded by ransom. Understanding Poetry (1938), co-edited by Brooks and Warren (R. P. Warren, 1905-), has selected more than 200 ancient and modern works, pushed the intensive reading method to standardization, and has been republished as a college textbook for several generations.
To sum up, the so-called "ontological criticism" refers to a reading method that focuses on the text of the work, regardless of external factors such as creative motivation, historical background and social influence, but based on structural principles such as tension, irony and paradox, and carefully analyzes the language and image of the work to explore emotional content and ideological significance. The new criticism never believes in the dualism of form and content, nor does it recognize any meaning from outside the work, insisting that the work is an independent and self-sufficient organism.
By the end of the 1950 s, the new criticism had reached its peak and declined, and began to decline. It is limited to the narrow perspective of language media and has attracted a lot of criticism. However, various schools later criticized it, but they did not completely abandon the reading mode advocated by it. The transplantation of foreign sinologists is also an obvious evidence.