nykritik

Ny kritik, or New Criticism in English, is a school of literary theory that rose to prominence in the United States and Britain during the mid-20th century. It emphasizes close reading of the literary text itself and treats the work as an autonomous, self-contained object whose meaning arises from its formal elements—structure, imagery, diction, metaphor—rather than from authorial intention, biographical context, or reader response. Proponents argued that interpretation should derive from analyzing how the parts of the text function together to produce unity, ambiguity, and ironic effect.

The movement emerged in the 1930s and 1940s, with influential figures such as Cleanth Brooks and W. K. Wimsatt, who wrote key essays like The Intentional Fallacy and The Affective Fallacy. Brooks, in works such as The Well-Wrought Urn, helped articulate close reading and formal analysis as central practice. Ny kritik generally stresses concepts such as organic unity and the interrelation of form and content, arguing that meaning is produced by the text's internal relations rather than external factors.

Ny kritik also emphasizes the autonomy of the literary object and often discourages attention to author biography, historical context, or the emotional effects on readers as guides to meaning. Critics later challenged the approach for neglecting historical, social, and cultural contexts, as well as diverse reader experiences. Despite these criticisms, the method significantly influenced literary pedagogy and the teaching of poetry for several decades.

In some languages, nykritik is used to describe this tradition, denoting a focus on close, formal analysis of the literary work as the primary method of interpretation.