Formalistic Approach

•It is also known as textual/new criticism/modern/ontological/aesthetic criticism.

•The formalistic critic focus only on the work of art whereas Biographical approach insist critic to have a fair knowledge about the life of the author before criticizing his work of art because the life of the author becomes part of his work also; sociological approach makes a critic to trace out the culture and life of the people from the author’s view because literature devoid of the society seem to be incomplete.

•Modern critics are of the view that all these approaches are irrelevant to literary criticism because they are not oriented to literature at all.

Critics like T.S. Eliot, I.A. Richards, F.R. Leavis are the great exponents of Formalistic criticism.

•T.S. Eliot considered the moral, sociological, historical and biographical approaches to literature as extrinsic and unnecessary. He wanted critics to concentrate on the texts of the works themselves and not on the extrinsic, external factors.

•T.S.Eliot in his Tradition and Individual Talent says that “a true poem is that which presents the extinction of the poet and not exposition of the poet’s life”. The poem in his opinion must not become the mouth piece of the poet.

•The poetry of Eliot, with its complex symbols borrowed from French symbolists of the 19th century and the English metaphysicals of the 17th invited the closest possible examination of the texts of the poem.

When a poem is published, T.S.Eliot feels, the poet is dead. The umbilical cord between the author and his text is severed when the book is published. 

•I.A.Richards in his Practical Criticism says that formalistic approach is but intrinstic while all other approaches are irrelevent for modern critic.

•I.A. Richards authored four important critical works. They are Principles of Literary Criticism (1924), The Meaning of Meaning (1923), The Science of Poetry (1926), and Practicial Criticism (1929).

•Principles of Literary Criticism is an analysis of poem-audience relationship.

It gave an impetus to the psychological approach to literature.

•The Meaning of Meaning in collaboration with Ogden, discusses ‘the kinds of meaning that occur in the response to verbal stimuli’. This book paved the way for the semantic analysis of poetry.

•The Science of Poetry argues that poetry has come to be devalued in our age because of the ‘pseudo-statements’ that poets often make.

•Practical Criticism contains readers’ misinterpretations of thirteen poems. In this work, I.A. Richard’s classifies the different reasons that lead to the misunderstanding of poems.

•His most contribution was his examination of the hurdles that obstruct one’s understanding of poetry. He emphasized the need for a semantic study of words, of ‘signs’ in poems. The semantic approach to literature was practised with remarkable success by the later formalistic critics, Empson and Blackmur.

•The New Critics are a group of 20th century critics who have certain common beliefs, attitudes and practices. They are concerned with such matters of form as metre, image, diction, and such matters of content as tone, theme, etc.,

•They are of the opinion that theses elements work not separately but together.

•As Robert Penn Warren says, the effectiveness of poetry depends not on any one element but on their inter-releationships. A holistic approach to literature is what New Critics recommend.

•Brooks and Warren’s Understanding Poetry is a recollection of explicatons of poems along formalistic lines.

•James smith, a formalistic critic, analyses Shakespearean play As You Like It, Romantic comedy applying the tools of formalistic criticism.

•The play in general called a romantic comedy but in his opinion it is totally unromantic in nature.

•To begin with, he starts criticising the character melancholic Jaques. The melancholy of Jaques is not innate in nature.

•It is assumed he compares Jaques with Macbeth and Hamlet. The Melancholy of both Macbeth and Hamlet seems to be genuine while that of Jaques is unusual and artificial.

•Macbeth is rudely shaken when he is informed that Lady Macbeth is dead. He looses interest in the wordly life. He says,

  Life is a tale

    told by an idiot

    full of sound and fury

    signifying nothing.

•The pathetic cry of the villainous character elevates him to the level of a tragic hero.

•Hamlet is too young to commit the murder. He, therefore, procrastinates which snowballs into a great problem and results in his melancholy. He cries thus “to be or not to be” thus the melancholy of Jaques is forced to him through his wide travel. Even Rosalind finds out the nature of his grief. She therefore prefers a clown like Jaques.

•Touchstone, the clown is no difference melancholic Jaques. He is unromantic. Although, he falls in love in Audrey the sheperdess, his love for Audrey is neither sincere, nor genuine.

He wants to marry her with the help of a bogous priest and desert her later. His division of human life into seven stages is also unromantic. He seems to be more pessimistic than romantic.

•Rosalind the protagonist of the play also seems to be unromantic in nature. It is true that, she falls in love with Orlando. But the fact remains that she has not fallen headlong in love with him. She tries to cure the melady of her lover through her disguise.

•She even compares the lovers with wolves howling at the moon during night. Thus all the main characters of the romantic play.

•As You Like it are infact unromantic. It is therefore wrong to call As You Like it as romantic comedy. Thus, James Smith, one of the great exponents of formalistic criticism analyses Shakesperean play As You Like It. 

 Limitations of Formalistic Criticism:

•The first charge against formalistic critics is that they use terminology which can be understood only by the initiated members of the school. The uninitiated are liable to commit errors if they use this terminology without proper equipment and training.

•L.C.Knights and F.R. Leavis hold that many formalistic critics take into consideration only one aspect of a poem, forgetting the poem as a totality.

•For example, Brooks focuses on ‘paradox’, Ransom on ‘texture’, Tate on ‘tension’, and Empson on ‘ambiguity’ as the sole principle of poetry.

•Each of these critics is wilfully blind to the other equally important aspects of poetry.

T. S. Eliot the apostle of formalistic critiicism, is aware of its limitations. He practices formalistic techniques only when analysing particular pieces but shows a serious cocnern for philosophic values in his more general essays.

 •A group of literary critics called the Chicago critics have deviated from the formalists in certain respects. Both the schools dismiss social, moral, philosophical and biographical approraches as irrelevant. The distinction of the Chicago critics lies in their concern for the various literary genres.

•The Chicago critics do not reject the social, moral and historical aspects of a literary work outright. First, they analyse a piece of literature on generic grounds and then, if necessary, discuss the extrinsic influences such as social, psychological, and moral forces acting on the writer. This approach ensures that due weightage is given to both internal and external aspects.

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