Terms
Writing that is deliberately connotative, expressive, and evocative in order to create an aesthetic experience
What is literary language?
Tyson's conclusion of the novel's single, universally-significant theme
What is unfulfilled longing?
The "battle cry" of New Criticism
What is "The text itself"?
The device used in this quote: "In his blue gardens men and women came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars."
What is a simile?
The mistaken belief that the author's intention is the same as the text's meaning
What is the intentional fallacy?
Setting that acts as a metaphor for the spiritual poverty of the world
What is the "valley of ashes"?
Factors that New Criticism did NOT use in interpreting a text (multiple answers possible)
What are the author's biographical info., author's intention, historical context, reader's personal response, etc.
The device used in this quote: "...where ashes take the form of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, the men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air."
What is a metaphor?
The belief that the specific words used in poetry create a meaning that cannot be reproduced by any other combination of words
What is the heresy of paraphrase?
A symbol of unfulfilled longing (multiple answers possible)
What are the green light, Tom's car, the dog leash, Daisy's pearls, Tom's racist beliefs, Nick's books, the sailboat, the vanished trees on Gatsby's property, etc.
A surviving New Critical practice still commonly used in literature classrooms today
What is close reading?
The device used in this quote: "I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties, there isn't any privacy." -Jordan
What is a paradox?
Images/characters that are meaningful on both the literal and symbolic levels
What are concrete universals?
The three main ways in which unfulfilled longing informs characterization
What are nostalgia, dreams of the future, and vague longing with no specific goal?
A foundational belief of New Criticism that required critics to first refute other critics' analyses before presenting their own
Who is there is a single best interpretation of every text?
The device used in this quote: "By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me." -Tom
What is irony?