1.
Moral Formalism and New
Criticism

2.
What are the main tenets and characteristics of New Criticism and
Moral Formalism?
1. The literary text has primary importance.
2. Criticism should be scientific and objective.
3. Great literature has organic unity. In organic unity the parts work
together to create a beautiful whole.
4. Literary works are the vessels in which human values are
transmitted. The study and appreciation of literature is a pre-condition
to the health of society.
5. Literature is a weapon in the battle of cultural politics.

3.
What are the main tenets and characteristics of New Criticism and Moral
Formalism?
6. Good literature is of timeless significance. it somehow transcends
the limitations and peculiarities of the age it was written. It speaks to
what is constant in human nature. Such writing is 'not for an age, but
for all time.
7. The New Critics warned against the affective fallacy, intentional
fallacy, and the heresy of paraphrase.

4.
“Metaphors” by Sylvia Plath
• I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

5.
• The unsettling nature of “Metaphors” (The Colossus, William
Heinemann Limited, 1960)arises from the dichotomy of Plath’s tone
and the images she chooses to convey her mentality. Initially, she
playfully compares her pregnant state to an “elephant,” a “house,” a
ripening “melon,” and a “yeasty” loaf of bread. However, starting with
the sixth line, it becomes clear that beneath these pithy musings run
the undercurrents of anxiety. Plath begins to see herself merely as a
“means”—almost an incubator, with no other worth besides that of
birthing offspring. This culminates with the last line, where she
realizes that she is forever changed, irrevocably. Her pregnancy was
only the beginning of the train-ride; she must now become a mother.