New Criticism focuses on rigorous analysis of poetry and literature, irrespective of peripheral issues. Its fundamental tenet is the autonomy of literary texts. Therefore, New Criticism shuns dealing with such peripheral issues as authors’ biography, social, political and historical events; since this approach considers all these issues as non-artistic. In principle, the followers of New Criticism subscribe to closed analysis; because, only semantic and aesthetic dimensions are important for them and texts are seen more like closed and insulated systems. The writer of this article introduces systematic theories and their characteristics. Literary texts are seen as a system, based on the systematic models. The writer has also attempted to examine the ‘analytic and mechanistic’ dimensions of New Criticism, as well as the interaction of sub-systems with meta-systems in literary texts.
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