Neo-Aristotelian Criticism (also called Chicago School Criticism)

Neo-Aristotelian Criticism (also called Chicago School Criticism)

📘 Meaning:

Neo-Aristotelian criticism is a modern critical approach that revives and adapts Aristotle’s principles of literary analysis, especially those found in his Poetics. It focuses on how a literary work functions as a unified whole—its structure, plot, character, theme, and style—and how these elements produce an emotional or intellectual effect on the audience.

---

🧠 Origin:

Developed in the 1930s–1940s at the University of Chicago.

Main figures: R.S. Crane, Richard McKeon, Elder Olson, and Wayne Booth.

They are known as members of the “Chicago School” of criticism.

---

⚙️ Main Features:

1. Return to Aristotle’s ideas of unity, plot, and catharsis.

2. Emphasis on structure — every part of the text contributes to the whole.

3. Focus on the text itself, not on the author’s biography or reader’s feelings.

4. Analyzes plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle (Aristotle’s six elements of tragedy).

5. Objective and systematic approach to interpretation.

6. Considers genre conventions and how the work fulfills or modifies them.

7. The critic’s goal is to explain how the work achieves its effects.

---

📖 Example:

If analyzing Hamlet, a Neo-Aristotelian critic would:

Examine the structure of the plot (revenge tragedy form).

Study Hamlet’s character development and motivations.

Analyze the theme of indecision and moral corruption.

Observe language, imagery, and dramatic irony as techniques.

Conclude how these elements create the play’s total emotional and intellectual effect.

---

🏛️ Difference from Other Theories:

Approach Focus

Neo-Aristotelian Structure and unity of the text

New Criticism Close reading, tension, irony, ambiguity

Reader-Response Reader’s emotional reaction

Psychoanalytic Author’s or character’s subconscious

Marxist Social and class struggle in the text

---

✍️ Summary :

Based on Aristotle’s Poetics.

Founded by Chicago Critics.

Studies how a work achieves its unified effect.

Focus on form, structure, and purpose.

Avoids biography, history, or reader response.

Sees literature as a crafted whole, not personal expression.