SOURCE: Jancovich, Mark. “Robert Penn Warren as New Critic: Against Propaganda and Irresponsibility.” Southern Literary Journal 24, no. 1 (fall 1991): 53-65.

In the following essay, Jancovich concentrates on the work of Robert Penn Warren, writing that in contrast to many interpretations of New Critical theories as bourgeois. In fact, Warren and his interest in literature and theory was closely linked to a concern with social and economic development and the poet defined the writing of literature “as a form of social engagement.”

In recent years there has been a concerted attack upon the American New Criticism as a movement,¹ and this attack has concentrated particularly on the New Critical interest in “irony.” The claim of modern critics is that in the New Criticism, “irony” operates as a way of sealing the text off from its context, converting it into a self-sufficient object. Hence, the New Critical conception of “irony” has...