Chicago school (literary criticism)

The Chicago School of literary criticism was a form of criticism of English literature begun at the University of Chicago in the 1930s, which lasted until the 1950s. It was also called Neo-Aristotelianism, due to its strong emphasis on Aristotle's concepts of plot, character and genre. It was partly a reaction to New Criticism, a then highly popular form of literary criticism, which the Chicago critics accused of being too subjective and placing too much importance on irony and figurative language. They aimed instead for total objectivity and a strong classical basis of evidence for criticism. The New Critics regarded the language and poetic diction as most important, but the Chicago School considered such things merely the building material of poetry. Like Aristotle, they valued the structure or form of a literary work as a whole, rather than the complexities of the language. Despite this, the Chicago School is considered by some to be a part of the New Criticism movement.

Beginnings

Ronald Salmon Crane (1886–1967) is considered the founder of the Chicago Aristotelians. He began teaching at the University of Chicago in 1924, was made a professor in 1925, and chaired the English department there from 1935–1947. In 1935, he wrote “History versus Criticism in the Study of Literature” (published in English Journal 24 [1935]:645-67), in which he defined literary criticism as “simply the disciplined consideration, at once analytical and evaluative, of literary works as works of art.” Crane was greatly influenced by Richard McKeon, a professor of philosophy at the University, who stressed Aristotle's idea of "pluralism," which says that many systems of criticism are necessary to completely understand literature, specifically poetry, or in the case of philosophy, the world.