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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This is a 4 page paper that provides an overview of Spera's "My Ex-Husband". New Criticism is used to analyze the themes of the work. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
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4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: K 60_KFlit011.doc
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
theme of a work. As such, the utility of New Criticism is best explored through examining its use in the analysis of a poetic work. Gabriel Speras "My Ex-Husband" provides
an ideal example of New Criticisms ability to succinctly analyze the themes a work, due to Speras robust and nuanced use of formal features to convey the theme of the
work. In particular, "My Ex-Husband", when examined through the lens of New Criticism and formalism, conveys a theme of the disparity between appearance and substance. This paragraph helps the
student give a brief overview of the New Criticism school of poetic analysis. New Criticism was established following the First World War, when universities enjoyed a surge in enrollment due
to the G.I. Bill, and there was a distinct need for a critical form that did not depend on an appeal to external disciplines and bodies of knowledge (such as
psychoanalytical or Marxist criticism) (Spurgin 2003). New Criticism rejects the utilization of external references as a means to analyze the content or theme of a text, and is instead "distinctly
formalist in character", focusing purely and exclusively on the internal "formal aspects [of a text] such as rhythm, meter, theme, imagery, metaphor" and so on (Spurgin 2003). The primary
theme expressed in Speras poem is the disparity that exists between appearance and substance. This disparity is invoked in the very first two lines of the poem, when the narrator
says of her ex-husbands image in a photograph that he is "smiling as if in love" (Spera 1992). Right away, the use of the words "as if" subtly suggests that
the appearance of "smiling" does not actually suggest what one would suppose, but rather masks some kind of deception (Spera 1992). This introduces the theme while also establishing the titular
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