The Backbone Of Humanistic Criticism

The New York Intellectuals were a group of cultural critics based in the New York city and coalesced around one of the most influential magazines in the contemporary literary in the 1930s,the "Partisan Review".They are known for being pertained to cultural radicalism,firmly believed in the value of democracy,adhered to the freedom of thought and expression.Through their critic articles they convey their literary ideas,participate in public affairsand lead the social opinion,and are thus known as "the conscience of the American public".They inherited the legacy of humanistic criticism in the 19th century and focused on the ethical and aesthetic points to study literature.Their cultural criticism combined multiple forms of criticism:Marxist criticism,formalism,psychoanalysis criticism,moral criticism etc.They pitched into balancing aesthetics,politics,and morality.They want to add solemnity andmoral responsibility to literary criticism in the era of formal aesthetics.They are the strong proponents of elite culture,advocating modernist literature,strivingto break the shackles of continental civilization,building native American literary theory,and leading the fashion of the American intellectual class for more than half a century.This thesis works on the entire intellectual evolution of the New York intellectuals.By taking Lionel Trilling,Irving Howe,and Susan Sontag as examples,it shows the similarities and differences among the members and the inheritance and transcendencethrough generations.The work also systematically sketches out the evolution andillustratesthe critique panorama of the New York intellectuals.In addition,this thesis highlights their inheritances and development of the humanistic criticism,and reveals the relations between their theory and practice of criticism bycomparing with "new criticism" and Marxist criticism of their age.