Literary critic Joel Spingarn invented the term “New Criticism” in 1910 in an address at Columbia University called “The New Criticism.”
The term did not come into general use until John Crowe Ransom’s book The New Criticism (1941).
New Critics focused on the literary text as a discrete whole rather than on historical or biographical background.
Sir Philip Sidney suffered a mortal wound in The Battle of Zutphen in 1586. The author of Arcadia (1590) was fighting in the Netherlands against the Spanish. He was shot in the thigh after lending his leg armor to another soldier. He died of infection three weeks later, at the age of thirty-two.
Shakespeare’s wife was eight years older than him. They were married in 1582, when he was eighteen.
In Green Mansions (1904) by William H. Hudson, Rima the Bird Girl is able to understand the language spoken by the creatures who live in the South American forests.
Yes, there a real Baron Miinchausen. Baron Karl Friedrich Hieronymus von Miinchausen (1720-1797), a German adventurer, is believed to have served in the Russian army against the Turks. He was known for exaggerating his exploits. Satirical stories about him were told by Rodolf Erich Raspe in Baron Miinchausen, Narrative of his Marvellous Travels (1785).
A closet drama is a play, usually in verse, written for private reading rather than performance. Byron’s Manfred (1817) and Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound (1820) are examples.
The satire of America, called The Confidence Man, was the last work of Herman Melville published in his lifetime. It was published in 1857 to little public notice. Melville died in 1891.