How is affective fallacy defined ?
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Answer: D. All of the above answers are correct.
Explanation
The affective fallacy cautions against judging a literary work solely by its emotional impact on the reader. New Critics argued that measuring literary value by physiological or psychological reader responses leads to subjective and unstable evaluations. Objective literary analysis must focus on internal textual structures rather than fluctuating emotional reactions experienced by audiences. American literary theorists William Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley coined the term in their influential nineteen forty six essay. This concept formed a foundational pillar of New Criticism, an analytical movement prioritizing close reading over biographical or reader response methods. Formalist critics sought to establish literary studies as a rigorous academic discipline centered on verifiable textual evidence.
Treating the term as merely an attribution to Wimsatt and Beardsley ignores its deeper methodological definition regarding reader emotions. Focusing only on structural rejection of reader emotions describes the concept without acknowledging its broader theoretical origins and associations. Connecting the term exclusively to New Historicism is factually incorrect because the concept belongs strictly to mid twentieth century formalist criticism.
- Subject
- English
- Category
- English Literature
- Topic
- —
- Difficulty
- medium
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