New criticism - A school of literary criticism which emerged in the 1920s anddeveloped in the Anglo-American cultural frame (especially the United States), dominatingliterary studies in the 1940s and the 1950s.

- Its representatives (I. A. Richards, William Empson, John CroweRansom) promote intrinsic criticism and invite the reader/critic to lookonly at the words on the page.

- CLOSE READING: Attention must be paid to what the text says andhow it does it (because form and content are inseparable.) A poemcontains everything that is needed for its interpretation. Every word in thetext is significant, not only through its denotative, but also through itsconnotative force

- Procedures : Irony, paradox, tension, ambivalence and ambiguity

“An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland”First published, along with two other Oliver Cromwell pieces, in the first edition of

Marvell's poems, but in all but two known copies the leaves have been cancelled, presumablyas offensive to the king. Written shortly after May 1650, when Cromwell returned in triumphfrom Ireland, after crushing the rebellion there, and before he entered Scotland on July 22.

This poem is, obviously, an ode celebrating the return of Cromwell from his defeat of theIrish while looking forward to his campaign against the Scots. "An Horatian Ode: uponCromwell's Return from Ireland" is written in AABB rhyme scheme with eight stanzas in thefirst two lines and six in the last two lines of each stanza.This writing is historical, and, according to historical use of the word "Ode", it is meant as asong to be sung. The phrase "Horatian Ode" comes from the Greek poet/writer/philosopherHorace. It means an ode that has one stanza whose pattern repeats throughout it. They are alsosubject to philosophy and more personal than other types of odes. In this poem, Marvell usestwo couplets per stanza and repeats it consistently.

The title “An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland,” warns us that this poemdeals with historical figures and comments on a historical occasion.

We must try to read the poem as fully, as richly as possible.We may well begin our examination of the “Ode” by considering the ambiguity of thefirst compliments that the speaker pays to Cromwell. The ambiguity reveals itself as earlyas the second word of the poem. It is the “forward” youth whose attention the speakerdirects to Cromwell’s example. “Forward” may mean no more than “high-spirited,”“ardent,” “properly ambitious”; but the Oxford Dictionary sanctions the possibility thatthere lurks in the word the sense of “presumptuous,” “pushing.” The forward youth canno longer now “in the shadows sing / His numbers languishing.” In the light ofCromwell’s career, he must forsake the shadows and the Muses and become a man ofaction.The speaker, one observes, does not identify Cromwell himself as the “forward” youth,” or

say directly that Cromwell’s career has been motivated by a striving for fame. But theimplications of the first two stanzas do carry over to Cromwell. There is, for example, theimportant word “so” to relate Cromwell to these stanzas: “So restless Cromwell could notcease....” And “restless” is as ambiguous in its meanings as “forward,” and in its darkerconnotations even more damning. For, though “restless” can mean “scorning indolence,”

“willing to forego ease,” it can also suggest the man with a maggot in the brain. “To cease,”used intransitively, is “to take rest, to be or remain at rest,” and the Oxford Dictionary givesinstances as late as 1701. Cromwell’s “courage high” will not allow him to rest “in theinglorious arts of peace.”

Cromwell’s courage is too high to brook a rival (lines 17-20). The implied metaphor isthat of some explosive which does more violence to that which encloses it--the powder toits magazine, for instance--than to some wall which merely opposes it--against which thecharge is fired.

But, as we have already remarked, the speaker has been careful to indicate thatCromwell’s motivation must be conceived of as more complex shall any mere thirst forglory. The poet has even pointed this up. The forward youth is referred to as one who“would appear”--that is, as one who wills to leave the shadows of obscurity. But restlessCromwell “could not cease”--for Cromwell it is not a question of will at all, but of adeeper compulsion. Restless Cromwell could not cease, if he would.

Indeed, the lines that follow extend the suggestion that Cromwell is like anelemental force--with as little will as the lightning bolt, and with as little conscience(lines 13 - 16). We are told that the last two lines refer to Cromwell’s struggles after theBattle of Marston Moor with the leaders of the Parliamentary party. Doubtless they do,and the point is important for our knowledge of the poem. But what is more important isthat we be fully alive to the force of the metaphor. The clouds have bred the lightningbolt, but the bolt tears its way through the clouds, and goes on to blast the head of Caesarhimself. As Margoliouth puts it: “The lightning is conceived as tearing through the side ofits own body the cloud.” In terms of the metaphor, then, Cromwell has not spared his ownbody: there is no reason therefore to be surprised that he has not spared his own party orthe body of Charles.