New criticism replace the biographical- historical criticism that dominated literary studies in the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century in which the literary text was interpreted by studying the authors life and times to determine authorial intention , that is meaning the the author intended the text to have examining the text's biographical-historical context instead of examining the text . They view the literary text merely as an adjunct to history ,as an illustration of the " spirit of the age" in which it was written not as an art object worthy of study for its own sake