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=Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994)=

Cleanth Brooks, literary critic and professor, is well known for his contribution to New Criticism and his affect of teaching poetry in higher education. His famous works, //The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry// and //Modern Poetry and the Tradition//, reflect this influence that focus on the ambiguity and paradox of understanding poetry. Brooks describes this close reading as the popular phrase, “the Heresy of Paraphrase.”



**Famous Works **

Two studies of William Faulkner Co-founder of //The Southern Review// with Robert Penn Warren //Modern Poetry and the Tradition // (1939) //The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry // (1947) //Understanding Poetry: An Anthology for College Students // (with Robert Penn Warren, 1950) //Literary Criticism: A Short History // (with W.K. Wimsatt, 1957) //A Shaping Joy: Studies in the Writer’s Craft // (1972) //William Faulkner: Toward Yoknapatawpha and Beyond //<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt;"> (1978)

**<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Biography **

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Brooks was born on October 16, 1906 in Kentucky. At a young age, he sporadically moved since his father changed residences of “one Methodist church to another” (Sullivan). However, his influence for high academic achievement was from his father. In 1920, Brooks was enrolled in the McTyeire School which provided “rigorous instruction and emphasized the development of character” (McConnell). In 1924, Brooks attended Vanderbilt University where he met Robert Penn Warren. His intention of becoming a lawyer then changed into the love for literature. By 1928, Brooks had received his B.A. and had attended Tulane University for his graduate study. When he received his M.A. in 1929, he was nominated for the Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University. There, he earned two degrees, a B.A. in 1931, and a B.A. in literature the following year. Brooks’s first teaching position was a lecturer at Louisiana State University. He and Penn had founded //The Southern Review// and had collaborated with many other works. In 1934, he married Tinkum (Winchell). Brooks is famous for New Criticism in which his 1947 book, //The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry//, stood as the “landmark of modern literary criticism” (McConnell). In 1947, Brooks was a faculty member as a well as a professor at Yale University until his retirement in 1975. During that time, he spent his works writing on William Faulkner. By 1986, Brooks’ wife died (McConnell) and he later died in 1992 due to cancer (Sullivan). Brooks is still remembered as the literary critic who taught students “how to read literature without prejudice or preconception” as well as inventing the modern literary quarterly and writing the best books on William Faulkner (Winchell).

**<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Overview **

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Brooks’ main points in his works consisted of the following: 1) a theory of creative process — the relations of mind to medium and of mind to reality, 2) a theory of the nature of an aesthetic object that entails a comparative analysis of the function of language inside and outside the poetic context, and 3) a theory of the function and value of poems to the human community (Lentricchia 235).

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Brooks’ New Critic approach is popular in //The Well Wrought Urn//. When working with poetry, Brooks constantly analyzed the tensions within the text and how it was resolved (“1993: HYPERTEXT”). These tensions would be resolved by the ironies and ambiguities present in the text thus providing a close reading by focusing on the structure of the poem. In this book, Brooks argues that the content of the poem is “complex and precise, and that any attempt to paraphrase it inevitably distorts or reduces it” (“1993: HYPERTEXT”) hence the phrase, “the Heresy of Paraphrase.” At the time when Brooks wrote //Modern Poetry and the Tradition//, his views were strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot where he modifies them and accepts canon (Sullivan). Both these figures were affected by metaphysical poets, particularly John Donne (Sullivan). It was evident that Brooks followed Eliot’s works very closely. He applied the method to the entire canon of poetry from John Donne to William Butler Yeats (Winchell).

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">At Yale University, Brooks was a faculty member of the English department. The main focus then was on Historicism. Brooks transformed it when he did some editing on the Boswell papers, the department’s specialty. However, his focus was to work on teaching and writing about literature through the principles of New Criticism which he then turned Yale’s English department (Sullivan). Moreover, Brooks placed his attention on irony. He defines the term as the ‘obvious warping or modification of a statement of the context. . .’ and adds that ‘the relation between the parts of a poem — even of a simply lyric — is often intricate, and it is always important. Each part — image, statement, metaphor — helps build the meaning and is itself qualified by the whole context’ (qtd. in Bové 6). Brooks asserted that “poetry is an alternative to science only by virtue of irony” (Bové 6). With relationships that are not “causal,” it allows “no unqualified statement” where irony qualifies each metaphor, image, and statement (Bové 6). Brooks held that “it is not enough for the poet to analyse his experience as the scientist does, breaking it up into parts. . . His task is to finally unify experience as man knows in his own experience. The poem, if it be a true poem, is a simulacrum of reality. . . (qtd. in Bové 6). Therefore, no part is placed on priority and “irony dictates that each part is a beginning simultaneously with every other part. The poem must be read reflexively so that the patterns of all the contextual interrelationships can be seen synchronically” (Bové 6).

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Furthermore, because there is no hierarchy of value placed on irony, imagery is also affiliated. Since there is a contradiction with irony and reality, imagery helps further understand the text. Thus, a complexity is made between the verbal relationships because “irony’s desire [is] to create image of history” (Bové). When irony is applied to history, a myth is created and is the result of irony’s replacement of history with imagery (Bové 11). According to Brooks, “the essential structure of a poem resembles that of architecture or painting: it is a pattern of resolved stresses” (qtd. in Bové 11). In the “Heresy of Paraphrase,” Brooks held a theory creating a distinction with science and poetry and insisted that a separate content should not be present in a poem (Bové 12). He states: “No poem is paraphrasable; each poem is, in fact, its own language. The ‘meanings’ of words are so altered by context, by the ironic interrelationships, in which each word exists with every other poem, that no word in a poem is translatable into discourse” (qtd. in Bové 12). With Brooks’ works, his overall idea was to pay close attention to poetry, specifically the usage of irony and paradox.

**<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry ** **<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Chapter 1: The Language of Paradox **

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Brooks begins his book stating that only few are prepared accept that paradox is the language of poetry. He explains that paradox is the sophistication of words and how it is preferred intellectually rather than irrational or emotional. Overall, paradox is a part of poetry. Truth lies within the text in which paradox can only identify. Unlike the scientist, the poet strives on ambiguity to express experience.

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">He uses William Wordsworth as an example to show that his poetry does not reflect paradox where he relies on simplicity and “distrusts whatever seems sophistical” (Brooks 3); the contradiction here is that Wordsworth’s poem is based on a paradoxical situation. He further uses other examples of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Pope. In Pope’s poem, he focuses once again on the irony and how paradoxes insist upon them.

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Meanwhile, to show an effective use of paradox, he uses Donne’s “Canonization.” In addition to the title, a metaphor that stands as the underlying meaning insists that the poem is a paradox. Brooks discusses that the poem treats “profane love as if it were divine love. The canonization is not that a pair of holy anchorities who have renounced the world and the flesh. The hermitage of each other is the other’s body; but they do renounce the world, and so their title to sainthood is cunningly argued. . .” (Brooks 11). The poem acts as a parody to Christian sainthood, however, a serious one. Donne refuses to accept the paradox as a rhetorical device thus showing he does not take either love or sainthood seriously (Brooks 11). Though these statements are false, Brooks proves that a close reading is required. Brooks finds the tensions within the hidden love affair and how love is regarded as silly. The main tension that runs through the poem is the conflict of love between the one in the poem and the real world. It is then resolved “when the unworldly lovers, love’s saints who have given up the world, paradoxically achieve a more intense world” where the paradox remains in the metaphor that the holy anchorite dominates (Brooks 13). Brooks further analyzes the theme, tone, and assertion in Donne’s poem. He also create a connection between Donne’s poem and Shakespeare’s Macbeth; thes show that it exemplifies what a poem should contain, paradox. Lastly, Brooks takes poems that have been considered basic to prove that language of poetry is the paradox. He states:

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">It is language in which the connotations play as great a part as the denotations. And I do not mean that the connotations are important as supplying some sort of frill or trimming, something external to the real matter in hand. I mean that the poet does not use a notation at all--as the science may be properly be said to do so. The poet, within limits, has to make his language as he goes (Brooks 8).

**<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Critical Response ** <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">There are many widespread thoughts pertaining to Brooks and his works, predominantly in //The Well Wrought Urn//.

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Mark Royden Winchell, who wrote about Cleanth Brooks and the Rise of Criticism, brought out some of the challenges of Brooks’ New Critic approach. The first challenge began with a historical critic, Douglas Bush, who claimed that the critics especially Brooks “ignored the historical context of the poem” (Sullivan).Winchell defends that Brooks’ analysis of poetry does contain historic background, but must keep in mind that New Criticism primarily centers on the text itself, not the background (Sullivan).

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">On the other hand, Brooks’ well known book had “his fullest defense of the New Criticism and the best demonstration of its ability to analyze poetry” (Sullivan). His book consisted of selected poems to show its reading of all types of poetry which illustrated that it favored the devices use in New Criticism: paradox, irony, and ambiguity (Sullivan). Brooks was successful in his book and applying the principles of New Criticism, yet it led critics to react against and challenge it. Some have opposed his ideas. For example, Lentricchia argues that Brooks holds “inconsistent theoretical principles” (235) where he sound less sophisticated when discussing the central idea of language. Another criticism towards Brooks was relevant to this, but holding that “poetry is but one of the forms of poetry” (Miles 185). Although some reject the ideas of Brooks in his holdings and //The Well Wrought// Urn, the critic still receives defense. According to Lentricchia, “Brooks is usually not a self-consciously a literary theorist, however, we should not expect or demand that kind of self-awareness and systematic inquiry from him” (235). Though there are oppositions, Brooks’ contribution to New Criticism is still favored today. <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">

**<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Links ** <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Brief Overview of Cleanth Brooks

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Bové, Paul A. “Cleanth Brooks and Modern Irony: A Kierkegaardian Critique.” //Duke University// Press 4.3 (1976): 1-34. Web. 20 Apr 2011. <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif';">< <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">http://search.ebscohost.com.ozone.nsc.nevada.edu:8080/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=9564362&site=lrc-live>

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Brooks, Cleanth. “The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry.” N.p. (1947) Web. 21 Apr 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=bDXkK4C6CDAC&lpg=PP1&dq=well%20wrought%20urn&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q&f=false>

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Lentricchia, Frank. “The Place of Cleanth Brooks.” //Blackwell Publishing// on behalf of //The American Society for Aesthetics// 29.2 (1970): 235-251. Web. 21 Apr 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/428605>

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">McConnell, Clyde S. “Cleanth Brooks.” //Salem Press// n. pag. Web. 18 Apr 2011. <http://search.ebscohost.com.ozone.nsc.nevada.edu:8080/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=103331LM19749790301084&site=lrc-live>

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Miles, Josephine. “Review: Untitled.” //Blackwell Publishing// on behalf of //The American Society for Aesthetics// 29.2 (1970): 185-186. Web. 21 Apr 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/426287>

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sullivan, James. “Cleanth Brooks and the Rise of Modern Criticism.” //Salem Press// (1997): 1-3. Web. 19 Apr 2011. <span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><http://search.ebscohost.com.ozone.nsc.nevada.edu:8080/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=103331MLA199710350019700433&site=lrc-live >

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">Winchell, Mark Royden. “Cleanth Brooks and the rise of modern criticism.” N.p, n.d. Web. 20 Apr 2011. <http://books.google.com/books?id=7urAecWAtYgC&lpg=PA40&ots=kG52Gtk5ER&dq=cleanth%20brooks%20and%20tinkum&pg=PR11#v=onepage&q=cleanth%20brooks%20and%20tinkum&f=false>

<span style="font-family: 'Garamond','serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">“1993: HYPERTEXT DATABASE: NEW CRITICISM.” //English 60A Contemporary Critical Theory//. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr 2011 <http://www.lawrence.edu/dept/english/courses/60a/newcrit.html>