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Cleanth Brooks (1906–1994)

Author of The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry

58+ Works 1,814 Members 17 Reviews 1 Favorited

About the Author

Cleanth Brooks was born in Murray, Kentucky on October 16, 1906. He was educated at Vanderbilt, Tulane, and Oxford universities. From 1932 to 1947, he taught English at Louisiana State University and then moved on to Yale University. At Yale, he helped to articulate the principles of New Criticism, show more which dominated literary studies in the 1940s and 1950s. He coedited the journal Southern Review with Robert Penn Warren. He also wrote several titles in collaboration with Warren, including Understanding Poetry and Understanding Fiction. A third work Understanding Drama was written in collaboration with Robert Heilman. His other works included The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry and Modern Poetry and the Tradition. He died on May 10, 1994. (Bowker Author Biography) show less

Series

Works by Cleanth Brooks

Understanding Poetry (1938) 363 copies
Understanding Fiction (1943) 118 copies
An Approach to Literature (1939) 85 copies
Modern Rhetoric {unspecified} (1958) — Author & Editor — 28 copies
The Scope of Fiction (1960) — Author & Editor — 25 copies
Modern Rhetoric {Third Edition} (1977) — Author & Editor — 19 copies
Modern Rhetoric {Fourth Edition} (1979) — Author & Editor — 18 copies
Modern Rhetoric {Shorter Edition} (1961) — Author & Editor — 12 copies
Modern Rhetoric {Shorter Third Edition} (1977) — Author & Editor — 12 copies
Modern Rhetoric {First Edition} (1949) — Author & Editor — 7 copies
Modern Rhetoric {Second Edition} (1958) — Author & Editor — 6 copies
Neo-classical Criticism (1970) 4 copies
Modern Criticism (1970) 2 copies
Romantic Criticism (1970) 2 copies

Associated Works

Light in August (1932) — Introduction, some editions — 9,172 copies
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Contributor, some editions — 915 copies
As I Lay Dying [Norton Critical Edition] (2009) — Contributor — 544 copies
Critical Theory Since Plato (1971) — Contributor, some editions — 398 copies
Criticism: Major Statements (1964) — Contributor — 220 copies
The History of Southern Literature (1985) — Contributor — 65 copies
Who Owns America: A New Declaration of Independence (1970) — Contributor — 45 copies
Praising It New: The Best of the New Criticism (2008) — Contributor — 23 copies
A. E. Housman: A Collection of Critical Essays (1968) — Contributor — 22 copies

Tagged

Common Knowledge

Members

Reviews

How can this have an average rating of three paltry stars? It's so well-written and considered.

OK, OK, so I'm doing my time-dishonored 'review way before finished' thing, here, but -- Wimsatt and Brooks give great attention to Plato and Aristotle before moving on. The coverage and discussion, at least in what I have read, is truly fine.
 
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tungsten_peerts | Oct 28, 2023 |
Compilation of scholarly lectures reduced to essays assaying themes in great Western tragedies. From Sophocles' to T.S. Eliot.

In suffering there is victory. Values are clarified in drama, and humans are unified, by what may be compassion or schadenfreude. Editor Cleanth Brooks compiled these autonomous pieces to reaffirm the "continuity" of our lives in which we are our own problem. She uses the phrase "ultimate oneness of man", not intending the slur. [3]

All Tragedies make serious sport with the meaning of suffering. With Oedipus, one of the most promising heroes, Sophocles tore the concept of "heroic" to shreds. Is the suffering "accepted"? [4-5] Hamlet's Polonius urges "To thine own self be true", yet is this good for Saint Joan, or Hercules? Notwithstanding Racine's Phedre with its magnificent love declarations defying modernist pretentions, is anyone able to overlook his secret Jansenism, his yearning for unity?… (more)
 
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keylawk | Jun 20, 2019 |
Rhetoric is an interesting thing in the present day. We still need to have a good grasp of it, but it seems that it has fallen out of favor when it comes to things being studied. I mean, what even is rhetoric? Well, Rhetoric is defined as the art of persuasion. It is the use of different methods to argue a case or persuade someone of something. If you communicate with human beings, the time will come where you need to argue a position. It might be something really innocuous, like whether Captain Kirk is better than Captain Picard. Or it could be something essential and important, like the passage of a law.

Modern Rhetoric is a textbook that covers all of these items and more. It is sometimes dry and pedantic but overall it is very informative and effective. The dryness comes from the book being a textbook intended for a College Course. The book was published back in 1958 since I have the second edition. This makes for an interesting read since some of the things you read about just don’t occur anymore. For instance, the book discusses the methods used in advertising by talking about what brand of cigarettes to buy. It suggests a situation wherein a heavyweight champion promotes a particular brand of ‘smokes’ which isn’t something that happens. The point is to discern between garbage arguments and good arguments, but it still is a bit off-putting. The book is also somewhat racist, but it is merely a product of the times, so that isn’t really bad either.

As I mentioned, this book is a College Course textbook. It contains all the rules and information you need to communicate effectively. That is the main idea in this book, effective communication. If you need to go and work on your writing skills, this book is really good for that. The presentation is of the sort that makes me think of an informative movie from the 1950s. You know, the man talking has a clear, pleasant voice that resonates and makes you think of a leather chair that you can sink into, the video is in black and white, and he wears a suit.

All in all, the book is slightly outdated, but this is only due to the references it makes. The idea of being able to communicate your ideas and convince other people of things is really important, even though people seem to be losing the ability to concentrate on things.
… (more)
 
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Floyd3345 | Jun 15, 2019 |
Offering all of the extant letters exchanged by two of the twentieth century's most distinguished literary figures, Cleanth Brooks and Allen Tate: Collected Letters, 1933-1976 vividly depicts the remarkable relationship, both professional and personal, between Brooks and Tate over the course of their lifelong friendship.

An accomplished poet, critic, biographer, and teacher, Allen Tate had a powerful influence on the literary world of his era. Editor of the Fugitive and the Sewanee Review, Tate greatly affected the lives and careers of his fellow literati, including Cleanth Brooks. Esteemed coeditor of An Approach to Literature and Understanding Poetry, Brooks was one of the principal creators of the New Criticism. His Modern Poetry and the Tradition and The Well Wrought Urn, as well as his two-volume study of Faulkner, remain among the classics read by any serious student of literature. The correspondence between these two gentlemen-scholars, which began in the 1930s, extended over five decades and covered a vast amount of twentieth-century literary history.

In the more than 250 letters collected here, the reader will encounter their shared concerns for and responses to the work of their numerous friends and many prominent writers, including T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, and Robert Lowell. Their letters offer details about their own developing careers and also provide striking insight into the group dynamics of the Agrarians, the noteworthy community of southern writers who played so influential a role in the literature of modernism.

Brooks once said that Tate treated him like a younger brother, and despite great differences between their personalities and characters, these two figures each felt deep brotherly affection for the other. Whether they contain warm invitations for the one to visit the other, genteel or honest commentaries on their families and friends, or descriptions of the vast array of social, professional, and even political activities each experienced, the letters of Brooks and Tate clearly reveal the personalities of both men and the powerful ties of their strong camaraderie.

Invaluable to both students and teachers of literature, Cleanth Brooks and Allen Tate provides a substantial contribution to the study of twentieth-century American, and particularly southern, literary history.

About the Editor -
Alphonse Vinh is a writer and works as a Reference Librarian for National Public Radio in Washington, D. C. His publications have appeared in Southern Quarterly Review, Southern Cultures, Crisis Magazine, South Carolina Review, and the New Oxford Review.

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University of Missouri Press
Columbia, Mo. (800) 621-2736

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Ulsterfreeman | Nov 20, 2017 |

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Statistics

Works
58
Also by
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Members
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#14,171
Rating
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Reviews
17
ISBNs
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Languages
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Favorited
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