Cleanth Brooks
2 books
About the Author
Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994) was a pioneering American literary critic and theorist, renowned for his foundational contributions to the New Criticism movement, which emphasized close reading and the intrinsic formal qualities of literary texts over biographical or historical contexts. A professor at Yale University for much of his career, Brooks co-authored influential textbooks that revolutionized the teaching of poetry in American classrooms, fostering a generation of readers attuned to the nuances of language, irony, and paradox. His work championed the idea of poetry as an autonomous artifact, meticulously crafted to achieve organic unity, and he applied these principles to analyses of major poets from John Donne to William Wordsworth. Brooks's enduring legacy lies in his eloquent defense of literature's complexity and his role in shaping modern interpretive practices, making him an indispensable figure in twentieth-century criticism.
Common genres
Writing style
analytical
precise
elegant
Books by Cleanth Brooks
