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The Literary Theory and Criticism of Cleanth Brooks. Anthony G Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1966 The hoP enix and the Urn: the Literary Theory and Criticism of Cleanth Brooks. Anthony G. Tassin Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Tassin, Anthony G., "The hoeP nix and the Urn: the Literary Theory and Criticism of Cleanth Brooks." (1966). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 1174. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/1174 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This dissertatton has been mlcroflhned exactly as received 66-10,924 TASSIN, O.S.B., Rev. Anthony G„ 1925- THE PHOENIX AND THE URN: THE LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM OF CLEANTH BROOKS. Louisiana State University, Ph.D., 1966 Language and Literature, modern University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE PHOENIX AND THE URN: THE LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM OP CLEANTH BROOKS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English byk- Reverend AnthonyTTassin, O.S.B. B.A., St. Joseph Seminary, 1947 B.S., Loyola University of the South, 1952 M.A., Catholic University, 1956 May, 1966 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE PHOENIX AND THE URN: THE LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM OF CLEANTH BROOKS THE URN is the repository of the literary theory and criticism of Cleanth Brooks in all his writings: books and essays. As he said of John Donne's "well wrought urne," the poem itself is the urn. So is the body of Brooks's writings his urn. A complete checklist of his works is included in this study. THE PHOENIX is the resurgence of traditional concepts of English poetry in the twentieth century. Brooks and some other New Critics regard the more repre­ sentative forms of modern poetry (and of the criticism which explains it) as a third revolu­ tion in theory, following those of neo-classicism and romanticism, and restoring the metaphysical tradition. 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS In order to keep the number of footnotes to a minimum, I have included all references to the works of Cleanth Brooks within the text. The various periodical essays are cited according to their serial number in the Checklist, followed by pagination, thus; B-^54-407f. , which means Essay No. 54, "Homage to John Crowe Ranson: Doric Delicacy," Sewanee Review. LVI (Summer 1948), 407f. For the books, I have used abbreviated titles, followed by page number, according to the following code: AL - An approach to Literature UP - Understanding Poetry MPT - Modern Poetry and the Tradition UF - Understanding Fiction UD - Understanding Drama WWU - The Well Wrought Urn MR - Modern Rhetoric ASSR - An Anthology of Stories from the Southern Review LCSH - Literary Criticism; A Short History HG - The Hidden God WFYC - William Faulkner; The Yoknapatawpha Country Where more than one edition of the same work occurs, this is indicated thus; UP/2, UP/3. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My indebtedness for help in my dissertation extends to more people than I can mention by name here. But for their special assistance, I do want to thank the following: Dr. Donald Stanford, my major professor, for his encourag­ ing guidance and availability. Abbot David Melancon, O.S.B., my religious superior, and the Very Reverend Marian Larmann, O.S.B., rector of our seminary, as well as all my Benedictine confreres, whose planning and cooperation made my graduate studies possible. Dr. Thomas Kirby, Head of the English Department, and Professors Fabian Gudas, John Olive, and John Wildman, also of the Department, for their information on Cleanth Brooks's pedagogical and critical ideas. Mrs. Betty Lou Stokes, for typing and re-typing the original manuscript, a gratuitous service on her part. My colleagues in the graduating class of 1966 whose esprit de corps pro­ vided a fraternal boost that I often needed in order to keep on going. Finally, I want to make special mention of my confrere, Brother Luke Johnson, O.S.B., who carefully read my manuscript and made recommendations which substantially improved its quality. Mr. Brooks himself was most helpful in his gracious response to my questions and in submitting a checklist of his writings. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OP CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. .................. iv ABSTRACT .............. v INTRODUCTION ......................................... viii CHAPTER I. THE NEW CRITICISM. ...................... 1 %^[I. ORIGINS OF BROOKS'S THEORY . .............. 24 III. THE PRINCIPAL TENETS OF CLEANTH BROOKS'S THEORY .......................... 52 IV. CRITICISMS OF BROOKS'S THEORY AND PRACTICE ............................... 130 V. REPUTATION AND INFLUENCE OF BROOKS: EVALUATION.............. 156 BIBLIOGRAPHY . ....................................... 173 I. A Checklist of Writings by Cleanth Brooks. 174 II. Books and Articles on Brooks .......... 187 III. Other Materials Consulted...................... 207 APPENDIX "The New Criticism" of Joel Spingarn.......... 212 VITA ................................................... 221 V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT This is an historical, analytical, and critical study of the writings of Cleanth Brooks as seen in the context of the New Criticism. Included is a complete checklist of his writings to date and an annotated bibliography of books and articles about Brooks. ^ The New Criticism is a literary movement of our century, having its roots in England but coming to maturity in America. It is not so much a distinct school as a con­ geries of schools and individual critics. In England, T. S. Eliot, I. A. Richards, and William Empson are its chief pro­ ponents. The name "New Criticism" first appears in America as the title of a lecture (1910) by Professor Joel E. Spingarn. But it was not until the thirties that the new trends came into vogue, propounded by the Fugitive group at Nashville, the Neo-Aristotelians of Chicago, and individuals such as Yvor Winters, Kenneth Burke and R. P. Blackmur. The movement is basically more a reaction against existing critical norms than the expression of a positive aesthetic. The New Critics wrote as much against certain trends as they strove toward certain ideals. They were against the sentimentalism and didacticism of the Romantics and the Victorians. They sought a "pure" poetry of ordinary diction, rich in paradox or irony, tightly structured. The vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. New Critics pointed to the seventeenth-century metaphysicals as the prototype of twentieth-century poetry and criticism, which, as Eliot and Brooks (especially) contended, was more a return to English tradition than an innovation. In the past decade the increased inclusion of moral, philosophical, and even Christian values has caused the whole movement to assume a new character aptly dubbed the "Newer Criticism." Cleanth Brooks's entrance into the New Criticism began with his days at Vanderbilt (1924-28) when he first met Robert Penn Warren and the other Fugitives. His Oxford experience (1929-32) and teaching days at Louisiana State University were further formative influences. Brooks acknowledged a debt to Eliot, Richards, Ransom, Tate, and Warren, but modified them according to his own position. Brooks is a formalist or contextualist critic, one whose method relies heavily upon close reading and a regard _for metaphor. He views the poem as an organism whose con­ crete imagery forms metaphor; the component elements are grasped in an act of ironic contemplation by the imagination. Brooks's theory is not systematically presented but rather has evolved in his essays and books, written in analysis of particular poems. Included in these is a dis­ cussion of the nature of poetry, and the functions of the poet, the critic, and the teacher of literature. All his work testifies to the prime position he assigns to paradox and irony as the language of poetry. vii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibitedpermission. without Brooks's theory has been criticized for its monistic character (i.e., exclusive interpretation in terms of a - single element), his deficient adaptation of Coleridge's critical system, his rejection of literary scholarship and biographical data relative to the poet, and his creation of a self-validating, poetical "truth," distinct from either logical or ontological truth. As with all New Critics, his vocabulary and concepts have been suspect of being esoteric and needlessly difficult. Professor Brooks served as cultural attaché
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