Cleanth Brooks

Cleanth Brooks

When reading Brooks, we are introduced to the word heresy. Heresy is going against something sacred. For example, if you go to church, but you don't believe with what their views are.  We are next introduced to the term heresy of a paraphrase. Well what does that mean? It means that paraphrasing poetry is  a heresy. It is a heresy because the experience of reading the poem is what makes the poem. You cannot get the meaning of the poem through paraphrasing.  We need to be able to see the whole structure of a poem. Brooks says, " The structure meant is a structure of meanings, evaluations, and interpretations; and the principle of unity which informs it seems to be one of balacing and harmonizing connotations, attitudes, and meanings." Brooks is saying that a good poem is one thats structures harmonizes and balances. A good poem represents a unity. It pulls it all together.

Below is a video of Alfred Lord Tennyson and his poem "Tears, Idle Tears." Brooks says "When the poet is able, as in 'Tears, Idle Tears', to analyze his experience, and in the full light of the disparity and even apparent contradiction of the various elements, bring them into a new unity, he secures not only richness and depth but dramatic power as well."