THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX---Cleanth Brooks

THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX

Cleanth Brooks

Lecture Notes by Dr. S. Sreekumar

[This is an attempt to analyze Cleanth Brooks’ ‘The Language of Paradox’. It is more of a compilation rather than an original critical commentary and is offered with the sole intention of helping students and research scholars with a quick overview of Brooks’ contribution to English Criticism.]

Cleanth Brooks (1906—1994), an American teacher and critic whose work was important in establishing New Criticism, was born in Murray, Kentucky to a Methodist minister, the Reverend Cleanth Brooks. He was educated at Vanderbilt University and at Tulane University. Brooks was a Rhodes Scholar before he began teaching at Louisiana State University.

From 1935 to 1942, with Charles W. Pipkin and poet and critic Robert Penn Warren, Brooks edited The Southern Review, a journal that advanced New Criticism and published the works of a new generation of Southern writers. Brooks’ critical works include Modern Poetry and the Tradition (1939) and The Well Wrought Urn (1947). Authoritative college texts by Brooks, with others, reinforced the popularity of New Criticism: Understanding Poetry (1938) and Understanding Fiction (1943), written with Warren, and Understanding Drama (1945), with Robert Heilman.

ROMANTICISM AND CLASSICISM--T.E.HULME

ROMANTICISM AND CLASSICISM

T.E.HULME

[Lecture notes by Dr. S. Sreekumar

 Prepared for Annamalai University MPhil Scholars]

This is a revised version. The Blog has another essay with the same title

Disclaimer

Scholars, please note:

These study materials are only for classroom purposes. The explanations are not original in any sense but taken from various sources. These notes are offered with the sole intention of helping students and research scholars with a quick overview of Hulme’s ideas. Those who would like to have a deeper or original study of the subject must look elsewhere for assistance.

Brief Biographical Note

T.E HULME (1833 – 1917) was a philosopher and aesthetician. He was killed in the First World War. From his unpublished papers, Herbert Reed edited a volume of critical essays entitled Speculations from which ‘Romanticism and Classicism’ is taken. This essay can be read as the manifesto of Imagism, especially in its recommendation of a dry hard style of poetry. Hulme is the thinker behind the Pound-Eliot revolution in English poetry. His influence is visible in the poetry of Eliot. The essay advocates a preference for Classicism over Romanticism and establishes a modernist poetics based on that.

It must be remembered that ‘Romanticism’ and ‘Classicism’ are pliable terms.

THE SENSE OF THE PAST Lionel Trilling

THE SENSE OF THE PAST

Lionel Trilling

[Lecture notes by Dr. S. Sreekumar]

Disclaimer

Scholars,  please note:

These study materials on Trilling are only for classroom purposes. The explanations are not original in any sense but taken from various sources. These notes are offered with the sole intention of helping students and research scholars with a quick overview of Trilling’s ideas. Those who would like to have a deeper or original study of the subject must look elsewhere for assistance.

A Brief Summary  [ 1300 words]

At the outset, Trilling questions the status of the study of literature in the Universities of the United States. He says that what is studied is not literature but its history. There is a dispute in the Universities between ‘criticism’ and ‘scholarship’— ‘criticism’ is seen as the aggressor and ‘scholarship’ the defender. The study of literature is often viewed with suspicion. Considering literature as an object of knowledge removes the active power of literature.

Often, literary history tries to approximate the methods of science. The genetic study of art is one such method. The genetic study may give ‘added value’ to a work but the study may easily become ‘vulgarized’ when the conditions are treated as primary and the work as secondary.  The genetic study may give a degree of certainty to a work but such scientific certainty is neither needed nor desirable. New critics revolted against the scientific study of literature. They wished to restore the autonomous status of literature and to see it as an agent of power.

WHY WRITE ? Jean Paul Sartre

WHY WRITE?

Jean Paul Sartre

Critical summary by Dr. S. Sreekumar

Biographical note

Sartre is known for his famous philosophical work—Being and Nothingness—which expounds atheistic existentialism. [Atheistic existentialism (of Sartre and Camus) excludes all metaphysical and religious beliefs. Sartre and Camus believed that there is nothing that transcends (that is beyond) human existence].

Sartre thought that the individual is autonomous (a self -contained being who/which does not need either God or Nature for its existence) and at the same time responsible for his actions.

Sartre’s relationship with the Communist Party had been stormy and contentious. But he was always a man with extreme left ideologies. The present piece, ‘Why Write’, is the second chapter of his What is Literature. In ‘Why Write’ Sartre adopts a phenomenological view of a work of literature as existing by virtue of an agreement between writer and reader. 

WHY WRITE?

Some believe that art is a form of escape.  Others see it as a means of conquering. Sartre says that there are other means of escape than through art. For example, a person can escape into a hermitage or can escape into madness or death. [Madness and death are seen as ways of escaping from the world]. Similarly, one can conquer through arms.  Thus Sartre believes that for escaping from the world or for conquering it, art is not necessary.  He believes that there is a deeper motive behind the aims of authors.

THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING—I A RICHARDS

THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING—I A RICHARDS

 

 

A revised version, (11th Feb 2021).

 

S.Sreekumar

 

The following is an attempt to analyze The Four Kinds of Meaning (Practical Criticism, Part III, Chapter I). 

 

This blog is more of a compilation rather than an original critical commentary. The sole intention here is to help the students/research scholars with a quick overview of Richards.  

 

Introduction—background

 

Richards is a unique figure in English literary criticism because of the originality of his ideas. Moreover, like Coleridge, Richards was also interested in philosophy. His works in literary criticism helped to lay the practical foundations and methodology of New Criticism. The close reading of texts is the strategy of New Criticism. It got its first extensive practitioner in Richards.