Reading
Notes on Brooks, "Language of Paradox" (1942)
How is the essay organized? What parts
is it divided into?
How is this essay an example of the major concerns
of the NEW CRITICISM?
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POETIC AUTONOMY: the objective
perspective that poetry is "autotelic" (creates and fulfills its own purposes)
and that criticism should be about the poem, not the author or the effects
on its reader.
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POETIC LANGUAGE: the idea that
poetic language is radically different from scientific language in that
its use of metaphor represents a special synthesis of "opposite or discordant
qualities."
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TECHNICAL DEVICES: the ways in
which poetic language enacts dialectical tensions through the use of irony,
paradox, ambiguity.
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How does this essay address concerns of OTHER
CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES?
MIMETIC:
what does art
imitate, what is its subject-matter, according to Brooks?How is this similar
or not to the subject-matter proposed by Pound, Hulme, Eliot, and Richards?
PRAGMATIC:
What kinds of effects does art have on its readers?How do these effects
work, according to Brooks?
EXPRESSIVE:
Is there any sense of the artist's presence in the poem for Brooks?Where
does the author enter the creative process?
OBJECTIVE:
How does this essay provide a METHOD FOR READING POETRY?
Can you abstract from Brooks'
analysis of Donne's "Canonization" a protocol or description of how to
read, what to look for in poetry? Try making a list of the kinds
of things that Brooks looks for in the poem, the steps he takes in making
his analysis.
Does he really stay entirely
within the bounds of "the poem itself"?What other kind of knowledge or
information does he bring in?
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Can you abstract from Brooks'
analysis of Donne's "Canonization" a protocol or description of how to
read, what to look for in poetry?
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Identifies the basic, underlying
metaphor of the whole poem (this i actually the last stage of reading...)
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Read poem closely, stanza by stanza
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Tone and mood
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Speaker--audience (rhetorical
entities within the poem)
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Begins explaining how the staza
represents the central conflict/ opposition of the poem
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paraphrase key statements
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Next stanza-- summarize how it
is a variation on the main theme
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notes modulation of tone
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notes poems precursors-- its place
in literary history
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Try making a list of the kinds
of things that Brooks looks for in the poem, the steps he takes in making
his analysis.
-
Does he really stay entirely within
the bounds of "the poem itself"?What other kind of knowledge or information
does he bring in?
-