The Poetics Of Metahor And Iron

Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994) is the most active and well-published academic inthe American New Critics. Not only writing books but also teaching practice, hiscontribution to promote the New Criticism, leaving his way ahead of other New Critics.This dissertation is focused on irony, which observes the source, the formation and thepractice of his theory. Generally, it is composed of the parts of the preface, the bodyand the epilogue. The specific contents as follows:The preface starts from the life experience of Cleanth Brooks, leading to adiscovery of the internal and external factors, including the religious background, theeconomic and political atmosphere, the encounter with his respected teacher Ransom,the knowing with his bosom friend Warren, and the transfer of personal interest. In thesecond part of preface, it states the values, research status and design of this subject, onthis basis, it points out domestic scholars tend to consider Brooks as a member of theAmerican New Critics, an academic monograph has not been written yet. Besides themisunderstanding of his ironic poetry, domestic scholars usually focus on his mid-termcareer, hence overlook his later theory. For these problems, a chronological narrationof Brooks and a general overview of his terms have been presented through the closereading method. Take all these into consideration, the textual research way of thinkingis regarding the irony as a key word, concerning on the main points, drawing upoverall features of the issue, to clear up the misunderstanding and provides a genuinereflection and reconsideration of Cleanth Brooks’s ironic poetics.This chapter traces the sources and background of Brooks’s ironic poetics. Firstly,it goes backward into his live background, as a conventional letter who born and growup in the South; his criticism must be influenced by the literary and culture there. withthe destroy of the pastoral ideal home by Scientific and industrial, and the impurity andembarrassment of reality, the sensibility unified world fall apart, at this moment,Cleanth Brooks put forward his own theory in order to save the whole literary tradition of western side and retrieve the lost faith. As the souce of his theory, the paper talksabout the German romantic tradition, such as the unity of opposites, the principle ofconsidering everything as ironic, and the supreme value of literature.This chapter analyzes the relationship between Brooks and the New Criticism,especially the American New Criticism, including wit of T. S. Eliot, inclusive poetry ofI.A. Richards, and the Ambiguity by William Empson.This chapter concretely analyzes the theoretical structure of Brooks’s ironicpoetics, which is woven with three aspects, as follows: the language theory, thestructure theory and the functional theory. In the aspect of language theory, Brooksreveals that the language, with the express qualification, uncertainty has ontologicalsignificance. Meanwhile, the poetry, with the most human experience, shows a perfectworld which infinite close to the truth. In the aspect of structure theory, as he writes,the dramatic principle, the organism and ironic poetics explain the structure of poetry.As he said, the text is a net with internal equilibrium. Through the details of paradox,irony and ambiguity, the poets achieve the effect of wonder and shock, and then showthe final meaning via conflicts of inharmonious factors.This chapter analyzes the practice of Brooks’s poetic criticism. His criticism hasdistinct pertinence, with the focus on the metaphysical poets in17th century andBritish and American modernist poets in20th century, especially John Donne, AndrewMarvell and Robert Frost, Eliot and John Keats. From his poetic critical practices, itcan be seen that Brooks is rooted in the structure of literature and value of aesthetics,and pay attention on the poetry itself rather than poets or even readers. So the poetrywhich are full of metaphors and dramatic plots are been well liked by Brooks.Generally, there are two characters of his poetic criticism: the impact of metaphoricalor symbolical language on structure, and how the poetry shows the knowledge ofparticularity and commonality through ironic structure. Finally, Brooks’s criticalpractice and poetic theory correspond with each other soundly: criticism gainssufficient theoretical supports, and poetic theory is well examined and flexibly appliedin criticism, and thus the two aspects are combined into a lively, complete while opensystem of ironic poetry.This chapter explains the enlightenments of Brooks’s criticism from the angles ofaesthetics and reality. We should take irony as an attitude of poetry is rather than a setof specified principles and methods. On one hand, the principles of Brooks could deepen the feelings of metaphors and the experience of organic unity on the aspect ofaesthetics, the other hand, it contributes to explore that when the words add words, thesentences add sentences, the paragraphs add paragraphs, and the reasons they are sovivid and attractive in the text after organized by irony as a structure. With suchthinking, the readers could find the narration hidden in the text, grasp the experience ofopposite sides, and then have a better understand of the world.Finally, the dissertation summarizes the essential principles of Cleanth Brooks’scriticism: the object of literary criticism is the structure, and the structure is the organic,the irony is the principles of this structure, the metaphor is the technique of language.Though the structure and language, the text could provides a more complicated,mysterious and ambiguous reality.