The Research Of Cleanth Brooks’s Close Reading Methods

As is well-known,"Close Reading" is the text reading method of the "New Criticism". Cleanth Brooks is highly regarded in the history of the "New Criticism and Close Reading". His well known works:The Well Wrought Urn, An Approach to Literature, Understanding Poetry, Understanding Fiction, Understanding Drama have been widely used as the most influential literary textbooks in American universities.The thesis will focus on the specific methods of "close reading" by analyzing two of Cleanth Brooks’s textbooks:Understanding Poetry and Understanding Fiction. Meanwhile by investigating the cultural and political background of Southern Agrarianism, the context of literary education in American universities in1930s, and the influence of T. S. Eliot and I. A. Richards to Cleanth Brooks, the thesis clarifies some misunderstandings of close reading such as "the close reading is the asocial formalism reading which separates the author, reader, society, culture and history". As analyzing the specific methods of close reading, the thesis explains the delicate relationship among the author, the reader and the text, and how could Cleanth Brooks mix the history and tradition into the close reading. Finally, the thesis emphasizes the non-negligible humanism concern of the history, tradition, value within the close reading.