On The Cleanth Brooks’ Careful Reading

In the history of western literary criticism, close reading is the critical method that was concluded by the younger critics in America. I· A· Richards, the British critic, proposed Closeness of Reading at first in English, and a American critic named Cleanth Brooks expressed by Careful Reading. So close reading may be the relayed information about the former two. The creator of the close reading is John crow Ransom, he is the teacher of Cleanth Brooks. He read literary works by this method when he was a teacher of the English department of Vanderbilt University. The teacher must ask some question to the student in the process of close reading, so its main nature is a literary method of teaching and research, as opposed to biographical method.Durning the study years in the Vanderbilt and Oxford, Brooks’Careful Reading began to take shape.After graduation,he taught English literature at many universities in the USA,and published a lot of influential text books,such as An Approach To Literature,The Well Wrought Urn, Understanding Poetry, Understanding Drama Fiction, Understanding Drama.He read fiction and drama carefully in An Approach To Literature, Drama Fiction and Understanding Drama.The main purpose of Careful Reading is to elucidate the meaning of literary works,it contains three aspects.First,Literary work is a organic unity,the writer put the messy materials into arty structure,so it boadens human’s expeience.Second,in the indusrialized society, people couldn’t realize the complex of the society,bue the literry irony can help reader change the way of thinking,so irony is a important charater of good literary work.In the end, Cleanth Brooks elucidate the writer’s intention and tone so that the students realize the meaning of the work.Regardless of its shortcoming, Brooks’Careful Reading plays important role on the history of lierary criticism. Careful Reading is a literary revolution.