A Study On The Principles And Methods Of Cleanth Brooks’ Literary Criticism

As one of the representatives of the New Criticism,Cleanth Brooks devoted his life to literary criticism and made great achievements in the theory and practice of criticism.This paper chooses the principles and methods of Brooks’ s literary criticism as the starting point to investigate and examine his criticism,and then comprehensively grasp the construction strategy of Brooks’ s literary criticism.Therefore,this paper intends to discuss the principles and methods of Brooks’ s criticism from the following aspects: The introduction part focuses on the analysis of the reason for the topic selection and the research status,on this basis,to explain the research characteristics and innovation of the topic selection.The main text consists of four chapters,with specific contents as follows:The first chapter discusses the background and theoretical source of Brooks’ s literary criticism.From the perspective of the time background,the development of scientism and linguistics has impacted the traditional view of literature,and the innovation and enrichment of literary content,theme and form skills have made traditional literary criticism unable to meet the needs of the development of literature itself.In addition,subjective impressionism and social history biographical literary criticism,which have occupied the mainstream for a long time,have been questioned.Therefore,the new era of new literature calls for new criticism.From the perspective of theoretical origin,Brooks was inspired by Saussure’s structural linguistics,inherited the literary taste of Eliot,studied the semantic research method of Richards,and then established his own literary criticism.The second chapter discusses the principles of Brooks’ s literary criticism.Brooks always sticks to the two principles of taking text as the center of criticism and structure as the basis of criticism in literary criticism.On the one hand,Brooks believes that text is an independent and self-sufficient object,insists that literary criticism should be based on internal research,opposes the three myths,and removes the three myths from the criteria of literary criticism.On the other hand,Brooks attaches great importance to structure,which is the structure of organic integrity,dramatization and contextualism,and proposes that literary criticism should pursue unity and coherence,pay attention to contradiction and opposition,and analyze based on context.The third chapter discusses Brooks’ s literary criticism specific methods.In this part,by comparing Brooks with Richards and Empson,it is concluded that Brooks’ criticism is a method that combines "dramatization" with details and focuses on overall connection.By comparing with Richards’ s semantic analysis,it can be seen that Brooks emphasizes the contradiction of constituent elements,and thus forms his own criticism method that combines "dramatization" with details.By comparing with Empson’s analysis of word meaning and double plot,we can see Brooks’ emphasis on wholeness in literary criticism.The Chapter four reflects on the principles and methods of Brooks’ s literary criticism.The value of Brooks’ s literary criticism lies in promoting the independence of criticism and providing a set of reference modes of criticism.However,it is precisely in the pursuit of this generalized mode that Brooks appears the disadvantages of unified criticism,concept generalization and lack of value judgment.Although Brooks’ s critical practice has both gains and losses,his wide field of vision and practice is still significant to the construction of contemporary literary criticism.