There is no easy way to learn to write', is the opening line of this clear and effective guide for writers wishing to learn the basics of writing whether it is fiction, poetry, news articles or essays. This book including answers to some general problems faced by prospective writers, a section on the kinds of discourse you should wish to achieve and on the exposition. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasing...

In A Shaping Joy (originally published in 1971), Cleanth Brooks writes about modern literature and the criticism that has been developed to deal with it. Most of the essays concern poets and novelists of the twentieth century, but there are also discussions of nineteenth-century American writers such as Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe, and of traditional English poets such as Wordsworth, Milton, and Marlowe.Among the functions of literature described in the first essay are ...

This study presents the revolutionary thesis that English poetry and poetic theory were deflected from their richest line of development by the scientific rationalism that came with Hobbes and has continued its restrictive influence to the present day, when such poets as Yeats and Eliot have begun the reestablishment of the earlier line of development.Originally published in 1939.A UNC Press Enduring Edition — UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology...

In this companion volume to William Faulkner: The Yoknapatawpha Country, Cleanth Brooks takes an in-depth look at Faulkner's early poetry and prose as well as his five non-Yoknapatawpha novels -- Soldiers Pay, Mosquitoes, Pylon, The Wild Palms, and A Fable. Brooks also offers relevant clarification of some of his earlier interpretations of Faulkner that have been challenged -- most notably in the case of Faulkner that have been challenged -- most notable in the c...

It seems appropriate, if not inevitable, that one of our best critics should be the foremost authority on one of our best novelists. Cleanth Brooks, the author of three seminal studies of William Faulkner, has been a serious student of that master craftsman's fiction for more than four decades. In this new collection, Brooks considers many of the important characteristics of Faulkner's work. He focuses more specifically than he has in the past on certain questions and in some instances off...

First published in 1957, Literary Criticism: A Short History traces our aesthetic heritage from its classical origins up to the contemporary state of criticism in the English-speaking world.Divided into four volumes, each book adopts a fair and objective position in the presentation of various critical positions, and each critical theory is considered not only in competition with other critical theories, but also in vital dialectic with the creative literature of its own t...

First published in 1957, Literary Criticism: A Short History traces our aesthetic heritage from its classical origins up to the contemporary state of criticism in the English-speaking world.Divided into four volumes, each book adopts a fair and objective position in the presentation of various critical positions, and each critical theory is considered not only in competition with other critical theories, but also in vital dialectic with the creative literature of its own t...

First published in 1957, Literary Criticism: A Short History traces our aesthetic heritage from its classical origins up to the contemporary state of criticism in the English-speaking world.Divided into four volumes, each book adopts a fair and objective position in the presentation of various critical positions, and each critical theory is considered not only in competition with other critical theories, but also in vital dialectic with the creative literature of its own t...

First published in 1957, Literary Criticism: A Short History traces our aesthetic heritage from its classical origins up to the contemporary state of criticism in the English-speaking world.Divided into four volumes, each book adopts a fair and objective position in the presentation of various critical positions, and each critical theory is considered not only in competition with other critical theories, but also in vital dialectic with the creative literature of its own t...

An anthology of exemplary readings by some of the twentieth century’s foremost literary critics, Close Reading presents a wide range of responses to the question at the heart of literary criticism: how best to read a text to understand its meaning. The lively introduction and the selected essays provide an overview of close reading from New Criticism through poststructuralism, including works of feminist criticism, postcolonial theory, queer theory, new historicism, and more....