"The meaning must issue from the particulars; it must not seem to be arbitrarily forced upon the particulars". First off I don't really have a man crush on Brooks, I have a man crush on his theory. Once you lay the groundwork from the rules you can do whatever you like with them. how sweet of an idea is that. I found what brooks said about that you can't/shouldn't go outside of the text to explain it a wonderful concept. I didn't have a problem with this idea, I love(d) this idea. Why would you go outside of it(text) to explain/understand it. Why wouldn't the words be the most important thing to turn to in looking at the meaning of a text. I mean it's the words in the text that make up the meaning, so wouldn't that be the place to go. Yeah words.
Comments (1)
Words are only important because we find meaning behind them. I do agree with you that Brooks essay was phenomenal, and that I am excited about a formalist approach. But we can not look solely at the words and find meaning, unless we look at other approaches, such as the author, the audience, the reader in today's society, the reality of the situation, and history behind the society. I think that we should not be completely sold on Cleanth Brooks's essay because of the other approaches. I think we can appreciate his side of the the formalist approach, but really, I think that he is just one of the many authors who provide an important piece of information to us on how to actually critique literature in any time period.
Posted by Jason Pugh | February 14, 2007 6:22 PM
Posted on February 14, 2007 18:22