THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX – CLEANTH
BROOKS
Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994) is an
eminent American teacher and critic. His
‘Modern poetry and tradition’ (1939) and ‘The Well-Wrought Urn: studies in the
structure of poetry’ (1947), were important in establishing the new criticism
that stressed close reading and structural analysis of literature. He made an impact on the critics of his time
through his critical pronouncements that were helpful to establish
suggestiveness in poetry. He is of the
opinion that the statements and images in a poem are in an organic
relationships, with a part qualifying and adding meaning to the other. So, a conscious effort is made by the poet to
convey the precise meaning through the use of poetic language where words
attain diverse meanings. The referential
language is incapable of representing the specific message of the poet. So, the uses of ambiguity and paradox become
inevitable. As the language of the
poetry is different from the language of science in the poet’s language,
connotations play a great part as denotations.
‘The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in
the Structure of poetry’ is a collection of eleven essays and ‘The Language of
Paradox’ is the first essay of this collection.
The essay begins with the statement ‘Few of us are prepared to accept
the statement that the language of poetry is the language of Paradox’. This happens because all consider Paradox as
a mere figure of speech and fail to notice the effectiveness of this literary
device. ‘Paradox’ literarily means the
assertion of the unification of opposites.
When a poet can neither present his experiences as a statement nor as an
abstraction like a scientist, he uses paradox.
Here, the poet can unify the complexities of human experiences into one
whole to represent the manifestation of a total experience. Thus Paradox becomes ‘appropriate and
inevitable to poetry’. In order to
ascertain his assertion, Brooks analyses several poems minutely to conclude
that paradox is one of the common and a necessary structural properties
contained in poetry.
Brooks analyses how paradox works in
Wordsworth’s sonnet ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’
Never
did sun more beautifully steep
In
his first splendour, valley, rock or hill…..
The
paradoxical situation is depicted in the usual unattractive noisy, smoky
industrial city of London and the splendour of the morning in the smokeless
air. These lives present the contrast
between the mechanical and dull life of London and the freshness and glory of
the morning images. Wordsworth is
shocked and amazed at the paradoxical picture of London. Under the impression of death, the city acquires
the organic life of nature.
According to Brooks the use of
paradox rests on wonder in Romantic poetry but in Neo-classics it depends on
irony. To prove this he quotes a stanza
from Alexander Pope’s poem, ‘An Essay on man: Epistle II’
Created half to rise, and half to
fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey
to all;
Sole Judge of truth, in endless
error hurl’d;
The Glory, Jest, and riddles of the
world.
Pope
describes the pathetic condition of Man here.
Though Man considers himself the best of God’s creation, he meekly
surrenders to everything he controls, and becomes a slave of all that he
possesses. Man claims to be the judge of
truth, but commits errors. Among God’s
creation, man is the glory, joke and puzzle that the world has ever seen.
Brooks is also of the opinion that paradox
is a central device in metaphysical poetry.
Here he talks about John Donne’s ‘The Canonization’ where the title
contains a metaphor in the form of a paradox.
Donne treats the profane love of the two lovers to be the divine love of
a pair of hermits, who have renounced worldly desires and pleasures. The two
lovers consider their body a hermitage. They
sacrifice everything for the sake of love and they are regarded as saints. The comparison is carried on till the end of
the poem. Even the lovers are compared
to the phoenix that rises from its ashes.
Moreover, the lovers realize that the Well Wrought Urn, ‘a pretty room’
that would hold the lover’s ashes would not be considered insignificant when
compared to the ‘half acre tomb of Prince.
Moreover, he says that Donne marvellously maintains the simultaneous
duality and singleness of love and the double and contrary meanings of ‘die’,
that’s both sexual union and literal death in this poem. In this way conveying several meanings with
the right depth and emotion is impossible in any language without the help of
paradox.
According to Brooks the urn that holds the
ashes of the phoenix as well as the ashes of the phoenix lovers is the poem
itself. He is also of the opinion that
the very urn is similar to Keat’s ‘urn’ that contains truth and beauty. Thus, an analysis of paradox in a work of art
will draw inferences either to reconcile the opposites or to harmonize
them. So, he says that paradox is
essential to the structure of a poem and also claims that the language of
poetry is the language of paradox.
-------Thulasidharan V
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