Discuss Cleanth Brooks understanding of practical criticism in his essay , I.A Richards and practical criticism: Nyangoma Beatrice

Practical criticism has been defined differently by a number of scholars according to the way each of them understands it. Cray Morris defines practical criticism as a psychological response to a text and he focuses it on meaning and form. This approach makes the reader think deep and uses his own judgment with out other people’s influence. Peter Barry on the other hand refers practical criticism to close study of alert while isolating it from history and text. Here when reading a text, much emphasis is put on words on page than the external factors like the author’s (his/her) biography. However, on the other hand, Cleanth Brooks understands practical criticism as an approach of reading a text looking strictly to the words on the page and ignoring all the external factors. He refers practical criticism as a discipline that prioritizes attention to the words on the page when engaging in any literary study. Therefore practical criticism involves close reading by the reader while ignoring external forces in order to be able to pass your own judgment. According to the question, Cleanth Brooks understands practical criticism in many ways in his essay I.A Richards. Cleanth Brooks believes that for a person to understand a certain piece of writing, he/she must be able to read the piece of writing the way it is. Because through reading, a person will be able to make a clear response and judgment. “……..for the kind of reading that I practiced in trying to find a sound basis for rejecting what Richards had written was intensive…the sort from which one learns…” page 586. This intensive reading is a basis for discovery, readers will always find answers to their questions through close reading to all practical critics. Cleanth Brooks also believes in reading a text with out the knowledge of the author or external experiences. This is where a reader will read words on a page and analyze them with out any influence of the author’s biography, historical settings and so on. And this kind of reading is good in that, a reader will read wholeheartedly and will make a different judgment and even contribute to the piece of writing than when the author is already know, readers will be biased and hence will only depend on what is already in the text hence no creativity and discoveries will be made. Therefore as a practical reader, one must be able to draw his/her own conclusion and even to judge according to his/her own understanding. When it comes to writing techniques, Cleanth Brooks calls for both inclusive and exclusive poems. Inclusive poems refer to the situation were the poet writes and includes all his personal experiences in a poem, on the other hand , exclusive poems, a poet leaves behind certain elements . Brooks encourages and emphasizes the use of both techniques whereby, exclusive poems will always “…win his unity by excluding elements that are desperate…” This kind of writing will create tension on a reader’s mind and he/she will want to read deep and hence drawing out judgments. Where as inclusive poems will always satisfy the reader “…to secure unity with out having to leave such elements of a poem……” Here the poet might win popularity through his great technique of including everything. Further more, Cleanth Brooks goes ahead explaining that both inclusive and exclusive poems are good in away of securing poetic unity. He brings the importance of inclusion as the heart of a metaphor; it matches very well hence coordinating the union. Still Cleanth Brooks understanding of practical criticism is also based on tone, he believes that the tone that a poet comes out with, can be the unifying factor of a poem. So a poet must be able to bring out a unifying tone, a tone that will bring about unity in a piece of writing. The identity of a poet lies in the tone, his uniqueness lies still in the tone; hence the organization of the poet will only be determined by the tone he or she uses. “…Adjustments of atone could be considered a primary means for qualifying and reconciling the various statement…” on the other hand, it might6 also be “…regarded as an index of the poet’s ability to organize and unify his poem…..” page 591 More so, Cleanth Brooks understands practical criticism into for he discusses in page 594-595, that the only success to practical criticism is through reading. This was evident with Freud, in his theory of psychoanalysis, before he could treat his patients, the first thing he could do was to know the root cause of the illness through interactions with his patient, so this is the same with practical criticism, for one to understand a certain piece of writing, he or she must be able to read hard in order to produce good results in terms of judgment. To cover it all, Cleanth Brooks broadly understands practical criticism as reading the text the way it is, concentrating on the words on the page on which I strongly agree with him because any given knowledge about the author will create and lead to bias of judgment. Cleanth Brooks strongly agrees with I.A Richards though to a smaller extent he does not agree with him