Editing Cleanth Brooks (section)

{{Short description|American literary critic and professor}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Cleanth Brooks
| image              = Cleanth Brooks Southern Review Spring 1995.jpg
| caption            = 
| birth_date         = October 16, 1906
| birth_place        = [[Murray, Kentucky]], U.S.
| death_date         = May 10, 1994
| death_place        = [[New Haven, Connecticut]], U.S.
| known_for          = 
| education          = [[Vanderbilt University]] ([[B. A.|BA]])<br/>[[Tulane University]] ([[M. A.|MA]])<br/>[[Exeter College, Oxford]] ([[B. A.|BA]], [[Bachelor of Letters|BLitt]])
| employer           = 
| occupation         = Literary critic, academic
| spouse             = Edith Amy Blanchord
| children           = 
| parents            = 
| relatives          = 
}}
'''Cleanth Brooks''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|l|iː|æ|n|θ}} {{respell|KLEE|anth}};<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.sos.mo.gov/wolfner/SayHow/?id=b |title=Wolfner Library |access-date=2013-11-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203122830/http://www.sos.mo.gov/wolfner/SayHow/?id=b |archive-date=2013-12-03 |url-status=dead }}</ref> October 16, 1906 – May 10, 1994) was an American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to [[New Criticism]] in the mid-20th century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education. His best-known works, ''[[The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry]]'' (1947) and ''Modern Poetry and the Tradition'' (1939), argue for the centrality of [[ambiguity]] and [[paradox]] as a way of understanding poetry. With his writing, Brooks helped to formulate [[formalism (literature)|formalist criticism]], emphasizing "the interior life of a poem" (Leitch 2001) and codifying the principles of close reading.

Brooks was also the preeminent critic of [[Southern literature]], writing classic texts on [[William Faulkner]], and co-founder of the influential journal ''[[The Southern Review]]'' (Leitch 2001) with [[Robert Penn Warren]].