ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -One of Eliot’s greatest admirers, the New Critic Cleanth Brooks, coined the phrase ‘the heresy of paraphrase’. Another New Critic and poet, Archibald MacLeish, said, “A poem should not mean but be” (MacLeish 1964: 1069). Obviously, poems cannot be retold if they only are, but do not mean.

Detailed explanation-2: -Brooks admonishes critics for paraphrasing poetry, stating their paraphrasing leads readers to look for logical coherences when there are none, to misconceive metaphors and meter, and ultimately, reduce a poem to saying nothing when, in fact, it says so much.

Detailed explanation-3: -Although paraphrases likely abounded in oral traditions, paraphrasing as a specific educational exercise dates back to at least Roman times, when the author Quintilian recommended it for students to develop dexterity in language.

Detailed explanation-4: -“Irony as a principle of structure” is an important critical theory by cleanth brooks. In this essay he says that metaphor allows poet to show particular thing to give a more general level of meaning. According to him theme of poem is a result of coherent structure of elements used in poetry.