IRONY AS A PRINCIPLE OF STRUCTURE -CLEANTH BROOKS

                                          IRONY AS A PRINCIPLE OF STRUCTURE

                                                                                           -CLEANTH BROOKS 

     Cleanth Brooks 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 formalist criticism, emphasizing "the interior life of a poem" (Leitch 2001) and codifying the principles of close reading. Brooks was also a prominent 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.

Objectives:

 1. To understand the concept of metaphor, organic relationship, context and irony.

 2. To apply these concepts to the poem, “my last duchess” and “the chimney sweeper” 

3. To find out the various meaning in the poems expressed through comparison between two things.

 Introduction: 

    “Irony as a principle of structure” is an important critical theory by Cleanth brooks. In this essay, he says that metaphor allows poets to show particular things to give a more general level of meaning. According to him, the theme of the poem is a result of the coherent structure of elements used in poetry. He also says that particular statements get different meanings when used in different contexts. He defines irony as harmony between contradictory things and creates a multiplicity of meaning. All his arguments and their application to the poems are described in detail as follows. Meaning of metaphor: Metaphor is the rediscovery of modern poetic techniques. 

    By using metaphor in modern poetry poet can deal with universal things in the world. Metaphor allows the poet to point out particular objects, events, or experiences. It helps to give a more general or universal level of meaning e.g., ‘a red rose’ in this poem ‘rose’ is a particular flower which gives fragrance. But with the help of this poet suggest a universal thing that is ‘love’. Poet’s intention of using a metaphor: By using metaphor poetry takes risk of saying something particularly and obscurely or not saying anything at all.

     The poet has to take this risk because he can’t make direct statements. If a poet makes direct statements, poetry will be full of abstraction and threats. It will not be poetry at all. Principle of organic relationship: According to brooks, metaphor implies a principle of organic relationship. That means poetry consists of different elements like words, phrases, images, symbols, the figure of speech, rhyme, rhythm, meter etc. All of them contribute to generating the meaning of a poem, all these parts are interdependent and all are connected to the main theme. Thus poetry has a coherent structure. It is like a kite or a plant or a drama where different parts contribute to make a total effect.

     The tail of the kite seems to navigate the kite’s function. It weights the kite down, it paradoxically is a necessity that allows the kite to rise, and a plant is compassed of several parts that allow the plant to grow as a whole. The leaves, roots, branches, and stems are all essentially the plan’s growth. The poem is also like a little drama. The total effect proceeds from all the elements in the drama and in a good poem as in a good drama, there is no wasted motion and there are no superfluous parts. Thus small things are important to form a big completion. Importance of context: Brooks says that because of the organic relationship of poetic structure context becomes the most important thing. Context means the relationship of words with each other and with the main theme of the overall meaning that poetry generates. It can be called as something like them or the subject of a poem. All great poems have poetic qualities because of a particular context. The meaning of a particular utterance becomes something different because of the context. Poetic statements gain new meaning from unexpected references because of context and not in isolation. 

    When a particular sentence is used for a particular context the meaning has been modified or changed. A simple statement gets a different meaning in a literary context. E.g. In ‘king lear’, the expression ‘ripeness is all’ is used as not a positive thing. It has a negative kind of significance. Edger wants to say old age is of no scope for improvement. ‘to be or not to be’ shows the complexity of the dilemma in hamlet’s mind. Concept of irony: Cleanth Brooks defines irony as ‘the obvious wrapping of the statement by the context’. The irony is created because of the pressure of the context. Brooks makes it very clear that irony is a wrapping which means twisting. He wants to suggest that because the context and standard of one dimensional meaning of an utterance get twisted. Thus here irony means a complete reversal of meaning affected by the context and pointed probably, by the tone of voice. Irony offers more than one expected. Importance of irony: 1. Unimportance or non-literary utterance gets a specific meaning when placed in a particular context like this ‘to be or not to be’ 2. Utterance having some meaning is changed to different or sometimes contrary meaning like that ‘ripeness is all’ Type of irony:

 1. Verbal irony: It occurs when words mean in context the opposite of what they say considered themselves. 

2. Situational irony: It occurs when an event is expected by another oppositional event. 

3. Dramatic irony:  It exists when a literary character and the reader view a particular situation form an opposing perspective with knowing more than the other. Functions of irony:

 1. To five opposite meanings than a common meaning 

2. Fusion is the poetic structure where irrelevant elements are put together to find balance. Application of irony to the poems: 

    My last duchess: Robert browning's poem "my last duchess" is a splendid example of the irony that a poet can achieve within the format of the dramatic monologue, a poetic form in which there is only one speaker. When there is only one speaker, we necessarily have to weigh carefully what he or she is telling us, and we often have to "read between the lines" in keeping an objective perspective on the story or incidents that the speaker describes to us. We can gather from this poem's setting, "Ferrara," a town in Italy, as well as from the speaker's reference to his "last duchess," that the speaker in this poem is the duke of Ferrara. In ‘my last duchess’ verbal irony is demonstrated when the duke says to this guest, ‘even I had skill, in speech – (which I have not)’. 

    The duke is not a modest man, but he's making this seemingly humble statement in the midst of all his power stricken remarks establishes situational irony. Dramatic monologue can make that an unappreciated irony, with this ‘dramatic’ surrounding that totally attracts the reader’s attention and so we can appreciate how the duke’s monologue appears on the surface to be about his late wife, a close reading will be shown that the mention of his last duchess is merely a side note in his self-important speech. In ‘my last duchess’ he shows the reader how the duke needs to control and have complete power and he causes a weariness to overcome the reader through irony, browning shows us the controlling, jealous and arrogant traits in the dramatic monologue of his desired haunting effect. 

    Finally, we get to the heart of the duke's problem with his former wife. She thanked a person who pleased her, which was all well and good in theory, but she thanked them all with equal affection, "as if she ranked / My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name / With anybody's gift." the duke seems to have been offended that she did not single him out among the others who pleased her and underrated his gift of a well-established name and proud family heritage. She smiled, he says, whenever he passed her, "but who passed without / much the same smile?" and how did the duke react to this? "who'd stoop to blame / This sort of trifling?" he asks his auditor. 

    The whole business is beneath him. Even if he had "skill / In a speech," it would be stooping to address such a situation, and he tells his listener that he indeed does not have skill in speech. This statement is ironic, for the duke actually seems to be quite a polished speaker, although he may be telling us a great deal about his personality and history that he may not have intended to reveal. So what became of this seemingly kind and happy lady, who evidently enjoyed whatever she experienced? "i gave commands," the duke says, "then all smiles stopped together." he says for a second time, "there she stands / as if alive," suggesting that the lady is no more. And yet, strangely, he shows no compunction for his actions. Conclusion: Thus the interpretation of this poem helps to build a compelling case for irony as a major principle of structure in poetry. We can say that irony is the only term available to point out general and important aspects of poetry through which readers can understand and experience the poem from more than a 3d (three dimensional) view