The Well Wrought Urn

The Well Wrought Urn is a seminal work by Cleanth Brooks, a key figure in the New Criticism movement. Published in 1947, the book emphasizes the importance of close reading and structural analysis of literary texts, focusing on the work itself rather than historical or biographical context. Brooks argued against paraphrasing poetry, coining the phrase "the heresy of paraphrase" to describe the idea that a poem's meaning is inseparable from its specific language and form. The New Criticism stressed the intrinsic value of a work, viewing it as an independent unit of meaning. This approach, which gained prominence after World War I, influenced literary criticism until the 1970s.123