Brooks, Cleanth, 1906-1994

American scholar and writer; professor of English at Louisiana State University and Yale University.

Louisiana State University English professor, and co-founder of Southern Review, a literary journal.

Cleanth Brooks is known for his contribution to the "new criticism" and his influence in the teaching of literature in American universities.

Cleanth Brooks, one of the founders of New Criticism, editor of the Southern Review, professor at Louisiana State University and Yale University, Faulkner scholar, educator, and lecturer, was born in Murray, Kentucky, on October 16, 1906. His major works include American Literature (with Robert Penn Warren and R. W. B. Lewis) (1973), Literary Criticism (with William K. Wimsatt) (1957), and The Well Wrought Urn (1947).

Cleanth Brooks (1906-1994) was educated at Vanderbilt, Tulane, and Oxford. He was professor of English at Louisiana State University (1932-1947) and professor of English (1947-1960), professor of Rhetoric (1960-1975), and professor emeritus (1975-1994) at Yale University. Brooks is best remembered as one of the pioneers of the "New Criticism" of American literary scholarship.

American author.

Literary critic, author.

Cleanth Brooks was born in Murray, Kentucky and educated at Vanderbilt University, Tulane University and at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar (1929-1932). A teacher, editor and author, Brooks is noted primarily for his work as a literary critic. The founder and editor of THE SOUTHERN REVIEW, Brooks has collaborated with Robert Penn Warren on several publications. Along with Warren, Brooks is a proponent of the "New Criticism," a modern approach to the study of literature. Brooks is considered an authority on the work of William Faulkner.

Amercan scholar, critic.

Born in Murray, Ky., in 1906, Brooks graduated from Vanderbilt University with a B.A. in 1928, and received an M.A. from Tulane University in 1929. As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University (U.K.), he received a B.A. (Honors) in 1931, and a B.A. (Literature) in 1932. He taught in the English department at Louisiana State University until 1947. In 1935, Brooks, Robert Penn Warren, and other scholars and writers, founded Southern Review, an important literary journal which remained in publication until 1942. Brooks served as a Fellow of the Library of Congress (1951-1962), cultural attache at the American Embassy in London (1964-1966), and was awarded Guggenheim Fellowships in 1953 and 1960. From 1947 until 1975 he taught at Yale University. Primarily an essayist and critic, Brooks focused on modern poetry and literature, with special emphasis on William Faulkner. He published several books, had essays included in numerous journals, and along with Robert Penn Warren and other writers, authored textbooks that revolutionized how literature is taught and read in the classroom.

Cleanth Brooks, one of the founders of New Criticism, Faulkner scholar, educator, and lecturer, was born in Murray, Kentucky, on October 16, 1906 to the Rev. Cleanth and Bessie Lee Witherspoon Brooks. His father, a Methodist minister, was assigned to parishes primarily in western Tennessee, where Brooks spent most of his early life. Brooks received a classical education at The McTyeire School in McKenzie, Tennessee, and went on to obtain a bachelor's degree in English from Vanderbilt University, where during his freshman year he met his lifelong friend and frequent literary collaborator, Robert Penn Warren, then a senior. While at Vanderbilt, Brooks became keenly interested in literature and poetry. Although the Nashville poets were to discontinue their publication, The Fugitive, soon after he arrived at Vanderbilt, Brooks did get to know them and has remained closely associated with the members of that group throughout his life.

After completing his studies at Vanderbilt, Brooks attended Tulane University and was granted a master's degree in English. He then went to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, where he received a B. A. (honors) in 1931 and a B. Litt. in 1932; he also became associated with the editing of the correspondence of the eighteenth-century ecclesiastic and literary figure, Thomas Percy, a project with which he would remain intimately involved over the next fifty years.

Upon his return from Oxford in 1932, Brooks was appointed professor of English at Louisiana State University. In 1934 he married Edith Amy Blanchard, known as Tinkum to her friends. Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, who joined the LSU faculty two years after Brooks's arrival, jointly edited The Southern Review from 1935 to 1942. For information documenting Brooks's editorship of this journal, see The Southern Review Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. In 1946 Brooks was named the first occupant of the Read chair of English. Also during his LSU tenure, he began writing (with Robert Penn Warren) the first of many college textbooks for the teaching of literature and poetry.

In 1947 Brooks was appointed professor of English at Yale University, where his courses on Faulkner became legendary. In 1961 he was designated Gray Professor of Rhetoric, from which post he retired in 1975. Throughout his life Brooks has been a prolific lecturer and since retirement has been an active visiting professor. He has received numerous honorary degrees and awards. His major works include American Literature: The Makers and the Making (with Warren and R. W. B. Lewis) (1973), The Hidden God (1963), Literary Criticism (with William K. Wimsatt) (1957), Modern Poetry and the Tradition (1939), A Shaping Joy (1971), Understanding Fiction (with Warren) (1943), Understanding Poetry (with Warren) (1938), The Well Wrought Urn (1947), and four books on Faulkner.

For further biographical information, see The Possibilities of Order: Cleanth Brooks and His Work (1976) by Lewis P. Simpson and Parnassus on the Mississippi: The Southern Review and the Baton Rouge Literary Community, 1935-1942 (1984) by Thomas W. Cutrer.

[Cleanth Brooks died in New Haven on May 10, 1994 - after this biographical sketch was originally written.]