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In literature, the paradox is a literary device consisting of the anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition - and analysis - which involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.^[1] Literary or rhetorical paradoxes abound in the works of Oscar Wilde and G.K. Chesterton. Other literature deals with paradox of situation; Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Borges, and Chesterton are recognized as masters of situational as well as verbal paradox. Statements such as Wilde’s “I can resist anything except temptation” and Chesterton’s “spies do not look like spies” are examples of rhetorical paradox. Further back, Polonius’ observation that “though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” is a memorable third.^[2] Also, statements that are illogical and metaphoric may be called "paradoxes", for example "the pike flew to the tree to sing". The literal meaning is illogical, but there are many interpretations for the this metaphor.

Cleanth Brooks' "Language of Paradox"^[3]

Cleanth Brooks, an active member of the New Critical movement, outlines the use of reading poems through paradox as a method of critical interpretation. Paradox in poetry means that tension at the surface of a verse can lead to apparent contradictions and hypocrisies. His seminal essay, "The Language of Paradox," lays out Brooks' argument for the centrality of paradox by demonstrating that paradox is “the language appropriate and inevitable to poetry." The argument is based on the contention that referential language is too vague for the specific message a poet expresses; he must “make up his language as he goes." This, Brooks argues, is because words are mutable and meaning shifts when words are placed in relation to one another.^[4] In the writing of poems, paradox is used as a method by which unlikely comparisons can be drawn and meaning can be extracted from poems both straightforward and enigmatic. Brooks points to William Wordsworth's poem “It is a beauteous evening, calm and free.” He begins by outlining the initial and surface conflict, which is that the speaker is filled with worship, while his female companion does not seem to be. The paradox, discovered by the poem’s end, is that the girl is more full of worship than the speaker precisely because she is always consumed with sympathy for nature and not - as is the speaker - in tune with nature while immersed in it. In his reading of Wordsworth's poem, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge,” Brooks contends that the poem offers paradox not in its details, but in the situation which the speaker creates. Though London is a man-made marvel, and in many respects in opposition to nature, the speaker does not view London as a mechanical and artificial landscape but as a landscape comprised entirely of nature. Since London was created by man, and man is a part of nature, London is thus too a part of nature. It is this reason that gives the speaker the opportunity to remark upon the beauty of London as he would a natural phenomenon, and, as Brooks points out, can call the houses “sleeping” rather than “dead,” because they too are vivified with the natural spark of life, granted to them by the men that built them. Brooks ends his essay with a reading of John Donne’s poem "The Canonization," which uses a paradox as its underlying metaphor. Using a charged religious term to describe the speaker’s physical love as saintly, Donne effectively argues that in rejecting the material world and withdrawing to a world of each other, the two lovers are appropriate candidates for canonization. This seems to parody both love and religion, but in fact it combines them, pairing unlikely circumstances and demonstranting their resulting complex meaning. Brooks points also to secondary paradoxes in the poem: the simultaneous duality and singleness of love, and the double and contradictory meanings of “die” in Metaphysical poetry (used here as both sexual union and literal death). He contends that these several meanings are impossible to convey at the right depth and emotion in any language but that of paradox. A similar paradox is used in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” when Juliet says “For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch and palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss.” Brooks' contemporaries in the sciences were, in the 40's and 50's, reorganizing university science curricula into codified disciplines. The study of English, however, remained less defined and it became a goal of the New Critical movement to justify literature in an age of science by separating the work from its author and reader (see Wimsatt and Beardsley’s Intentional fallacy and Affective fallacy) and by examining it as a self-sufficient artifact. In Brooks’s use of the paradox as a tool for analysis, however, he develops a logical case as a literary technique with strong emotional affect. His reading of “The Canonization” in “The Language of Paradox,” where paradox becomes central to expressing complicated ideas of sacred and secular love, provides an example of this development.^[5]

Paradox and irony

Although paradox and irony as New Critical tools for reading poetry are often conflated, they are independent poetical devices. Irony for Brooks is “the obvious warping of a statement by the context” ^[6] whereas paradox is later glossed as “a special kind of qualification which involves the resolution of opposites.” ^[7] Irony functions as a presence in the text – the overriding context of the surrounding words that make up the poem. Only sentences such as 2 + 2 = 4 are free from irony; most other statements are prey to their immediate context and are altered by it (take, as an example, the following joke. "A woman walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre. The bartender gives it to her." This last statement, perfectly acceptible elsewhere, is transformed by its context in the joke to an innuendo). take their effect from it. Irony is the key to validating the poem because a test of any statement grows from the context – validating a statement demands examining the statement in the context of the poem and determining whether it is appropriate to that context.^[8] Paradox, however, is essential to the structure and being of the poem. In The Well Wrought Urn Brooks shows that paradox was so essential to poetic meaning that paradox was almost identical to poetry. According to fellow New Critic Leroy Searle, Brooks’ use of paradox emphasized the indeterminate lines between form and content. “The form of the poem uniquely embodies its meaning” and the language of the poem “effects the reconciliation of opposites or contraries.” While irony functions within the poem, paradox often refers to the meaning and structure of the poem and is thus inclusive of irony.^[9]. This existence of opposites or contraries and the reconciliation thereof is poetry and the meaning of the poem.

Criticism

R.S. Crane, in his essay "The Critical Monism of Cleanth Brooks," argues strongly against Brooks’ centrality of paradox. For one, Brooks believes that the very structure of poetry is paradox, and ignores the other subtleties of imagination and power that poets bring to their poems. Brooks simply believed that “’imagination’ reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities.”^[10] Brooks, in leaning on the crutch of paradox, only discusses the truth which poetry can reveal, and speaks nothing about the pleasure it can give. (231) Also, by defining poetry as uniquely having a structure of paradox, Brooks ignores the power of paradox in everyday conversation and discourse, including scientific discourse, which Brooks claimed was opposed to poetry. Crane claims that, using Brooks’ definition of poetry, the most powerful paradoxical poem in modern history is Einstein’s formula E = mc², which is a profound paradox in that matter and energy are the same thing. The argument for the centrality of paradox (and irony) becomes a reductio ad absurdum and is therefore void (or at least ineffective) for literary analysis.

References

1. ^ Rescher, Nicholas. Paradoxes: Their Roots, Range, and Resolution. Open Court: Chicago, 2001. 2. ^ ibid. 3. ^ Literary Theory: An Anthology, 2nd Ed., Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. 4. ^ Brooks, Cleanth. . New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947. 5. ^ ibid. 6. ^ Brooks, Cleanth. “Irony as a Principle of Structure.” In Critical Theory Since Plato, edited by Hazard Adams. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971. 7. ^ Crane, R.S. “Cleanth Brooks; Or, The Bankruptcy of Critical Monism.” In Modern Philology, Vol. 45, No. 4 (May 1948) pp 226-245. 8. ^ Brooks, "Irony as a Principle of Structure." 9. ^ Searle, Leroy. “New Criticism.” In The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, 2nd edition. Edited by Michael Groden, Martin Kreiswirth, and Imre Szeman. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. 10. ^ Crane.

Literature literally "acquaintance with letters" (from Latin littera letter) as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary, or works of art, which in Western culture are mainly prose, both fiction and non-fiction, drama and poetry. ..... Click the link for more information.

A literary technique or literary device may be used in works of literature in order to produce a specific effect on the reader.

Elements of fiction

Literary techniques are important aspects of an author's style, which is one of the five elements of fiction ..... Click the link for more information.

This article or section may contain a proseline.

Please help [ convert this timeline] into prose or, if necessary, a . ()

Oscar Wilde Born: September 16 1854(1854--) ..... Click the link for more information.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton Born: 29 May 1874(1874--) London, England ¹ Died: 14 May 1936 (aged 62) Beaconsfield Occupation: Journalist, Novelist ..... Click the link for more information.

François Rabelais (c. 1494 - April 9, 1553) was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor and humanist. He is regarded as an avant-garde writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, dirty jokes and bawdy songs. ..... Click the link for more information.

Cervantes portrait of Cervantes^[a] by Juan Martínez de Jáuregui y Aguilar (c. 1600), reportedly apocryphal Born: September 29 1547(1547--) ..... Click the link for more information.

Sterne may mean

• Jaques Sterne, uncle of Laurence Sterne, and Precentor of York Minster
• Laurence Sterne (1716 - 1768), an Irish-born English novelist and an Anglican clergyman

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Jorge Luis Borges Born: July 24 1899(1899--) Buenos Aires, Argentina Died: May 14 1986 (aged 88) Geneva, Switzerland Occupation: writer, poet, critic, librarian ..... Click the link for more information.

Cleanth Brooks (October 16, 1906 - May 10, 1994) was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education. ..... Click the link for more information.

New Criticism was the dominant trend in English and American literary criticism of the mid twentieth century, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Its adherents were emphatic in their advocacy of close reading and attention to texts themselves, and their rejection of criticism based ..... Click the link for more information.

In logic, a contradiction consists of a logical incompatibility between two or more propositions. It occurs when the propositions, taken together, yield two conclusions which form the logical inversions of each other. ..... Click the link for more information.

For the death metal band, see Hypocrisy (band).

Hypocrisy is the act of condemning or calling for the condemnation of another person when the critic is guilty of the act for which he demands that the accused be condemned. ..... Click the link for more information.

William Wordsworth Born: March 7 1770(1770--) Cockermouth, England Died: March 23 1850 (aged 80) Ambleside, England Occupation: Poet Literary movement: Romanticism ..... Click the link for more information.

William Wordsworth Born: March 7 1770(1770--) Cockermouth, England Died: March 23 1850 (aged 80) Ambleside, England Occupation: Poet Literary movement: Romanticism ..... Click the link for more information.

London Canary Wharf is the centre of London's modern office towers London shown within England Coordinates: Sovereign state United Kingdom Constituent country England ..... Click the link for more information.

Cleanth Brooks (October 16, 1906 - May 10, 1994) was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education. ..... Click the link for more information.

John Donne John Donne Born: 1572 London, England Died: March 12 1631 Occupation: Poet Nationality: English Genres: Satire, Love poetry, Elegy Subjects: Love, Sexuality, Religion, Death Literary movement: Metaphysical Poetry ..... Click the link for more information.

The Canonization is a poem written by metaphysical poet John Donne. First published in 1633, the poem exemplifies Donne's wit and irony^[1]. It is addressed to one friend from another, but concerns itself with the complexities of romantic love. ..... Click the link for more information.

Metaphor (from the Greek: metapherin) is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In the simplest case, this takes the form: "The [first subject] is a [second subject]. ..... Click the link for more information.

William Shakespeare The Chandos portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portrait Gallery, London. Born: April 1564 (exact date unknown) Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England Died: 23 March 1616 Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England ..... Click the link for more information.

Romeo and Juliet Author William Shakespeare Country United Kingdom Language Unstandardised English Genre(s) Tragedy Publisher Publication date ..... Click the link for more information.

Intentional fallacy, in literary criticism, addresses the assumption that the meaning intended by the author of a literary work is of primary importance. By characterizing this assumption as a "fallacy," a critic suggests that the author's intention is not important. ..... Click the link for more information.

Affective fallacy is a term from literary criticism used to refer to the supposed error of judging or evaluating a text on the basis of its emotional effects on a reader. The term was coined by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley as a principle of New Criticism. ..... Click the link for more information.

Cleanth Brooks (October 16, 1906 - May 10, 1994) was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education. ..... Click the link for more information.

A double entendre is a figure of speech similar to the pun, in which a spoken phrase can be understood in either of two ways. This can be as simple as a phrase which has two mutually exclusive meanings, and is thus a clever play on words. ..... Click the link for more information.

Cleanth Brooks (October 16, 1906 - May 10, 1994) was an influential American literary critic and professor. He is best known for his contributions to New Criticism in the mid-twentieth century and for revolutionizing the teaching of poetry in American higher education. ..... Click the link for more information.

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