Cleanth Brooks

Brooks, Cleanth

(1906–  ) literary critic; born in Murray, Ky. A long-time Yale professor (1946–75), he was the leading New Critic of the 1940s–1950s, recognized for his critical acuity in close readings of modern literature in The Well Wrought Urn (1947) and other essays. He published important works on Milton, Thomas Percy and William Faulkner.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.