Fundamentals of Good Writing A HANDBOOK OF MODERN RHETORIC Cleanth Brooks Robert Perm Warren Harcourt, Brace and Company New York COPYRIGHT, 1949, I95O, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. TO DAVID M. CLAY CONTENTS Introduction THE MAIN CONSIDERATIONS 1 THE MOTIVATION OF THE WRITER 3 THE NATURE OF THE READER 5 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN READER AND WRITER 5 THE FUSION OF MEDIUM, SUBJECT AND OCCASION 6 YOUR BACKGROUND FOR SUCCESSFUL WRITING 7 1. SOME GENERAL PROBLEMS FINDING A TRUE SUBJECT 11 UNITY 13 COHERENCE 15 EMPHASIS 19 THE MAIN DIVISIONS OF A DISCOURSE 23 PROPORTIONING THE MAIN DIVISIONS 25 1HE OUTLINE 26 2. THE KINDS OF DISCOURSE THE MAIN INTENTION 29 THE FOUR KINDS OF DISCOURSE 30 MIXTURE OF THE KINDS OF DISCOURSE 30 OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE DISCOURSE 31 x CONTENTS 3. EXPOSITION INTEREST 38 THE METHODS OF EXPOSITION 41 IDENTIFICATION 41 EXPOSITORY DESCRIPTION TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION 42 THE RELATION BETWEEN THE TECHNICAL-SUGGESTIVE DISTINCTION AND THE OBJECTIVE-SUBJECTIVE DISTINCTION 53 THE USES OF TECHNICAL AND SUGGESTIVE DESCRIPTION 55 EXPOSITORY NARRATION 57 ILLUSTRATION 57 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST 61 CLASSIFICATION AND DIVISION 67 DEFINITION 83 EXTENDED DEFINITION 91 ANALYSIS THE TWO KINDS 98 ANALYSIS AND STRUCTURE 99 ANALYSIS RELATION AMONG PARTS 100 ANALYSIS AND EXPOSITORY DESCRIPTION 101 EXPOSITORY METHODS AND THEIR USES 119 SUMMARY 120 4. ARGUMENT THE APPEAL OF ARGUMENT 125 ARGUMENT AND CONFLICT 125 ARGUMENT AND THE UNDERSTANDING 127 WHAT ARGUMENT IS ABOUT 128 THE PROPOSITION TWO KINDS 131 THE STATEMENT OF THE PROPOSITION 131 HISTORY OF THE QUESTION 134 ISSUES 135 PROPOSITIONS OFFACT 146 EVIDENCE 148 CONTENTS xi KINDS OF EVIDENCE FACT AND OPINION 148 REASONING 154 INDUCTION GENERALIZATION 155 DEDUCTION 159 FALLACIES 167 FALLACIES AND REFUTATION 170 THE IMPLIED SYLLOGISM 170 EXTENDED ARGUMENT THE BRIEF 172 ORDER OF THE BRIEF AND ORDER OF THE ARGUMENT 183 PERSUASION 183 SUMMARY 189 5. DESCRIPTION RELATION OF SUGGESTIVE DESCRIPTION TO OTHER KINDS OF DISCOURSE 195 THE DOMINANT IMPRESSION 200 PATTERN AND TEXTURE IN DESCRIPTION 200 TEXTURE SELECTION IN DESCRIPTION 211 DESCRIPTION OF FEELINGS AND STATES OF MIND 220 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN THE DESCRIPTION OF FEELINGS AND STATES OF MIND 223 CHOICE OF WORDS IN THE TEXTURE OF DESCRIPTION 226 SUMMARY 229 6. NARRATION MOVEMENT 237 TIME 238 MEANING 239 NARRATIVE AND NARRATION 240 NARRATION AND THE OTHER KINDS OF DISCOURSE 242 PATTERN IN NARRATION 250 EXAMPLES OF NARRATIVE PATTERN 255 PROPORTION 262 xii CONTENTS TEXTURE AND SELECTION 264 POINT OF VIEW 267 SCALE 273 DIALOGUE 275 CHARACTERIZATION 281 SUMMARY 285 7. THE PARAGRAPH THE PARAGRAPH AS A CONVENIENCE TO THE READER 290 THE PARAGRAPH AS A UNIT OF THOUGHT 291 THE STRUCTURE OF THE PARAGRAPH 292 SOME TYPICAL STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLES 294 LINKING PARAGRAPHS TOGETHER 299 USE OF THE PARAGRAPH TO INDICATE DIALOGUE 302 SUMMARY 302 8. THE SENTENCE RHETORIC AND GRAMMAR 304 THE FIXED WORD ORDER OF THE NORMAL SENTENCE 307 POSITION OF THE MODIFIERS 311 GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE 318 SENTENCE LENGTH AND SENTENCE VARIATION 323 SUMMARY 327 9. STYLE GENERAL DEFINITION OF STYLE 329 THREE ASPECTS OF LITERARY STYLE 330 STYLE AS AN INTERPLAY OF ELEMENTS 331 THE PLAN OF THE FOLLOWING CHAPTERS ON STYLE 332 10. DICTION DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION 335 LANGUAGE GROWTH BY EXTENSION OFMEANING 342 CONTENTS xiii THE COMPANY A WORD KEEPS COLLOQUIAL, INFORMAL, AND FORMAL 348 HOW CONNOTATIONS CONTROL MEANINGS 349 WORN-OUT WORDS AND CLICHES 353 SUMMARY 359 11. METAPHOR METAPHOR DEFINED 361 IMPORTANCE OF METAPHOR IN EVERYDAY LANGUAGE 362 THE FUNCTION OF METAPHOR 371 METAPHOR AS ESSENTIAL STATEMENT 374 WHAT MAKES A GOOD METAPHOR 378 METAPHOR AND SYMBOL 385 METAPHOR AND THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION 386 SUMMARY 388 12...

There is no easy way to learn to write', is the opening line of this clear and effective guide for writers wishing to learn the basics of writing whether it is fiction, poetry, news articles or essays. This book including answers to some general problems faced by prospective writers, a section on the kinds of discourse you should wish to achieve and on the exposition. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Connors provides a history of composition and its pedagogical approaches to form, genre, and correctness. He shows where many of the today's practices and assumptions about writing come from, and he translates what our techniques and theories of teaching have said over time about our attitudes toward students, language and life. Connors locates the beginning of a new rhetorical tradition in the mid-nineteenth century, and from there, he discusses the theoretical and pedagogical innovations of the last two centuries as the result of historical forces, social needs, and cultural shifts. This important book proves that American composition-rhetoric is a genuine, rhetorical tradition with its own evolving theria and praxis. As such it is an essential reference for all teachers of English and students of American education.

"At long last, a discussion of plagiarism that doesn't stop at 'Don't do it or else,' but does full justice to the intellectual interest of the topic!" ---Gerald Graff, author of Clueless in Academe and 2008 President, Modern Language Association This collection is a timely intervention in national debates about what constitutes original or plagiarized writing in the digital age. Somewhat ironically, the Internet makes it both easier to copy and easier to detect copying. The essays in this volume explore the complex issues of originality, imitation, and plagiarism, particularly as they concern students, scholars, professional writers, and readers, while also addressing a range of related issues, including copyright conventions and the ownership of original work, the appropriate dissemination of innovative ideas, and the authority and role of the writer/author. Throughout these essays, the contributors grapple with their desire to encourage and maintain free access to copyrighted material for noncommercial purposes while also respecting the reasonable desires of authors to maintain control over their own work. Both novice and experienced teachers of writing will learn from the contributors' practical suggestions about how to fashion unique assignments, teach about proper attribution, and increase students' involvement in their own writing. This is an anthology for anyone interested in how scholars and students can navigate the sea of intellectual information that characterizes the digital/information age. "Eisner and Vicinus have put together an impressive cast of contributors who cut through the war on plagiarism to examine key specificities that often get blurred by the rhetoric of slogans. It will be required reading not only for those concerned with plagiarism, but for the many more who think about what it means to be an author, a student, a scientist, or anyone who negotiates and renegotiates the meaning of originality and imitation in collaborative and information-intensive settings." ---Mario Biagioli, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University, and coeditor of Scientific Authorship: Credit and Intellectual Property in Science "This is an important collection that addresses issues of great significance to teachers, to students, and to scholars across several disciplines. . . . These essays tackle their topics head-on in ways that are both accessible and provocative." ---Andrea Lunsford, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of English, Claude and Louise Rosenberg Jr. Fellow, and Director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University and coauthor of Singular Texts/Plural Authors: Perspectives on Collaborative Writing digitalculturebooks is an imprint of the University of Michigan Press and the Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan Library dedicated to publishing innovative and accessible work exploring new media and their impact on society, culture, and scholarly communication. Visit the website at www.digitalculture.org.

Seeks to demonstrate that the study of English poetry is enriched by the insights of modern linguistic analysis, and that linguistic and critical disciplines are not separate but complementary. Examining a wide range of poetry, Professor Leech considers many aspects of poetic style, including the language of past and present, creative language, poetic licence, repetition, sound, metre, context and ambiguity.

This new edition of Southern Writers assumes its distinguished predecessor's place as the essential reference on literary artists of the American South. Broadly expanded and thoroughly revised, it boasts 604 entries-nearly double the earlier edition's-written by 264 scholars. For every figure major and minor, from the venerable and canonical to the fresh and innovative, a biographical sketch and chronological list of published works provide comprehensive, concise, up-to-date information. Here in one convenient source are the South's novelists and short story writers, poets and dramatists, memoirists and essayists, journalists, scholars, and biographers from the colonial period to the twenty-first century. What constitutes a "southern writer" is always a matter for debate. Editors Joseph M. Flora and Amber Vogel have used a generous definition that turns on having a significant connection to the region, in either a personal or literary sense. New to this volume are younger writers who have emerged in the quarter century since the dictionary's original publication, as well as older talents previously unknown or unacknowledged. For almost every writer found in the previous edition, a new biography has been commissioned. Drawn from the very best minds on southern literature and covering the full spectrum of its practitioners, Southern Writers is an indispensable reference book for anyone intrigued by the subject.

A reference guide to the work of 115 modern British and American critics.

During a career that spanned sixty years, Cleanth Brooks was involved in most of the major controversies facing the humanities from the 1930s until his death in 1994. He was arguably the most important American literary critic of the mid-twentieth century. Because it is impossible to understand modern literary criticism apart from Cleanth Brooks, or Cleanth Brooks apart from modern literary criticism, Mark Royden Winchell gives us not only an account of one man's influence but also a survey of literary criticism in twentieth-century America. More than any other individual, Brooks helped steer literary study away from historical and philological scholarship by emphasizing the autonomy of the text. He applied the methods of what came to be called the New Criticism, not only to the modernist works for which these methods were created, but to the entire canon of English poetry, from John Donne to William Butler Yeats. In his many critical books, especially The Well Wrought Urn and the textbooks he edited with Robert Penn Warren and others, Brooks taught several generations of students how to read literature without prejudice or preconception.