New Criticism Texts - The Well Wrought Urn by Cleanth Brooks (1947)

One of Brooks's big arguments in The Well Wrought Urn is that you can't summarize (or paraphrase) a poem and retain its meaning. The poem says something in a certain way for a reason. And if you try to sum it up or explain what "happens" in it, then you lose the very thing that makes the poem a poem.

Do you agree with Brooks that a poem's content is all wrapped up in its form? Do you think it's equally true of long epic poems like The Odyssey and short lyrics like Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind"?

Let's say you wanted to tell a friend about "Tintern Abbey." Do you need to just give them the poem, or can you explain it to them in some other way that actually captures something of the poem's essence?