Cleanth Brooks - Biographical Information - The Vanderbilt Years

The Vanderbilt Years

During his studies at Vanderbilt, he met literary critics and future collaborators Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, Andrew Lytle, and Donald Davidson (Singh 1991). Studying with Ransom and Warren, Brooks became involved in two significant literary movements: the Southern Agrarians and the Fugitives (Singh 1991). Brooks admitted to reading the Southern Agrarian manifesto, I’ll Take My Stand (1930) “over and over” (qtd. in Leitch 2001). While he never argued for the movement’s conservative Southern traditions, he “learned a great deal” (qtd. in Leitch 2001) and found the Agrarian position valuable and “unobjectionable” (qtd. in Leitch 2001): “They asked that we consider what the good life is or ought to be” (qtd. in Leitch 2001).

The Fugitive Movement similarly influenced Brooks’ approach to criticism. The Fugitives, a group of Southern poets consisting of such influential writers as John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Donald Davidson, and Robert Penn Warren, met Saturday evenings to read and discuss poetry written by members of the group (Singh 1991). The discussion was based on intensive readings and included considerations of a poem’s form, structure, meter, rhyme scheme, and imagery (Singh 1991). This close reading formed the foundation on which the New Critical movement was based and helped shape Brooks’ approach to criticism (Singh 1991).