Cleanth brooks heresy of paraphrase

"The Heresy of Paraphrase" is the name of the paradox where it is impossible to paraphrase a poem because paraphrasing a poem removes its form, which is an integral part of its meaning.

Cleanth brooks heresy of paraphrase

Its name comes from a chapter by the same name in Cleanth Brooks's book The Well-Wrought Urn. Critics disagree about if aspects of sound and form can be paraphrased, and agree that the exact aesthetic beauty of a poem cannot be replicated in paraphrase or translation.

Origin

Cleanth Brooks identifies the heresy of paraphrase in the eponymous chapter from The Well Wrought Urn, a work of the New Criticism.^[1][2][3] Brooks argues that meaning in poetry is irreducible, because "a true poem is...an experience rather than any mere statement about experience or any mere abstraction from experience."^[1]: 213 Since the form of a poem is an important part of its meaning, that the process of paraphrasing it affects