The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry by Cleanth Brooks
Published 1947 · 270 pages · 85,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry to read?
The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry scores 56 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 58 out of 100
- Accessible critical prose; introduces New Critical terms with clear explanation.
- Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
- Abstraction: 65 out of 100
- Theoretical claims about poetic language grounded throughout in specific readings.
- Information density: 70 out of 100
- Rich with close reading and argument; efficiently written.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Direct critical argument; the subject is irony and paradox but the method is analytical.
- Symbolic density: 16 out of 100
- Critical attentiveness to figurative language infuses the prose itself.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- The analysis of irony as poetic structure involves a degree of critical self-consciousness.
- Resolution withholding: 15 out of 100
- Each poem-chapter resolves its argument; Brooks is a confident resolver.
- Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
- Series of poem-by-poem analyses framed by theoretical chapters.
How The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry is regarded
The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry holds a literary regard score of 85 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.