What is the paradox in the poem you are analyzing? How does that paradox contribute to the overall meaning of the poem? Why is it important/helpful/necessary/beneficial to express this meaning through paradox? Or, to use Brooks’s language: why is the paradox in the poem you’re looking at “the only way by which the poet could say what [he/or she] says”? Why would saying what the poet says without paradox “enfeeble and distort what is to be said”?

Thesis paradox in poems

The following were the instructions to start the essay:

HOW DOES THE CONCEPT OF PARADOX CONTRIBUTE TO THE MEANING OF ONE OF THE POEMS WE READ IN THIS MODULE (excluding “The Canonization,” which Brooks has already analyzed).

Use Cleanth Brooks’s concept of paradox to support your thesis. What is the paradox in the poem you are analyzing? How does that paradox contribute to the overall meaning of the poem? Why is it important/helpful/necessary/beneficial to express this meaning through paradox? Or, to use Brooks’s language: why is the paradox in the poem you’re looking at “the only way by which the poet could say what [he/or she] says” (3)? Why would saying what the poet says without paradox “enfeeble and distort what is to be said” (4)?

Include at least one quote from the Brooks essay and at least one quote from the poem you are analyzing.
Do not include any definitions of paradox that come from a dictionary. You are encouraged to define your terms, but your definition of paradox should come from the Brooks essay or from an essay about Brooks (the Nasrullah Mambrol essay, for example).