SOURCE: "Apoligia Pro Vita Litteraria," in The South Carolina Review, Vol. 27, Nos. 1 & 2, Fall 1994–Spring 1995, p. 375.

In the following review, Rollin praises Brooks's body of work and its impact on criticism.

This will be a personal kind of review. The news of Cleanth Brooks's death came while I was reading his book. I was surprised as well as saddened because I had seen him recently at two different professional meetings, looking fit and still wonderfully full of zest for the life of letters. The announcement of his passing reminded me how much my own life of letters owed to him. My undergraduate professors (I later came to understand) were New Critics, and their focus on the text not only taught me how to read but fired me with renewed enthusiasm for literature itself. (Years later, as a brand new assistant prof, and anxious to learn the trade, I asked...