On Cleanth Brooks and formalism

Why do we consider form such an immovable, illuminating thing? Why do critics consider it the unshakable alternative to Wimsatt's and Beardsley's dreaded fallacies? Why do we expect that structure guarantees Truth, and consider historical/biographical discussions flimsy wanderings yielding relativism?

Yesterday, in a Victorian literature class, we discussed __'s use of the heroic couplet in his poem ___. We studied the heroic couplet as form, form which derives meaning from its situated, historical function. That is, it connotes heroism because, historically, poets have used it for epic poems. And we studied the heroic couplet as if its use in epic poetry was somehow inherent to the couplet. But what if what we know as the "heroic couplet" had been historically employed not in epic poems but in ballads and odes? What if its historical function had been

Here I echo Foucault in saying that language is ambiguous, and not as dependable as formalists claim, because the meanings of the words - and, therefore, the meanings of their structures - are neither singular nor universally consistent, but dependent upon cultural and historical contexts.

Likewise, Cixous asserts that personal identities are culturally and discursively structured because people interact as situated subjects (and, might I add), situated subjects dealing with situated experiences. Such situatedness makes it impossible for the poem to be anything less than situated.