The Language of Paradox (Chapter 9)by Cleanth Brooks (1956):

 According to Brooks, Wordsworth’s sonnet, Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, is one of the most successful poems of the poet. The true potential of the poem lies in the paradoxical situation designed by the poet, where the mechanical London is not only considered a marvel of man’s creation but also assimilated as an aspect of nature. The spectacle of mechanical urban life elicits the expression of ‘awed surprise’ from the poet. The beauty of the rising sun, the river, the smokeless air, and other objects of nature have been enhanced by the presence of artificial towers, domes, theatres, and temples. It is also interesting to note that the poet has imparted the organic life of nature to the mechanical and inanimate objects of the city when he writes-‘Dear God! The very houses seem asleep.’ Wordsworth had mastered the art of creating a paradoxical situation in his poems, as he himself mentioned in the second edition of his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, that the purpose of a poet is to choose an ordinary object and to bestow it with an unusual aspect.Coleridge’s remark also substantiates the fact, as he says, that Wordsworth had the capability of giving the charms of novelty to the things of everyday, and to evince that ‘ common is  really uncommon and the prosaic was really poetic’

To perceive the familiar world in a new light was the reason behind the use of paradoxes in poems by the neo-classical poets, like Alexander pope’s exemplary use of paradoxes in Essay on Man. Though paradox involves irony, in many cases, irony and wonder have been merged like in the lyrics of Blake, Coleridge, and Gray. A poet’s language plays a crucial role in creating a paradoxical situation. A poet intentionally uses, such language, which is full of connotations and connotations are as important as denotations. In this context, the poet draws reference from T.S. Eliot’s suggestion that words are arranged in new and sudden combination of poetry. He also refers to I.A. Richards assumption that subtler states of emotion demand metaphor for their expression. According to Brooks, Shakespeare was the master of this game of paradoxes. In Shakespeare’s writings, the attack that came was always indirect, never direct. Brooks again takes an example from John Donne’s metaphysical poem, The Canonization. In this poem, he also used secondary paradoxes. Simultaneously, he uses the dual as well as the singular meaning of love to illustrate the complicated idea of platonic and secular love. Likewise, the double meaning of the concept of death has been used in this metaphysical poem.

Although irony and paradoxes are often conflated in poetry, they are independent poetic devices. Irony is evident in the exchange of a statement by the context. The paradox is, on the contrary, a kind of quality that involves the reconciliation of the opposites.