New Criticism
The poem was criticized by Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren in their textbook "Understanding Poetry" first published in 1938. Brooks and Warren were two of the major contributors to the New Criticism movement. New Criticism proponents analyzed poetry on its aesthetic formulae and excluded reader's response, the author's intention, historical and cultural contexts, and moralistic bias from their analysis. They attributed the popularity of "Trees" largely to its religious appeal and believed it was a "stock response that has nothing to do, as such, with poetry", adding: