paper no. 109
Assignment : Paper no :109
Literature Theory &Criticism and Indian Aesthetics.
∆ Personal Information:
Name : Maya Batiya
Roll no : 18
Enrollment no :5108230003
Course : M.A.sem-2
Paper no :109
Paper code :22402
Paper name : Literature Theory &Criticism and Indian Aesthetics.
Topic : I. A. Richards” The Practical Criticism”.
Submitted : Smt.S.B.Gardi, Department of English MKBU.
Email:mayajbatiya2003@gmail.com
Q. I. A. Richards “The practical Criticism”
∆ Introduction :
The technique of Practical Criticism and the name originates in I.A. Richards’ book Practical Criticism (1929), in which he described an experiment wherein undergraduate students of English were given unfamiliar poems, and were asked to read and to submit written comments upon them. With these student documentations or ‘protocols’, Richards theorized a model of literary criticism that would do two things. First, it would treat literary texts as behaviours, as external phenomena without reference to internal mental states. Second, it would record how the stimuli of poems affected readers physiologically and use these results to ground analyses of meaning and form. Practical Criticism, as conceived by Richards, pays attention to very small units of language in short lyric poems in a way that leads directly to the New Critics’ emphasis on ‘the poem in itself’, and their associated rejection of the analysis of any kind of historical or political context.
∆ About I. A. Richards :
I.A. Richards (born Feb. 26, 1893, Sandbach, Cheshire, Eng.—died Sept. 7, 1979, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire) was an English critic, poet, and teacher who was highly influential in developing a new way of reading poetry that led to the New Criticism and that also influenced some forms of reader-response criticism.
∆ Notable Works:
• Practical Criticism: A Study of Literary Judgment
• Principles of literary criticism
• The Meaning of Meaning
• The Philosophy of rhetoric
• Coleridge on imagination
∆ Practical Criticism :
Richards's work "Practical Criticism" detailed the methods and findings of the Practical Criticism movement. By anonymizing responses, Richards sought to understand the reader's immediate reactions to literature and advocated for a scientific approach to literary analysis.
I have set three aims before me, in constructing this book. First, to introduce a new kind of documentation to those who are interested in the contemporary state of culture … Secondly, to provide a new technique for those who wish to discover for themselves what they think and feel about poetry (and cognate matters) and why they should like or dislike it. Thirdly, to prepare the way for educational methods more efficient than those we use now in developing discrimination and the power to understand what we hear and read.
– I. A. Richards, Practical Criticism
Few "educational methods" which have had as their central purpose the development of efficiency in reading for meaning have appeared since 1929. Few comprehensive models of the total read- ing process have appeared and those which we have had are under reconsideration. Although most teachers will admit that there are intimate connections between the process of writing and that of reading, there is ample evidence that these connections are not usually exploited pedagogically.
Richards' findings still have many implications for us. He found that readers have certain difficulties in comprehending. Al- though his study was of the reading of poetry, it seems that many of the difficulties in reading apply to forms other than poetry.
The objective of Richards’ experiment was to encourage students to concentrate on ‘the words on the page’, rather than relying on preconceived ideas about a text. Richards classified the student-responses into the following categories: inability to understand the author’s meaning – sense, feeling, tone and intention; problems with the capacity to visualize and therefore understand imagery; dependence on stock or sentimental response; confusion when a reader’s beliefs conflict with those in a poem; being misled by personal associations: confusion resulting from a reliance on critical preconception and technical prejudgments. For Richards, the chief cause of these “ill-appropriate, stereotyped reactions is withdrawal from experience”. The students did not read the poem, but understood the poem based on what others had told them. Following this, Practical Criticism may be defined as a close textual, verbal analysis of a work of art. The study is pragmatic and empirical, and makes literary criticism factual and scientific analysis.
∆ Theoretical framework of Practical Criticism
Richards lists three aims for Practical Criticism:
to introduce a new kind of documentation to those who are interested in the contemporary state culture whether as critics, as philosophers, as teachers, as psychologists, or merely as curious persons.
to provide a new technique for those who wish to discover for themselves what they think and feel about poetry, and why should like or dislike it to prepare way for educational methods more efficient than those who use now in developing discrimination and the power to understand what we hear and read.
The heart of Richards’ framework of Practical Criticism is the idea that poetry is essentially a private experience. Practical Criticism as a technique of reading appears in Richards’ earlier work Principles of Literary Criticism (1924). Richards’ practical criticism is an exercise that is presupposed on the working of a mind as part of the nervous system, as part of impulses. In Principles of Literary Criticism, Richards defines a poet is one who can order his experiences and connect his disconnected impulses into “a single ordered response”. Language has to be used in a special “emotive” way so that the poet’s experiences can be stimulated in the mind of the reader. Reading a poem, then, is a process that will culminate in stimulating “equilibrium of opposed impulses”. There is no need of any context. The words of the poem ought to produce these impulses in the mind of the reader. The reader must understand the meaning based on the immediate impulses produced.
Four Kinds of Meaning - I. A Richards
I. A. Richards, an influential literary critic and educator, introduced the concept of the "Four Kinds of Meaning" in his work "Practical Criticism" (1929). These four kinds of meaning help readers and critics engage more deeply with a text by considering various layers of significance. Richards identified the following four types of meaning:
1)Sense Meaning:
Sense meaning refers to the immediate and direct understanding of the words and phrases in a text. It involves grasping the literal or denotative meaning of the words, without delving into interpretation or analysis.
2) Feeling Meaning:
Feeling meaning is concerned with the emotional or affective impact of the words on the reader. It involves understanding the emotional tone, mood, or atmosphere created by the language used in the text.
3) Tone Meaning:
Tone meaning focuses on the author's attitude or tone toward the subject matter. It involves interpreting the writer's emotional stance, whether it be ironic, serious, playful, or any other emotional nuance conveyed through the text.
4) Intentional Meaning:
Intentional meaning relates to the author's purpose or intention in writing the text. It involves considering what the author aims to communicate, the goals of the writing, and the author's perspective on the subject matter.
∆ Two Uses of Language
Richards views the poem as a response to a stimulus, which is located inthe reader. But this subjectivism leads him to the conclusion that all poetic language is ambiguous, plurisignant, open to different meaningsand so on. In this context, as David Daiches says, Richards investigateswhat imaginative literature is, how it employs language, how its use oflanguage differs from the scientific use of language and what is itsspecial functi
on and value. Richards in his “Principles of LiteraryCriticism” expounded a theory of language, and distinguished between
the two uses of language the referential or scientific, and the emotive.A statement may be used for the sake of reference, which may beverified as true or false. This is the scientific use of language. But itmay also be used for the sake of the effects in emotions and attitudes produced by the reference. This is the emotive or poetic use of language.The poet uses words emotively for the purpose of evoking emotions and attitudes considered valuable by him. For instance, the word ‘fire’ has only one definite scientific reference to a fact in the real world. But when poetry uses it in a phrase such as ‘heart on fire’ the word evokes an emotion that of excitement. While science makes statements, poetrymakes pseudo-statements that cannot be empirically tested and provedtrue or false. A statement is justified by its truth or its correspondencewith the fact it points to. On the other hand, the pseudo statement of poetry is justified in its effect of releasing or organizing our impulses or attitudes. Richards says, “The statements in poetry are there as a meansto manipulation and expression of feelings and attitudes.”
Poetrycommunicates feelings and emotions. Hence, poetic truth is differentfrom scientific truth. It is a matter of emotional belief rather thanintellectual belief. Poetry cannot be expected to provide us withknowledge, nor is there any intellectual doctrine in poetry. Poetry speaksnot to the mind but to the impulses. Its speech, literal of figurative,logical or illogical is faithful to its experience as long as it evokes asimilar experience in the reader. Thus, a poem, as Richards defines it, isa class of experiences ‘composed of all experiences, occasioned by thewords’ which are similar to ‘the original experience of the poet.’
∆ Conclusion :
Richards believed that considering these four kinds of meaning would enrich the reader's understanding and appreciation of a literary work. This approach encourages a holistic analysis that goes beyond a simple literal interpretation and takes into account the emotional, tonal, and intentional dimensions of a text.
Thank you.. ☺🍁🍂
Words :1593
Images : 3
References :
“I.A. Richards.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 4 Apr. 2024, www.britannica.com/biography/I-A-Richards
Literary criticism and theory. I A Richards and Practical Criticism – Literary Criticism and Theory. (n.d.). https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/engp10/chapter/i-a-richards-and-practical-criticism/
Scribd. (n.d.-a). Four kinds of meaning - i. A Richards. Scribd. https://www.scribd.com/document/693836020/Four-Kinds-of-Meaning-I-A-Richards
Scribd. (n.d.-b). Practical criticism. Scribd. https://www.scribd.com/document/428724214/Practical-Criticism
