Ivor
Armstrong Richards (26 February 1893 – 7 September 1979), known as I.
A. Richards, was an English educator, literary
critic, and rhetorician whose work contributed to the foundations of
the New Criticism, a formalist movement in literary
theory, which emphasized the close reading of
a literary text, especially poetry, in an effort to discover how a work of literature
functions as a self-contained, self-referential æsthetic
object.
Richards' intellectual contributions
to the establishment of the literary methodology of the New Criticism are
presented in the books The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of
Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism (1923),
by C. K. Ogden and
I. A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism (1926), Practical
Criticism (1929), and The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936).
A. Richards believes that sometimes the impulses of man
respond to a situation in such an organised way that the mind has a unique
experience. Poetry is the representation of this experience, this organised and
happy play of impulses and a true reader ought to feel the same in his own
self. The poet, says Richards, does not tell the literal truth about the real
world, but suggests attitudes which represent a proper balance of the nervous
system and which are absorbed by the properly qualified reader.
In his Science and Poetry (1926), Richards
says that much labour has been done to explain the high place of poetry in
human affairs, with, on the whole, few satisfactory or convincing results. The
reason is that both a passionate knowledge of poetry and a capacity for
dispassionate psychological analysis are required if poetry is to be properly
understood and interpreted.
To understand the real nature of poetry, we have to
understand clearly "how the mind works in an experience, and what sort of
stream of events the experience is." There are conflicting instincts
and desires, or appetencies,as he calls them, in the human mind. Man is
often between conflicting pulls from different directions and consequently he
suffers from mental uneasiness. The main function of art is
to enable human mind to organize itself more quickly and completely
than it could do otherwise. In short, art (poetry) is a means whereby we can
gain emotional balance, mental equilibrium, peace and rest.
Illustrating his point by an image of a magnetic compass, I.
A. Richards says that the systematization of impulses is necessary for the
poise and balance. Emotions make experiences, and emotions are better realized
and expressed through poetry. The poet does all this with the help of words.
Misunderstanding and under-estimation of poetry is mainly due to over
estimation of the thought in it. "It is never what a poem says which
matters, but what it is. The poet is not writing as a
scientist. He uses these words because the interest which the situation calls
into play combine to bring them, just in this form, into
his consciousness as a means of ordering, controlling, and
consolidating the whole experience."
Q. 298. What, according to I. A. Richards, is the
value of
poetry? (Rohlikhand 1993, 1996)
poetry? (Rohlikhand 1993, 1996)
Ans. Richards defines the poem as "the artist's
experience." He examines poetry as a stimulus-response proposition. The
poem can be a communication in the broad sense that it communicates an
experience. Some experience must naturally be good and some bad. It is only the
good ones that can be said to be valuable. What are they like. It has
frequently been emphasized by Richards that an experience results from theplay
of impulses. The mind is ever engaged in the unconscious process of reconciling
their conflicting claims in such a way that success is obtained for the greater
number or mass of them, for the most important and the weightiest set. In the
very exercise of this choice the mind unconsciously decided which
impulses are valuable for it and should therefore be satisfied U the full, and
which not and should therefore be suppressed.
In order to answer the questions—"Of what use is
poetry?" "Why and how is it valuable?"
Richards develops a general theory of value— general in the sense
that it applies to all human activities and not especially to poetry—and then
shows how poetry is valuable on the basis of this general standard. Poetry is
valuable because it produces man's moral improvement. Richards seems to support
Sidney's observations about poetry and also Shelley from whom Richards quotes
in his Principles of
Literary Criticism "
poetry acts in a divine manner. It awakens and the mind itself by
rendering it the receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of
thought. Whatever strengthens and purifies the affections, enlarges the
imagination, and adds spirit to sense, is useful". We may look upon Principles
of Literary Criticism as an attempt
to chisel this doctrine into the marble of
positivism."
I. A. Richards has explained his views on the value of
poetry in the chapter 'Art and Morals' in Principles of Literary
Criticism. He begins, the chapter by saying : "From this
excursion let us return to our proper task, the attempt to outline a morality
which will change its values as circumstances alter, a morality free from
occultism, absolutes and arbitrariness, a morality which will explain, as no
morality has yet explained, the place and value of the arts in human affairs.
What is good or valuable, we have said, is the exercise of impulses
and the satisfaction of their appetencies." And poetry does this task.
Poetry does the reconciliation of impulses.
David Daiches comments : "Poetry," wrote Shelley,
"is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best
minds." This is precisely Richards' position, though Richards would define
"best" and "happiest" in his own way. Whether the
psychological humanism on which Richards bases his view of what is good in
poetry as in any other human
activity is really adequate to account for the special
nature and value of,poetry is argueable. To many of his readers there seems to
be a gap between his perceptive, detailed discussion of particular poems and
his generalizations about the value of poetry, which are inlarge measure based
on psychological notions which no important contemporary psychologist
accepts."
However, Richards, like Arnold, is of the opinion that
poetry is a central means of saving civilization. He concludes the essay Science
and Poetry with a general statement which expresses his view very
clearly : "It is very probable that the Hindenburg Line to which the
defence of our traditions retired as a result of the onslaughts of the last
century will be blown up the near future. If this should happen a moral chaos
such as man has never experienced may be expected. We shall then be thrown
back, as Matthew Arnold foresaw, upon poetry. It is capable of saving
us; it is perfectly possible means of overcoming chaos."
This is Richard's reply to the attack made on poetry by
Thomas Love Peacock in 1820 in the half-serious essay, The Four Ages of
Poetry. While the other branches of learning, he had complained,
were steadily marching towards a fuller knowledge or reality, poetry by its
love of myth and legend was 'wallowing in the rubbish of departed ignorance.'
Whence he concluded : 'A poet in our times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized
community. He lives in the ways that ate past. His ideas, thoughts, feelings,
associations, are all with barbarious manners, obsolete customs, and exploded
superstitions. The march of his intellect if like that of a crab, backward.'
Richards's analysis of poetry, if it is accepted as true, shows how even in
this age of scientific enlightenment poetry has a vital role to play in the
life of the individual and society. In the mind ordered in the poetic way lies
the hope of civilization.
Notes
prepared from reading of the text and Internet Sites.
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