Discuss I.A.Richards’ as a critic with reference to his essay ‘A Figurative Language.’

Topic: Discuss I.A.Richards’ as a critic with reference to his essay ‘A Figurative Language.’

Name: Kinjal Patel

Paper Name: Literary Theory & Criticism

Paper No: 7

Roll No: 16

STD: M.A. 1

SEM: 2

Submitted to: Department of English Maharaja Krishnkumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

I.A.Richards Introduction:

I.A.Richards, born in 1893, is one of the greatest critics of the modern age, and has influenced a number of critics on both sides of the Atlantic. He and T.S.Eliot are pioneers in the fields of New Criticism, though they differ from each other in certain important respects. He is the first-rate critic, since Coleridge, who has formulated a systematic and complete theory of poetry, and his views are highly original and illuminating. In his “Principles of Literary Criticism” chapter 34, he discusses that most neglected subject, i.e. the theory of language and the two uses of language. To understand much the theory of poetry and what is said about poetry, a clear comprehension of the differences between the uses of language is indispensable. David Daiches says,

According to I.A.Richards language can be used in two ways, i.e. the scientific use and the emotive one. It’s only in recent years that serious attention is given to the language as a science. In the scientific use of language, we are usually matters of fact. All the activities covered by this use require undistorted references and absence of fiction.

Life and Works:

He was also appointed as a professor of English literature. Thus began a long and distinguished career both as teacher and critic. He lectured both at Cambridge and Harvard and thus could influence the course of literary criticism in both the countries. His first work written in collaboration with C.K.Ogdon was published in 1992. This was a followed by The Meaning of Meaning, 1993, also written in collaboration with Ogdon. The Principles of Literary Criticism,1924 is one of the major works, in which he was put the best of himself, and which was at once hailed as a highly original work likely to give an entirely new orientation to critical theory. This was followed in 1929, by his The Practical Criticism which shows him as unrivalled advocate and practitioner of practical criticism.

I.A.Richards was an orthodox advocate of a close textual and verbal study and analysis of a work of art. According to Richards there are three objectives to write ‘The Practical Criticism.’

To introduce a new kind of documentation:

This documentation is to be introduced to those who are interested in the contemporary state of culture whether as critics, philosophers, as teachers, as psychologists, or merely as curious persons.

To provide new technique:

New technique is to be provided for those who wish to discover for themselves what they think and feel about poetry and why they should like or dislike it.

To prepare the way for educational:

Educational methods are to be preparing more efficient than those we use now in developing discrimination and the power to understand what we here and read.

In his methodology, a lot of importance is given to the “words”. According to him the poet writes to communicate, and language is the means of that communication. Language is made of words and hence a study of words is all important if the meaning of work of art is understood. Words carry four kinds of meaning:

Sense, tone, feeling and intention

To his language of poetry is purely emotive, in its original primitive state. This language affects feelings. Hence we must avoid intuitive and over-literal reading of poems. Words in poetry have an emotive value, and the figurative language used by poets conveys those emotions effectively and forcefully. His approach towards criticism is pragmatic and empirical. I.A.Richards by his, own work could make literary criticism factual, scientific and complete. It no longer remains a matter of the application of set rules or more ‘intention’ or ‘impressions.’ His factual and scientific method of critical analysis, interpretation and evolutions has exercised considerable influence on the New Critics everywhere.

The Importance of Words:

A study of his Practical Criticism together with his work ‘The Meaning of Meaning’ reveals his interest in verbal and textual analysis. According to him a poets writes to communicate, and language is the means of that communication. Language consist words so study of words is significant to understand the meaning. The meaning depends on

Sense: By sense it meant something that is communicated by the plain literal meanings of the words.

Feeling: Refers to emotions, emotional attitudes, desire, will, pleasure, UN pleasure and the rest. Words express feelings.

 Tone: Tone here means the writer’s attitude towards his audience. The writer chooses his words and arranges them keeping in mind the taste of his readers. Feeling is only state of mind.

Intention: Intention is author’s conscious or unconscious aim. It is the effect that one tries to produce. Also intention controls the emphasis, shapes the arrangement or draws attention to something of importance. Richards says that

Words in poetry have an emotive value and the figurative language used by poets conveys those emotions effectively and forcefully. Words have different meanings in different contexts. Words are symbols or signs and they deliver their full meaning only in a particular context sense and feeling have a mutual dependence.

“The sound of a word has much to do with the feeling it evokes.”

“The feelings already occupying the mind limit the possibilities of the new word.”

 

Importance of Rhythm and Meter:

Rhythm and Meter and integral and important parts of any poem because they determine the meaning of the words used by the poets. Rhythm, meter and meaning cannot be separated; they form together a single system.

The Nature of Poetic Truth:

The ‘poetic truth’ is much, different form the ‘scientific truth’. In the principle of literary criticism he writes “It is evident that the bulk of poetry consists of statement which only the very foolish would think of attempting to verify. They are not the kind of things which can be verified. If we recall what was said in chapter 16 as to the natural generality of verge of reference, we shall see another reason why references as they occur in poetry are rarely susceptible to scientific truth or falsity. Only references which are brought in to certain highly complex and very special combinations, so as to correspond to the ways in which things actually hang together, can be either true or false and most references in poetry are not knit together in this way. But even when they are on examination, frankle false, this is no defect. Indeed, the obviousness of the falsity forces the reader to reactions which are incongruent or disturbing to the poem. An equal paint more often misunderstood, their truth when they are true, is no merit.”

Metaphorical language is important purpose of communication.

The enthusiasm for science is an apartment in Principles of Literary is never carried out in a rigorous programme of research. In 1992, Practical Criticism followed: arguably a kind of reality statement after the illusions of principles. Practical Criticism was no doubt a pedagogic necessity, the consequence of Richards’s work as a lecture in English literature. With the influx of students just back from the war, Richards had to direct his lectures to an audience with quite different expectations from those of pre-war students. The legacy of this pedagogical practice is the central and persistent place in Anglo-American criticism which is accorded to interpretation and to close reading, whether the objects are poems, Hollywood films, or historical documents. This is despite the fact that Richards himself practiced little extended close reading. Significantly, when Basil Willey credits Richards with founding the modern school of New- Criticism, it is Practical Criticism, and not Principles, that he mentions. Part 3 of Practical Criticism, ‘Analysis’, begins with chapter ‘The Four Kinds of Meaning’, which pronounces that: the original difficulty of all reading, the problem of making out the meaning, is our obvious starting-point. The answers to those apparently simple questions: ‘What is a meaning?’ ‘What are we doing when we Endeavour to make it out?’ ‘What is it we are making out?’ are the master-keys to all the problems of criticism. If we can make use of them the locked chambers and corridors of the theory of poetry open to us, and a new and impressive order, is discovered even in the most erratic twists of the protocols.

Is it the return of the repressed in the form of Moore’s ‘What do you mean by that?’ is this what is behind Richards’s wish to eliminate the question, ‘Is the passage good or bad poetry?’ , and to invite answers only to the question, ‘What does it mean?’ at the outset of Practical Criticism? Commentators have pointed to the underplaying of meaning in poetry in the early work, inherent in the division between symbolic and evocative language for scientific and poetic use respectively.

Source of Misunderstanding in Poetry:

According to I.A.Richards there are four sources of misunderstanding of poetry. It is difficult to diagnose with accuracy and definiteness, the source of some particular mistake or misunderstanding. First, there might be a misunderstanding of the sense of poetry. It arises from inattention, or sheer, cardessness. I.A.Richards warns readers- In most poetry the sense is as important as anything  else; it is quite as a subtle, and as dependent on the syntax, as in prose, it is the poet’s chief instrument to other aims when it is not itself his aim. His control of thoughts is ordinarily his chief means to the control of our feelings, and in the immense majority of instances we miss nearly everything of value if we misread his sense.

An over literal-reading is as great a source of misunderstanding in poetry as careless, ‘intuitive’ reading. Careless, intuitive reading and prosaic “over-literal” reading are the simple-grades, the justing rocks. Defective scholarship is a third source of misunderstanding in poetry. The reader may fail to understand the sense of the poet, because he is ignorant of poet’s sense. A far more serious cause of misunderstanding is the failure to realize that the poetic use of words is different from their use in prose. Complaints may rest upon an assumption about language that can be fatal to poetry. Literary is one serious obstacle in the way of a right understanding of the poetic words. According to Richards-‘poetry is different from prose and needs a different attitude for right understanding.’

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:

A Simile is a FIGURE OF THOUGHT:

A simile is a figure of thought in which one kind of thing is compared to a markedly different object, concept, or experience; the comparison is made explicit by the word “like” or “as”; “jen’s room is like a pig sty.” The simile can be carried further and specify some feature of the comparison: “jen’s room is as dirty as a sty.” In either case, the effect is that the subject and the analogy are pictured in quick sequence, side by side.

Similes occur in both poetry and prose, and they may be short and simple or long and extended. They provide an important indication of an author or speaker’s TONE; that is implied attitude towards the subject. As with a METAPHORE, the means is to use a comparison that reflects some key quality of the literal subject. For, use a comparison that reflects some key quality of the literal subject. For example, the tone of simile may be exalted, as in Robert Burns’ lyrical tribute: “O, May luve’s like a red, red rose.” Here, the image evoked is of a fresh, vibrant, and lovely object of adoration.

 The Value of Figurative Language:

The use of figurative language can create problems. It is difficult to turn poetry into logical respectable prose. Only through accuracy and precision is combined with recognition of the liberties which are proper for a poet, and the power and value of figurative language.

The use of figurative language can create problems. It is difficult to turn poetry into logical respectable prose. Only through accuracy and precision is combined with a recognition of the liberties is combined with a recognition of the liberties which are proper for a poet, and precision is combined with a recognition  of the liberties which are a recognition of the liberties which are proper for a poet, and the power and value of figurative language.

A Health, a ringing health, unto the king, of all our hearts today! But what proud song, should not followed on the thought, nor do him wrong? ………………….. Away into the sunset-glow.

There are various comments on the above piece of the hyperbole of sea-harp. The only concrete simile in the octave is the likening of the sea to a harp-surely a little extravagant.

There is no doubt that the similarity between the sound of a harp and the sea but in poetry such things do happen. It is clear that the effect proposed by the poets is, “an exhilarating awakening of wonder and a fusion of the sea, lightning and spring, those three ‘most moving manifestations of Nature.’

Mixed Metaphors:

Mixtures in metaphors work well if in the mixture the different parts or elements do not cancel each other out. The mixture must not be of the fire and water like. ‘Woven’ does not mix well with sea and lightening and so here the mixed metaphor is a serious fault.

Figurative Language:

The poet is rather negligent in the choice of means he has employed to attain his end. The enjoyment and understanding of the best poetry requires a sensitiveness and discrimination with words, a nicely, imaginativeness and deftness in taking their sense which will prevent the poem in question, in its original form receiving the approval of the most attentive readers.

The Value of Personification:

Personification comes naturally to us. Personification may not express sense but it expresses the feelings of the poet towards what he is speaking about personification enables the poet to clear and comprehend the difficult work. Personification should not be over-elaborated. There are degrees of personification. If it is over-elaborated it becomes over-burdened.

Comparative Criticism:

Richards warns his readers against the dangers of over simple forms of ‘comparative criticism’. A critic has compared the poet and Shelley is clear in the conception. One thing should be noted that ‘end’ and ‘means’ both differ. As two poets are often closely paralleled in their intents, divergence in their methods does not prove one poem better than the other, ‘Comparative Criticism’ has value under conditions and circumstances.

“When after five years of ‘antics’ chiefly concerned with the cloud- shadows, he turns to the cloud itself in its afternoon dissolution, he cuts the personification down, mixing his metaphors to reflect its incoherence, and finally, ‘O frail steel issue of the sun,’ depersonifying it altogether in mockery of its total loss of character. This recognition that the personification was originally an extra vantage makes the poem definitely one of fancy rather than imagination to use the Wordsworthian division but it rather increases than diminishes the descriptive effects gained by the device. And its peculiar felicity in exactly expressing a certain shade of feeling towards the cloud deserves to be remarked.”

Conclusion:

Briefly, a proper understanding of figurative language needs closer study. Its literal meaning must be traced. Its literal meaning cannot be found in any imaginative appreciation of it. There should be a judicious balance between literalism and imaginative freedom. One should comprehend the meaning of poetry properly and then come to the judgment whether it has any fault or not. I.A.Richards says. “The chemist must not require that the poet writes like a chemist, not the moralist, not the man of affairs, nor the logician, nor the professor, that he writes as they would. The whole trouble of literalism is that the readers forget that the aim of the poems comes first and is the sole justification of its means. We may quarrel, frequently we must, with aim of the poem, but we have first to ascertain what it is. We cannot legitimately judge its means by external standards which may have no relevance to its success in doing what it set out to do.”

Sources: Net and Reference Book               Words: 2,797