Practical Criticism Flashcards
About IA Richards?
Ivor Armstrong Richards
Born: 26th February 1893 Died 1979
Father: William Armstrong Richards: Well read and travelled man. Business trip to America and wrote Travelogue for the family. Died of Cancer in 1902.
Mother: Mary Anne Haigh
IN Hillside, In Sandbach, Chesire
1902: I.A. Richards was sent to Clifton College in Clifton where her mother moved after the death of his father.
Mother: A Devout woman attached to the church of England
What are the Principles of Literary criticism?
Criticism is an endeavour to differentiate between experiences and to evaluate them.
Nature of experience, theories of valuation and communication
Psychological factors
What is Aesthetics?
All aesthetics- Assumptions
Distinct kind of mental activity for aesthetic experience
Phantom problem of Aesthetic mode
Aesthetic Mode- Special Mode of mental activity
Beauty could belong
Is there any aesthetic state?
Differentia- Aesthetic emotion- Mr. Clive Bell
Special Form: Impersonality, subjective universality, detachment, distance,
Ugliness or beauty
Narrower Sense of Aesthetic: Beauty
Peculiar Aesthetic Value
He was against Art for Art’s Sake
What should be the language of criticism according to Richards?
Causes experience in us which is valuable.
Desired Criticism: Effective in his mind due to special, particular features.
Two part of criticism
1) Critical Part- Value of expression
2) Technical Part- Describes objects
What is Practical criticism?
It is a form of criticism that depends upon a close reading of the text and only the text.
When you are given a poem, a paragraph from a novel or an extract from a play and you don’t know anything about the text except what is on the paper.
The meaning of the text depends on the reader and not the writer
Experiment by Richards?
To give thirteen poems to readers from different affiliations ranging from students of English Honours, students from other subjects and to readers who do not belong to the field of academia. Men and women were in equal numbers.
He didn’t tell them about who the poet of the poems is to, i.e. Shakespeare or Longfellow or whoever.
He removed the context within which the poem was written. Historical, Social, Political or Economical Background.
What were Richards’s aim?
First, to introduce a new kind of documentation to those who are interested in the contemporary state of culture whether as critics, as philosophers, as teachers, as psychologists, or merely as curious persons.
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.
What was the result of the experiment?
There was not much difference between the quality of analysis of the Honours students of English, other students or non-academic critics. They were all misreading on different levels.
They all reacted according to their preconceived notions about the poem, using stock responses.
What was the reason for such criticism?
Immaturity Lack of Reading Construing Stock Responses Preconceptions Authority Variability General Value
What were the remedies suggested by Richards?
Teaching of English: Teachers all around do not give time to discuss how meaning is interpreted and how psychology works
Practical Suggestion: when there is a group of people who do the same mistakes that we are doing, we realize these mistakes quickly.
Learn to use Language: To know how we misunderstand.
What are four kinds of meaning according to Richards?
Sense: What is said
Feeling: Emotion with which that is said.
Tone: attitude towards the listener
Intention: what is the purpose of what is said.
