questions: µWhat is a meaning?¶ µWhat are we doing when we endeavour to make it out?¶ µWhat is it we are making out?¶ are the master-keys to all problems of criticism. If we can make use of them the locked chambers and corridors of theory of poetry open to us, and a new and impressive order is discovered even in the most erratic twists of the protocols. (174) Richards comes up with the view that ³there are several kinds of meaning´ (174). As listeners and readers, he writes, the ³Total Meaning we are engaged with is, almost always, a blend, a combination of several contributory meanings of different types´ (174). This is because ³language as it is used in poetry . . . has not one but several tasks to perform simultaneously´ (174). For this reason, ³we shall misconceive most of the difficulties of criticism unless we understand this po int and take note of the difference between these functions´ (174). There are four ³types of function, four kinds of meaning´ (175) found in all uses of language:
Sense: What speaker or author speaks is sense. The thing that the writer literally conveys is sense. Here, the speaker speaks to arouse the readers thought. The language is very straightforward which is descriptive. This language is not poetic. Words are used to direct the hearer's attraction up on some state of affairs or to excite them. Sense is whatness of language use. we speak ³to say something, . . . to direct our hearer¶s attention upon so me state of affairs, to present to them some items for consideration, and to excite in them some thoug hts about these items´ . To put this in another way, words must communicate to some degree a claim of some sort about the world (Richards is alluding here to the µcorrespondence¶ theory of language).
Feeling: Feeling is writer¶s emotional attitude towards the subject. It means writer¶s attachment or detachment to the subject is feeling. It is an expression. The speaker or writer uses language to express his views. This very language is emotive, poetic and literary also. Here only, rhyme a nd meter cannot make poetry to be a good, emotion is equally important. Especially in lyric poem, emotion plays vital role. Richards writes that we also, as a rule, have some feelings about these items, about t he
state of affairs we are referring to. We have an attitude towards it, some special direction, bias, or accentuation of interest towards it, some personal flavour or colouring of feeling; and we use language to express these feelings, this nuance of interest. Equally when we listen we pick it up, rightly or wrongly; it seems inextricably part of what we receive. Under the term µfeeling,¶ he clarifies in a footnote, he groups the ³whole conativeaffective aspect of life ± emotions, emotional attitudes, the will, desire, pleasureunpleasure, and the rest.µFeeling¶ is shorthand for any or all of this´
Tone: Tone refers to attitude of speaker towards his listener. There is a kind o f relation between speaker and listener. Since speaker is aware of his relationship with language and w ith the listener, he changes the level of words as the level of audience changes. It means tone varies from listener to listener.
moreover, the speaker ordinarily has an attitude to his listener. He chooses or arranges his words differently as his audience varies. . . . The tone of his utterance reflects his awareness of this relation, his sense of how he stands to wards those he is addressing.
Intention: Intention is the purpose of speaker. Speaker has certain aim to speak either it is consciously or unctuously. Listener has to understand the speaker's purpose to understand his meaning. If the audience can't understand his purpose the speaker becomes unsuccessful. The intention of author can be found in dramatic and semi- dramatic literature. There four types of meaning in totality constitute the total meaning of any text. Therefore all utterances can be looked at from four points of view, revealing four kinds o f meaning are not easily separated. But they are in dispensable terms for explaining. Basically, the four meaning are interconnected in poetry.
Richards distinguishes the speaker¶s µintention¶ from ³what he says (Sense), his attitudes to what he is talking about (Feeling), and his attitude to his listener (Tone)´ . Intention is the speaker¶s or writer¶s aim, conscious or unconscious, the effect he is endeavouring to promote. Ordinarily he speaks for a purpose, and his purpose modifies his speech. The understanding of it is part of the whole business of apprehending his meaning. Sometimes the speaker¶s intention is merely to ³state his thoughts´ (hence, an emphasis on Sense), or ³express his feelings about what he is thinking´ (Feeling), or to ³express his attitude to his listener´ . Frequently, in other words, his intention ³operates through and satisfies itself in a combination of other functions´ . However, it is ³not reducible to their effects´ . For example, it may ³govern the stress laid upon points in an argument. . . , shape the arrangement´ , ³call attention to itself in such phrases as µfor contrast¶s sake¶ or µlest it be supposed¶´ , and so on; it also ³controls the plot . . . and is at work whenever the author is µhiding his hand¶´ . The protocols reveal copious examples of the ³failure on the part of one or other of these functions. Sometimes all four fail together . . . and often a partial collapse of one function entail aberrations in the others´ . The ³possibilities of human misunderstanding make up indeed a formidable subject for study´ .
Richards proceeds to argue that different uses of language emphasise one or more than one of these components more than others as a result of which ³at times, now one now another of the functions become predominant´ . Scientific treatises, for example, would emphasise µsense¶ but downplay µfeeling,¶ while the µtone¶ would be ³settled
. . . by academic convention´ : he will, Richards, asserts, ³indicate respect for his readers and a moderate anxiety to be understood accurately´ . The scientist¶s µintention¶ would normally be ³confined to the clearest and most adequate statement of what he has to say´ or, in some circumstances, to the desire to ³reorient opinion, to direct attention to new aspects, or to encourage or discourage certain methods of work or ways of approach´ . By contrast, these four constituent elements of meaning would be arranged differently in work designed to popularise scientific research rather than addressed solely to an academic elite. For example, a ³precise and adequate statement of the sense may have to be sacrificed, to some degree, in the interests of general intelligibility´ , a ³much more lively exhibition o f feelings on the part of the author towards his subject-matter is usually appropriate and desirable´ , and great er ³tact´ should inform his tone. Richards then turns his attention to political speeches where, he avers, the ³furtherance of intentions . . . is unmistakable predo minant´ but relies on the ³expression of feelings abo ut causes, policies, leaders and oppo nents´ as well as the µestablishment of favourable relations with the audience´ . In such discourses, sense, the ³presentation of facts´ , is often ³subordinated´ to the other functions.
The ³statements´ which ³appear´ in poetry, Richards¶ real concern, are there ³for the sake of their effects upon feelings, not for their own sake´ . Many, he argues, ³if not most, of the statements in poetry are there as a means to the manipulation and expression of feelings and attitudes, not as contributions to any body of doctrine of any type whatever´ . All in all, what occurs is a ³subjugation of statement to emotive
purposes´ . (He argues elsewhere, in another famous book of his called Science and Poetry [1926], the truth-claims made by poetry are really pseudo-statements.) Therefore, to ³challenge their truth or to question whether they deserve serious attention as statements claiming truth, is to mistake their function´ . Hence, the confusion which surrounds what exactly the Romantic poet Keats meant when he wrote mysteriously at the end of his famous ³Ode on a Grecian Urn´ that ³Beauty is truth, truth beauty´ or when another poet describes his soul as a µship in full sail.¶ In short, we must not look primarily for truth-claims in poetry but for the poet¶s feelings which are expressed therein and which in turn have an impact on the reader¶s own feelings. He deals with the effect of literature on the reader in greater detail in yet another famous book of his: Principles of Literary Criticism (1924). Richards¶s student William Empson carried all this one step further when he wrote his own equally famous Seven T ypes of Ambiguity (1930) in which he explores t he various ambiguities found in language which contribute to misunderstandings.
All in all, Richards is of the view that listeners and readers misunderstand the meaning of a particular statement when they emphasise that function or kind of meaning which is not meant to be predominant in that type of statement. From this perspective, misunderstanding is always a possibility but it can be avoided. Doctrine in Poetry Here Richarads talks about the proper way of analyzing the text and what critic and reader should be like. He tends to locate the poem in readers response to it. It means readers analyze the text and respond any po etry from similar judgmental aspects. It shows every reader produces same meaning from same text as the text is organic whole obstacles and barr iers the variation of meaning occurs. His ideas are oriented toward distinguishing the belief of readers from that o f the poets. If there occurs contradiction between the belief of readers and the belief of poets, the readers do not get sole meaning from the text. Because of readers¶ temperament and personal experience, they don't get same meaning from the text The obstacle that brings variation in meaning is doctrinal belief of readers.
Richards finds two kinds of belief and d isbelief i) Intellectual belief ii) Emotional belief In an intellectual belief we weigh an idea based on doctrinal preoccupation, where as an
emotional belief is related to the state of mind. He thinks that the good kind of being comes from the blending of the both. Until and unless we are free from beliefs and disbeliefs there comes variation in meaning. But to free our mind from all impurities is not possible. Therefore the reader should be sincere to get single meaning escaping from such obstacles. T his sincerity is the way to success. The sincere reader has perfect and genuine mind. To be genuine mind, one should be free from impurities. In this sense the reader should be free from obstruction these obstacles is not possible. Chapter 2 ³Figurative Language´
1. Causes of misunderstanding 2. The distraction of metre 3. Intuitive versus over literal reading 4. Literalism and metaphor 5. Poetic liberty 6. Mixture in metaphor 7. Personification 8. Reasons for personification 9. Advantages of personification 10. Dangers of personification 11. Critical comparisons 12. The diversity of aims in poetry
Chapter 3 ³Sense and Feeling´
1. Interferences between kinds of meaning---mistake in general intention can twist its tone sense, and feeling e.g. dramatic not epic 2. Tone in poetry²the attitude of the poet towards the reader e g Grey¶s Elegy is not striking and original but succeeds because of its exquisite tone. 3. Tone as an index to ³sense of proportion´
4. Sense and feeling: three types of interrelation² a) Type I²where the feeling is generated by and governed by sense b) Type II²where the word first expresses a feeling, and such sense as it co nveys is derived from the feeling. c) Type III²where sense and feeling are less closely knit: their alliance comes about through their context. 5. The pull of the context 6. Exerted in two ways : directly between feelings, indirectly through sense 7. Pre-analytic apprehension 8. Methods of improving apprehension 9. Verbal means of analysis for sense and feeling 10. The dictionary 11. Definition technique for sense 12. Our comparative helplessness with feeling 13. Projectile adjectives 14. Metaphors: sense metaphors and emotive metaphors 15. Possibilities of training Chapter 4 ³Poetic Form´ 1. Difficulty of apprehending form due partly to bad assumptions 2. The regularity myth 3. Variations about a norm 4. Rhythm goes deeper than the ear 5. Inherent rhythm and ascribed rhythm 6. Inherent rhythm as a necessary and important skeleton
7. Damage done by the regularity myth and by the independence notion 8. The danger of neglecting sound 9. Reading aloud Chapter 5 ³Irrelevant Associations and Stock Responses´ 1. Erratic imagery 2. Visualisers 3. Irrelevance in general 4. Associations with older poems 5. The personal situation of the reader 6. Stock responses: a) their omnipresence b) their utility c) demarcation of their proper field d) as systems of energy e)
as distorting agents
f)
as ground for complaint against variation
7. The stock response as the poem itself 8. Resultant popularity 9. Good and bad stock responses: their origins 10. Withdrawal from experience by deprivation, moral disaster, convention intellectuality 11. Loss in transmission of ideas 12. Home-made notions and genius 13. Silliness
14. The poet and stock ideas
Chapter 6 ³Sentimentality and Inhibition´ 1. Sentimental a) As an abusive gesture b) As uttering a vague thought c) As uttering a precise thought d) As equivalent to crude e) As persistence and wasping 2. Definition of sentimental in the third sense 3. Sentimentality a) In readers b) In poetry c) Causes of d) Subject and treatment e) The justification of the response f)
In use of conventional metaphors
g) And autogenous emotions 4. Inhibition: a) As the complement of sentimentality b) Necessity of c) Causes of d) Cure of
Chapter 7 ³Doctrine in Poetry´ 1. Opposition between poets¶ and readers¶ beliefs 2. Importance of belief 3. Insufficiency of ³poetic fiction´ solution 4. Assumptions: intellectual and emotional a) Distinction them b) Justification for each kind c) Logic and choice d) Adjustment of intellectual and emotional claims 5. Sincerity a) Appearance of insincerity b) Sincerity as absence of self deception c) As genuineness d) As spontaneity e) As sophistication f)
As self-completion
g) As dependent upon a fundamental need h) And intuition i)
Improvement in sincerity
j)
Poetry as an exercise in sincerity
Chapter 8 ³Technical Presuppositions and Critical Preco nceptions´ 1. Our expectations from poetry 2. Confusions between means and ends
3. Encouraged by the language of criticism 4. The summations of details blunder 5. No critical theory is directly useful 6. Examples: the subject and message tests 7. The ³lilt´ quest 8. Critical dogmas a)
as primitive superstitions
b) Their duplicity 9. The disablement of judgment 10. The rule of choice 11. Principles are only protective 12. Critical infallability PART IV: SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS (292-329) I ³Culture in the Protocols´ II ³The Services of Psychology´ III ³Suggestions Towards a Remedy´ I.A. Richards Practical Criticism
I. A. Richards' "Practical Criticism" This book, published in 1929, is one of those that started New Criticism and with it, a whole new attitude toward literary criticism. It's surprisingly enjoyable. Richards doesn't use any fancy language (although you can tell he's a Brit), so there's no jargon or pretension to put up with while reading. It's got a fascinating structure: he was a prof at Cambridge University, and he gave o ut 10 or so poems to his class, without telling them who wrot e each or what it they were ca lled, and told everyone to respond in writing in whatever way they wanted to. So at the end of this experiment he has hundreds of these responses, what he calls "protocols" for some reason, and "Practical
Criticism" is his analysis of the responses. He approaches the who le thing very scientifically: he sifts through the protocols and finds the problems that h is students have with each poem, then identifies them. He says there are ten (10) obstacles that get in the way of the real meaning of a poem, from plain misunderstanding to the reader's own random associations (which he calls "irrelevant"), to more philosophical hurdles like the question of whether a poem is good if it preaches a political or moral viewpoint that you disagree with. Each of the poems he gives out happily brings up one of the 10 dilemmas, so everything is covered. I'm not super far into it, but he plans to tell us about what he thinks the best way to read a poem is, or to be more specific, what the best method of criticizing a literary work is. He's got chapter sections called "The four kinds of meaning", and "Inhibition as the complement of sentimentality", and "Sincerity and intuition" that I'm looking forward to. He's very much tying together psychology and criticism, although he admits that it is elementary psychology he is using, and avoids any attempt to discover the underlying motives of the students in writing their protocols. A couple of good quotes: "That the one and only goal of all critical endeavors, of all interpretation, appreciation, exhortation, praise or abuse, is improvement in communication may seem an exaggeration. But in practice it is so." "Ambiguity in fact is systematic; the separate senses that a word may have are related to o ne another, if not as strictly as the various aspects o f a building, at least to a remarkable extent." "When we have solved, completely, the communication problem, when we have got, perfectly, the experience, the mental condition relevant to the poem, we have still to judge it, still to decide upon its worth. But the later question nearly always settles itself; or rather, our own inmost nature and the nature of the world in which we live decide it for us. Our prime endeavor must be to get the relevant mental condition and then see what happens." This last quote is of particular interest to me because it places Richards exactly on the time line of literary criticism. The idea that a poem is a "problem" to be "solved" is no longer a firm idea to have: it has been killed by the "Death of the Author" crowd and buried by the deconstructionists. But even so, by saying "our inmost nature and the nature of the world", he allows for a lot of the change in the meaning of Meaning that would come twenty and thirty years down the road. Richards' main ideas are ones promoting close reading and being aware of one's own reactions and emotions to a text and how they might influence your opinions while reading it.
