Paper no-7

Paper no- Literary Theory & Criticism

Topic-I.A.Richard’s view on the language of poetry  

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Course No. 7: Literary Theory & Criticism: The 20th Western & Indian Poetics – 2

M.A. English Semester – 2

Assignment

Name: - Vala Asha T.

Class: -     M.A.  SEM 2

Topic: - I.A.Richard’s view on the language of poetry  

Paper: -   7.

ROLL NO: -  37

Year: -   2015 - 2016

ENROLLMENT NO: - PG15101041

E-MAIL:-valaasha10@gmail.com 

     

Submitted:-    Smt S.B.Gardy   Department of English      Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

Bhavnagar

INTRODUCTION:- 

                               

                                I.A.Richards, along with T.S.Eliot, may be called the founding father of the new criticism. He has been a constant source of inspiration to the new critics-more particularly to John Crowe Ransom and William Epson – many of whom have used his tools and techniques on an extensive scale. But he differs from the New Critics in one important respect. While the New Critics limit themselves rigorously to the poem under consideration, I.A.Richards also takes into account its effects on the readers. For him the real value of a poem lies in the reactions and attitudes it creates, and whether or not it is conducive to greater emotional balance, equilibrium, peace and rest in the mid of the readers. For him, the value of a work if art lies in its power to harmonize and organize complex and warring human impulses into patterns that are lasting and pleasurable. In the view of new critics, all such considerations are extrinsic and they come in the way of the appreciation and evaluation of a work of art as it is in itself.

Four kinds of Meaning:-

A 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 we are to understand the meaning of a work of art. According to I.A. Richard, words carry Four kinds of meaning or to be more precise, the total meaning of a word depends upon Four factors,

I.G.

                Sense,

                        Feeling,

                                Tone,

       

                                        Intention.

1)   Sense is what is said, or the ‘items’ referred to by a writer.

2)   Feeling refers to emotions, emotional attitudes, will, desire, pleasure, displeasure and the rest. When we say something we have a feeling about it, “an attitude towards it, some special direction, bias or accentuation of interest towards it, some personal flavor or coloring of feeling.” Words express “these feelings, these nuances of interest.”

3)   Tone is the writer’s attitude to his readers or audience, the use of language is determined by the writers ‘recognition’ of his relation to his readers.

4)   Intention is the writer’s aim, which may be conscious or unconscious. It refers to the effect that he tries to produce. This purpose modifies the expression. It controls the emphasis, shapes the, or draws attention to something of importance.

Two uses of Language:-

In his “principles of literary criticism” chapter 34, he discusses the most neglected subject, i.g.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 Deices says,

“Richard conducts this investigation in order to come to some clear conclusions about what imaginative literature is how it employs language, how its use of language differs from the scientific use of language and what is its special faction and value.”

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.

We may use a statement, true or false, in a scientific use of language, but it may also be used to create emotions and attitudes. This is the emotive use of language. We use words scientifically or for emotional attitudes when words are used to evoke attitudes without recourse to references like musical phrases. References are conditions for developing attitudes and hence the attitudes are more important, without carrying for true or false references. Their sole purpose is to support the attitudes. Aristotle wisely said, “Better a plausible impossibility than an improbable possibility.” In the scientific use of the language, the difference in reference is fatal but in the emotive language it is not so. In the scientific use of language, the references should be correct and the relation of references should be logical.

Four types of misunderstanding:-

v Misunderstanding of the sense of poetry: Careless, intuitive reading.

v Over-literal reading-prosaic reading.

v Defective scholarship; inappropriate metaphor

Difference in meaning of words in poetry and prose(personification, metaphor etc.)

Poem -1: solemn and Gray.

“solemn and gray, the immense clouds of even

pass on their towering unperturbed way

Through the vast whiteness of the rain-swept heaven

The moving pageants of the waning day;

Heavy with dreams, desires, prognostication,

Brooding with sullen and Titanic crests,

They surge, whose mantles’ wise imaginations

Trail where Earths mute and languorous body rests;

While below the Hawthorns smile like milk splashed down

                  From Noon’s blue pitcher over mead and hill;                 

The arrases distance is so dim with flowers

It seems itself some colored cloud made atilt,

O how the clouds this dying daylight crown

With the tremendous triumph of tall towers!”

One of the serious causes of misunderstanding is the failure to realize that the poetic use of words is different from their use in prose. Literal sense of words can be easily understood with the help of a dictionary, “but an inability to seize the poetical sense of words neither is nor so easily remedied.”

Critics found following problem with this poem (Solemn and Gray):

1) A cloud cannot have ‘desires’.

2) A mantle cannot have ‘imaginations’.

3) ‘Imaginations’ cannot ‘trail’.

4)’Milk’ does not ‘smile’.

5) ‘Dim with flowers’ is rather weak, for flowers are bright things.

6) ‘Tell towers’ do not ‘triumph’ so far as human sense can comprehend. Might be an interesting sight!

These complaints rest upon as assumption about language that would be fatal to poetry. All these things may happen in a poem – if there is any good reason for their happening or advantage is gained from their happening.

Not many metaphors, or for the matter of that, much poetry will survive such deadly demands for scientific precision. Poetic use of words is different from their use in `prose and such literalism is the most serious obstacle in the way of a right understanding of such poetic use of words.

“How are we to explain”, asks Richards, “to those who see nothing in poetical language but a tissue of ridiculous exaggerations, childish ‘fancies’ ignorant conceits and absurd symbolizations”

In what way its sense is be read? Poetry is different form prose and needs a different attitude for right understand

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.

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