00310--IVOR ARMSTRONG RICHARDS and his works

IVOR ARMSTRONG RICHARDS

Richards

1.The Foundations of Aesthetics 2.The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism 3.Principles of Literary Criticism 4.Science and Poetry 5.Practical Criticism: A Study of Literary Judgment. 6.Mencius on the Mind: Experiments in Multiple Definition 7.Basic Rules of Reason 8.Coleridge on Imagination 9.Basic in Teaching: East and West 10.The Philosophy of Rhetoric 11.How to Read a Page: A Course in Effective Teaching, with an Introduction to a Hundred Great Words 12.Interpretation in Teaching 13.Basic English and its Uses 14.Speculative Instruments 15.The Philosophy of Rhetoric 16.Complementarities: Uncollected Essays and Reviews 17.Richards on Rhetoric: Selected Essays

00164—What are the views of I. A. Richards on the emotive use of language? OR What does Richards mean by the language of poetry?

When a statement is made for the sake of the effects in emotion and attitude, it is called the emotive use of language.  The word “emotive” is related to emotion.  It is this use of language that is relevant in poetry.  When Iago remarks, “Ah, I like not that!” in the play ‘Othello’ the effect of the simple-seeming statement is far reaching.  It is upon this statement or comment that the whole play moves.  Like a pricking nail the remark troubles Othello.  Similarly the words “I gave commands and all her smiles stopped” [in My Last Duchess by Robert Browning] tell us a lot of things.  Similarly when words are arranged in different ways, a poet can produce various moods: in the play “Julius Caesar”, Mark Antony makes his oratory appealing by the use of irony.  When he continuously says ‘Brutus is an honourable man’, the effect upon the Roman mob is a fine example of the emotive use of language.  They finally declare that Brutus is not honourable.

00101--What is the value of poetry according to I.A. Richards,

            Thomas Love Peacock denounced poets and Poetry in his notorious booklet The Four Ages of Poetry.  He wrote that poets were only exploring myths and legends and were thus "wallowing in the rubbish of departed ignorance'.  He further wrote, "A poet in our times is a semi barbarian in a civilized community.  He lives in the ways that are past.  His ideas, thoughts, feelings, associations, are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs, and exploded superstitions.  The march of his intellect is like that of a crab, backward".  Keeping these absurd allegations in his mind, Richards pleaded that even in this age of science, scepticism and interrogation, poetry has its great value.  It enlivens, ennobles and regenerates our benevolent and humanitarian feelings and emotions.  Thus it plays a vital role in the life of the individual and society.  In the mind and heart so enlightened by poetry there lies the hope of civilization.

            Explaining his point of view, Richards says that experience of life may be both good and bad.  The poet responds to and communicates only the good and pleasurable ones through the medium of his poetry.  Normally, in routine life, mind receives all kinds of experiences, impressions, and reactions.  In course of time the weaker and unpleasant impressions are washed away, and only the deeper, pleasurable and benevolent ones get imprinted in the mind.  The poet enshrines there deeper and nobler experiences in his poetry and unconsciously communicates them to society.  Thus poetic experiences and impulses take the form of highest moral values.  They create and spread currents of hope, delight, refinement, and highest moral values in human environment.  Nothing can be nobler that poetic experience and its dissemination.

00100--Discuss I.A. Richards' theory of Poetic Communication.

Poetic communication, for Richards, is an implied, not vocal, dialogue between the poet and the reader.  He says, "The arts are the supreme form of the communicative activity, since any attempt to harness psychology to the service of criticism is bound to insist upon poetry as a strictly analysable human activity".  However, communication is not the primary function of the poet.  Communication of his experience is no part of the poet's work.  Eliot says, "Communication is an irrelevant or at  best a minor issue, and that what he is making is something which is beautiful in itself, or satisfying to him personally, or something expressive of his emotions, or of himself, something personal and individual.  That other people are going to study it, and to receive experiences from it may seem to him a merely accidental, in essential circumstance".  But this conscious neglect of communication does not in the least diminish the importance of the communicative power.

            The extent to which his work accords with his experience  can be known only by the extent to which it arouses not been accurately embodied in the work.  To that extent the poet has failed in his mission.  Man being accustomed to communication from infancy, each experience of his takes a communicative form.  Eliot says, "the emphasis which natural selection has put upon communicative ability is overwhelming".  The poet uses 'emotive language' i.e, language of emotions, and communicates his experiences 'with his heart on fire'.  Thus communication is inseparable from his poetic experience.

00099--Discuss I.E. Richard's concept of poetry and poetic composition.

            I.A. Richards is the most influential literary theorist of the twentieth century.  He is the pioneer of what has come to be known as New Criticism.  He judges every literary and aesthetic activity in the light of the latest discoveries in the field of psychology and working of human mind.  It is in the same light of human psychology and working of human mind that he gives his theory of poetry and poetic composition.  He says that poetry is a 'system of impulses' produced in the mind by some stimulus leading to the production of poetry.  When the stimulus first occurs, it produces a large number of mixed impulses which pull the mind in different directions.  Gradually these impulses organise themselves in a state of poise and get ready to follow a common course.  In this state of mental and emotional poise poetry germinates.  But it should be remembered that by poetry Richards means not only verse but all imaginative literature.  The poet simply records the happy play of impulses on a particular occasion.  The reader of poetry should not seek any thought from a poem; he should only share the experience, the happy play of impulses working in the mind of the poet.  However, much that goes to produce a poem is, of course, unconscious.  It should be remembered, as the modern psychologists say, that the unconscious processes are more important than the conscious ones.  It is these unconscious impulses that lead the poet or any artist to produce a poetical work or any other work of art.

00098--Discuss I.A. Richard's The Two Uses of Language. The Mental process that accompany the different uses of language.

I.          I.S. Richards, the famous Cambridge Scholar, in his 'Principles of Literary Criticism' introduces a very pertinent observation on language.  Language is used in two ways.  In the 34^th chapter of the book Richards explains the psychological processes underlying the different uses of language.  He begins by affirming that psychological terms like knowledge, belief assertion etc. only tend to blur the distinction between the two uses.  On the other hand an introspection into the causes of mental events would help us to understand how different uses of language occur.  Among the causes of mental events, two sets may be distinguished.  On the one hand, these are the present stimuli and the excitation caused by past stimuli.  On the other hand, there is readiness to respond to these stimuli.  The resulting impulses are conditioned and influenced by these two nets.  So long as an impulse owes its character to its stimulus and remains undistorted, it is a reference.  The independent internal conditions of the organism usually intervene to distort reference.  It is true that many of our needs can be satisfied if the impulses are left undistorted.  The undistorted body of references belongs to science.  If omniscient, all necessary attitudes could be maintained through scientific references.  Since we do not know very much, we are constrained to resort to fiction.  There are innumerable other human activities which require distorted references or fiction.  This is the poetical use of language.

II          Analysing the two uses of language, I.A. Richards make a few pertinent observations.  A statement may be used for the sake of the reference, true or false.  This is the scientific use of language.  Scientific language for Richards is the language that refers to the real world and makes statements, either true or false.  The arts are our store houses of recorded values and they help us equipped for realizing such ends, for its language is not scientific, but emotive . Emotive language wants to produce certain emotional effects and certain attitudes in those to whom it addresses itself.  'Many, if 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'.  Logical veracity often such statements is irrelevant.  Their sole function is to bring about and support responses, dispositions and attitudes.  This is the poetic use of language.  In other words, poetry uses language emotively and connotatively while science uses it referentially and denotatively.