Ivor Armstrong Richards Essay Example
Ivor Armstrong Richards Essay Example

Ivor Armstrong Richards Essay Example

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  • Pages: 2 (470 words)
  • Published: December 1, 2016
  • Type: Essay
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The foundation of aesthetics ‘with C.K Ogden and James Wood. He also wrote ‘the meaning of meaning’ with Ogden. According to him, the world criticism has not touched in finding the answers for what kind of activity poetry is? What is its value? He firmly believes that the entry of psychology in art makes an impact on the reader and society. The nature of poetry:

I.A.Richards first examines the working of human mind to explain the nature of poetry. He says that it is a system of impulses which may be defined as the reactions produced in the mind by some stimulus and culminating in an act. For him poetry is a representation the uniquely ordered state of mind. Poet is interested in recording the happy play of impulses.

Richards says that

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the communication of his experiences is the part of poet of poet’s work. The extent to which it arouses the same experiences can be known only by the extent to which it arouses the same experience has not been accurately embodied in the work. Being communication in separable from poetic experiences, Richard’s examines two kinds of language poetry used ‘referential or scientific and emotive. The words may be used for the sake of references they promote and they may be used for the sake of attitudes and emotions. While science makes statements, poetry makes pseudo-statement. A statement says something and it is justified by truth. But a pseudo-statement is only a statement in name. For him poetry speaks not to the mind but to the impulses. The value of poetry:

I.A.Richards is of the view that the values

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of poetry lies in experience. This results from the play of impulses. He says that the impulses are of two kinds namely ‘appentencies’ and ‘aversions’. Which mean’desires’ and ‘dis likes ‘. The mind instinctively prefers the satisfaction of appentencies to the satisfaction of aversions. He says that poetic experience has a moral value. The organisation of the impulses is good not only for the poet but also for the society which reads his writings. He thinks that the poet in his times is a semi-barbarian in a civilized community. He lives in the ways that are past. His ideas thought feeling associations are all with barbarous manners, obsolete customs and explored superstitions.

I.A.Richards turns criticism in to a science. To him, the making of literature is a scientifically analysable activity. He does not believe that while other human activities can be explained by science, literary activity is beyond its reach. To him, the science that can unearth the secretes literature is psychology. From the work of the writer alone, the whole of this inner process cannot be known. He considered an adequate knowledge of psychology an essential preliminary to literary criticism.

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