I. A. Richards

Ivor Armstrong Richards is an English critic, poet, and teacher who contributed to literary criticism and rhetoric to a great extent. He was highly influential in developing a new way of reading poetry that led to the New Criticism. In his interactive theory of metaphor, he introduced the terms tenor and vehicle into the study of figurative language. In addition, A student of psychology, he concluded that poetry performs a therapeutic function by coordinating a variety of human impulses into an aesthetic whole, helping both the writer and the reader maintain their psychological well-being. In his Principles of Literary Criticism (1923) he propounded that the value of the poem can be measured by the psychological responses it provokes in its readers. In his Practical Criticism he defined tone as “the expression of a literary speaker’s attitude to his listener.” “The tone of his utterance reflects…his sense of how he stands towards those he is addressing.” In his Principles of Literary Criticism, he defined irony in poetry as an equilibrium of opposing attitudes and evaluations.

 

Richards suggested building a psychological theory that enables us to value art. According to psychological theories of his time, he restated that contradictory impulses always exist in human nature, and that to conduct our life we must organize or systematize our impulses so that the most important of them gain control and manipulate our selves.  

 

He, then, divided human impulses into two kinds: appetencies and aversions. The former means seeking after and the latter withdrawing from. That which satisfies an appetency is valuable. According to Richards the only psychological reason for not satisfying a desire is its consequences. That is to say, one would rather not satisfy a desire or an impulse only because of its consequences or codes of morality. He added that any stable organization and systematization of our impulses sacrifices some of them. Therefore, the importance of an impulse can be defined as “the extent to which the omission or removal of an impulse disturbs the individual’s activities”

 

Then again, he puts human needs into two groups: primitive needs and communicative and cooperative ones. Certain needs, he said, must be satisfied before others are even possible. Eating, drinking, sleeping and breathing are among primitive impulses and human’s natural tendency to live in a society is among the communicative needs. Men prefer death rather than to be cut off from normal relations with their fellow beings. Yet, the society needs individuals whose impulses are consistent and compatible with the interest of the society as a whole. Richards emphasizes that individuals and society through individuals can achieve better organization through the influence of other minds; that is, primarily through literature and the arts.

 

In Richards’ view, the poet is one who is more sensitive to different phenomena than the ordinary man and is able to manage his impulses with less confusion. That is, he is able to bring opposed impulses into equilibrium. According to Richards, nothing can substitute for literature and the arts because the experience they offer are rarely if ever obtainable elsewhere. Art widens and better orders human experience. Art and literature not only can manage human mental organization but even secures the society’s moral health.

 

One question arises that how this psychological theory helps value works of art? Richards suggests that if a work of art is up to or better than our level of organization, it is valuable and it is worthless if it confuses our impulses. Therefore, the well-organized person recognizes the well-organized work of art.