THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING—I A RICHARDS

THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING—I A RICHARDS

 

 

A revised version, (11th Feb 2021).

 

S.Sreekumar

 

The following is an attempt to analyze The Four Kinds of Meaning (Practical Criticism, Part III, Chapter I). 

 

This blog is more of a compilation rather than an original critical commentary. The sole intention here is to help the students/research scholars with a quick overview of Richards.  

 

Introduction—background

 

Richards is a unique figure in English literary criticism because of the originality of his ideas. Moreover, like Coleridge, Richards was also interested in philosophy. His works in literary criticism helped to lay the practical foundations and methodology of New Criticism. The close reading of texts is the strategy of New Criticism. It got its first extensive practitioner in Richards.

 

 

Besides, Richards was a mentor and teacher to other critics like William Empson and F. R. Leavis. Critics like Cleanth Brooks, Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, W. K. Wimsatt, R. P. Blackmur, and R. S. Crane (of the Chicago school) were also indebted to his theory and practice [see notes 1].

 

 

 

I A Richards——a biographical note.

 

Ivor Armstrong Richards, popularly known as I. A. Richards (1893 – 1979), was a literary critic, linguist, and philosopher. He had no formal training in literature. His subject of study at Cambridge was philosophy. As a visiting professor, Richards taught Basic English and Poetry at Tsinghua University, Beijing. Later, he became the director of the Orthological Institute of China.

 

Feedforward

 

At the age of 75, Richards propounded the concept of feedforward. It became a significant term in cybernetics. OED has recorded it as coined by Richards. Later, Marshal McLuhan (a student of Richards) applied the ideas of feedforward in his works.

 

Richards says that feedforward is the concept of anticipating the impact of our words. We can do it by acting as our own critic. It helps to clarify unclear concepts. Any writer can use feedforward to anticipate the impact of their words on the audience. It allows the writer to modify the text to create a better effect on the audience. Richards believed that ‘feedforward’ is very important in communication.

 

 

Contribution to English Literary Criticism.

 

Richards believed that literary criticism (as it existed then) was impressionistic and too abstract to be understood by ordinary readers. Therefore he wanted criticism to convey precise meanings through denotation and connotation. He looked at the psychological process of writing and reading.

 

Richards considered criticism as a scientifically analyzable activity. He believed that psychology is the science that unearths the secrets of literature. 

 

Therefore an adequate knowledge of psychology is essential to literary criticism.

 

Richards concluded that poetry has a therapeutic function (this idea is nothing new. Aristotle pointed it out around 350 BCE. Many of the Romantics were strong advocates of the therapeutic nature of poetry) as it coordinated many human impulses. Poetry helps the writer and the reader to retain psychological well-being. Richards recommended poetry of inclusion, which contained a wide variety of tensions and oppositions.

 

Works

 

The Foundations of Aesthetics, The Principles of Literary Criticism, Science and Poetry, Practical Criticism, Coleridge on Imagination, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Speculative Instruments, So Much Nearer: Essays toward a World English, Rhetoric, semiotics and prose interpretation, The Meaning of Meaning, Mencius on the Mind: Experiments in Multiple Definition, A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism, Basic Rules of Reason, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Interpretation in Teaching, Basic in Teaching: East and West, The Wrath of Achilles: The Iliad of Homer, Shortened and in a New Translation, Complementarities: Uncollected Essays and Times of India Guide to Basic English

 

Practical Criticism

 

The work is a milestone in literary criticism. New Criticism owes much to this work. [‘Four Kinds of Meaning’ is an extract from this work]

 

The work began in the 1920s with a series of experiments by Richards. He gave poems to students without any information about the author or the period. Thus the name of the poet and the period were unknown to the students.

 

Based on his experiments, Richards wrote Practical Criticism in 1929. In this, he analyzed the results of his experiments (which he called ‘protocols’).

 

The objective was to make the students realize the importance of ‘the words on the page. The students had to abandon ‘preconceived or received beliefs’ about a poem.

 

Richards believed that the close analysis needed to understand the multiple dimensions of a poem had psychological benefits. They could respond to all the currents of emotion and meaning. These could help them achieve a corresponding clarification of their feelings and emotions.

 

OUTLINE OF PRACTICAL CRITICISM

 

PART I ——— INTRODUCTORY

PART II ——— DOCUMENTATION

PART III ——— ANALYSIS

CHAPTER I. THE FOUR KINDS OF MEANING.

CHAPTER II. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.

CHAPTER III. SENSE AND FEELING.

CHAPTER IV. POETIC FORM 

CHAPTER V. IRRELEVANT ASSOCIATIONS AND STOCK RESPONSES

CHAPTER VI. SENTIMENTALITY AND INHIBITION  

CHAPTER VII. DOCTRINE IN POETRY

CHAPTER VIII. TECHNICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS & CRITICAL PRECONCEPTIONS

PART IV ——— SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

I. CULTURE IN THE PROTOCOLS

     II. THE SERVICES OF PSYCHOLOGY

III. SUGGESTIONS TOWARDS A REMEDY

 

The outline shows that The Four Kinds of Meaning is an extract from Part III of the book.

 

Richards further gives a break-up of the extract highlighting its salient features.

 

[The ten difficulties of criticism. The fundamental difficulty: making out the meaning. Four aspects of meaning: sense, feeling, tone, intention. Relative subordination of these in scientific writings; in popularization; in political speeches; in conversation. Statements in poetry. Emotion criticism.]

 

 

 

Critical summary and analysis of The Four Kinds of Meaning

 

 

 

At the outset, Richards points out some of the difficulties in Part II (of Practical Criticism) because of documentation. The documentation was like navigating through a labyrinth. Richards admits that the analysis of ‘anonymous’ poems his students undertook has generated a hundred verdicts from a hundred readers. He acknowledges that the above result was at the very opposite pole from his hope and intention. [see notes 2]

 

The suitable method to conclude [with proper understanding and confidence] is to look closely into the ten difficulties of criticism ‘listed towards the end of Part I, [see notes 3] considering them one by one in the order adopted’. Richards says that the difficulties are interdependent like a cluster of monkeys.

 

‘The original difficulty’ of reading is the problem of making out the meaning. It is the starting point. Richards poses several questions. We have to find answers if we were to understand a poem.

 

 

What is (a) meaning?  

What are we doing when we endeavour to make it out?

What is it we are making out?

 

 

The most significant fact for studying literature (or any other means of communication) is that there are several kinds of meaning. When we read/talk, we are like ‘jugglers keeping the billiard-balls in the air while we balance the cue on our nose. [This idea is one of the guiding principles of post structuralism]. The meaning we arrive at is a combination of different contributory meanings. Language has to perform several functions simultaneously. We have to take note of the differences between these functions. Richards divides them into four types with four types of meaning.

 

All articulate speeches are from four different points of view. These are Sense, Feeling, Tone, and Intention.

 

1. SENSE

 

We speak to say something. When we listen, we expect others to say something. When speaking, we want to direct the attention of our listeners to something. We also want to excite some thoughts in our listeners.

 

2. FEELING

 

We have some feelings when we speak about things/state. We have an attitude towards it, some direction, bias, or accentuation of interest, some personal flavour or colouring of feeling. We use language to express those feelings. Similarly, when listening, we pick up those feelings from what we hear.

 

 

3. TONE

 

 

The speaker has an attitude to his listener. He chooses or arranges his words differently as his audience varies. The tone of the utterance reflects the nature of the relationship with the listener.

 

4. INTENTION

 

The speaker’s intention is different from———

    What he says, (Sense)

    What he is talking about (feeling) &

    What is his attitude to the listener (Tone)?

 

The intention may be conscious or unconscious. The speaker speaks for a purpose that modifies his speech. To understand the meaning, we must understand the motive. We can measure success only if we know the intention.

 

Sometimes the purpose will be to state the thoughts of the author. Sometimes it will be to express his feelings about what he is thinking. It may also express his attitude to the listener.

 

The author’s intention influences the language he uses.  

 

Richards admits that in the analysis of ‘anonymous’ poems (by his students), failure of one or other functions is noticeable. Sometimes all four fail together; a reader garbles the sense, distorts the feeling, mistakes the tone, and disregards the intention; and a partial collapse of one function entails aberrations in the others.

 

In our uses of language, Richards says that one or another of the functions may become predominant.

 

In a scientific document, the sense is of importance. Any feelings about the subject may not interfere. The academic conventions decide the tone. The intention of the author gets revealed through the work. The work will be a clear and adequate statement of what the author has to say.

 

Richards cites the example of a popular book on science and shows how it is different from a scientific document.

 

1. There is no precise and adequate statement of the sense. General intelligibility is more important. Simplifications and distortions may be needed for the ordinary reader to understand what is said.

 

2. The author may have to evoke the reader’s interest. Therefore an active display of feelings towards the subject is desirable.

 

3. Variety in tone is necessary. Jokes and illustrations are admissible. A certain amount of cajolery [persuasion] is not unusual in such writings.

 

4. ‘A human relation between the subject and his lay audience must be created and the task...is not easy’.   

 

Richards then takes up the case of political speeches. He questions the ‘rank and precedence’ of the four language functions in utterances made in a General Election. On this occasion, the fourth (Intention) will become the main. The tools used are Function 2 (Feeling) and Function 3 (Tone). Richards points out that ‘we will be pained or surprised’ to see Function 1 (sense or the representation of facts) getting the least importance. He rightly states that this situation of facts getting the least priority in political speeches should take us to the question of Sincerity. Richards deals with the topic of ‘Sincerity’ in Chapter VII. 

 

The clearest examples of shifts in function (one function being taken over by another) we get in conversations. The intention may dominate others. Sometimes Feeling and Tone may express themselves through Sense. The language used by diplomats provides us with examples for this shift in function. Similarly, shifting takes place in social language or phatic communion. 

 

Language Functions in poetry

 

FEELING and TONE become dominant and operate through SENSE in poetry. [On the other hand, SENSE interferes and dominates FEELING and TONE in disciplines like Psychology.]

 

In a situation where FEELING and TONE dominate SENSE, Richard foresees some effects:

 

When FEELING and TONE dominate, the statements in poetry affect our feelings. The feelings are not for their own sake.

 

If we challenge the ‘truth value’ of such statements or question their seriousness, we are mistaking their function [which is not to impart truth].

 

Many of the statements in poetry are there for ‘manipulation’ and expression of feelings and attitudes. They do not contribute to any set of doctrines or knowledge.

 

In narrative poetry, Richards says, there is very little danger of mistaking statements for facts. But in ‘philosophical’ or meditative poetry, there is great danger of confusion. Such confusion would have two consequences:-

 

Many people take all the statements in poetry seriously and find them silly. For them, “My soul is a ship in full sail” would appear profitless. This mistake may be absurd, but it is quite common.

On the other hand, many people ‘swallow’ a declaration like ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’ as quintessential aesthetic philosophy. Richards says that the statement shows a blend of feelings. If taken seriously, it will lead only to a complete stalemate of muddle-mindedness.

 

Richards asserts that poets subjugate [subdue, suppress] SENSE in many ways. They do so to express a feeling or adjust the tone. They may distort statements; or make statements that have nothing to do with the subject or present things that are logically irrelevant, trivial, or silly. They are justified in doing so if they succeed in their other aims.

 

 

Conclusion

 

 

Richards concludes that the indirect devices for expressing feelings through logical irrelevance and nonsense (through statements not to be taken strictly, literally, or seriously) are not peculiar to poetry.

 

Literary criticism is also affected by it [expressing feeling through logically irrelevant and nonsensical statements]. For example, many declarations about poetry turn out to be indirect expressions of FEELING, TONE, and INTENTION. Dr Bradley’s remark that ‘Poetry is a spirit’ and Dr Mackail’s statement that poetry ‘is a continuous substance or energy whose progress is immortal’ are examples of such indirect expressions of feeling or intention. We have to avoid such errors of misunderstanding in our reading of the protocols [the analysis of ‘anonymous’ poems which Richards asked his students to undertake].   

 

NOTES

 

1. In the work of Richards' most influential student, William Empson, practical criticism provided the basis for an entire critical method. In Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), Empson analyzed the complex and multiple meanings of poems. This work had a profound impact on New Criticism. [The exponents of New Criticism saw poems as elaborate structures with complex meanings]. 

New Critics would usually pay relatively little attention to the historical setting of the works. They treated literature as a separate sphere of activity. With F.R. Leavis, the close analysis of texts became a moral activity. Here, a critic would bring the whole of his sensibility to bear on a literary text and test its sincerity and moral seriousness.

 

2. Richards gave many unfamiliar poems to undergraduate students of English in his experiment. He did not reveal their authorship. He asked the students to read and submit written comments on them. 

·      The result, in the words of one account, was horrifying. 

·      Magazine poetasters got extravagant praise. 

·      Donne, Hopkins, and Christina Rossetti got condemnation and ridicule.

·      Large minorities and even majorities praised absurdities.

 

3. The ten difficulties of criticism.

 

Richards lists out the ten difficulties of criticism thus:

 

A. Finding out the plain sense of poetry.  Richards points out that a large proportion of average-to-good readers of poetry frequently and repeatedly fail to understand it, both as a statement and as an expression.

 

 

B. Secondly, he places the difficulties of sensuous apprehension. 

Words in a sequence have a form to the mind's ear and the mind's tongue and larynx, even when silently read.  They have movement and rhythm. Some readers naturally and immediately perceive this form and movement. Others either ignore it or has to build it up laboriously with finger-counting, table-tapping, and the rest; and this difference has the most far-reaching effects.

 

 

C. Richards then deals with the difficulties connected with imagery, principally visual imagery.

Readers differ much in their capacity to visualize and to produce imagery of the other senses.  Most poets have exceptional imaging capacity.

Some readers give undue stress to imagery and judge the poetic value by the images it excites in them. Images are erratic things. "Lively images produced in one mind may be similar to the equally lively images stirred by the same line of poetry in another". But these may have no connection with any images that existed in the mind of the poet.

 

D. The third difficulty arises from the powerful and persistent influence of mnemonic irrelevances. 

[mnemonic= the study of techniques for remembering anything with ease.]

The reader remembers some scene or adventure, erratic associations, or emotional echoes from a past that may have nothing to do with the poem.

 

E. Stock -responses involve views and emotions already fully prepared in the reader's mind so that what happens appears to be more of the reader's doing than the poet's. The button is pressed, and then the author's work is done, for immediately the record starts playing in quasi- (or total) independence of the poem that is supposed to be its origin or instrument. Whenever this lamentable redistribution of the poet's and reader's share in the labour of poetry occurs or is in danger of occurring, we require to be on our guard. (Richards).

 

F. Sentimentality. It is a peril that needs less comment here.  It is a question of the due measure of response.

 

G. Inhibition. Inhibition is a positive phenomenon. It is less studied until recent years and somewhat masked under the title of Hardness of Heart.

 

H.  Doctrinal Adhesions. Religious poetry may contain or imply views and beliefs, true or false, about the world. What is their role in the reader’s estimate of the poetry? “Has poetry anything to say; if not, why not, and if so, how? Difficulties at this point are a fertile source of confusion and erratic judgment”.

I. The effect of technical presupposition.

When something has once been well done in a certain fashion we tend to expect similar things to be done in the future in the same fashion, and are disappointed or do not recognize them if they are done differently. Conversely, a technique which has shown its ineptitude for one purpose tends to become discredited for all. Both are cases of mistaking means for ends. Whenever we attempt to judge poetry from outside by technical details we are putting means before ends, and such is our ignorance of cause and effect in poetry we shall be lucky if we do not make even worse blunders. We have to try to avoid judging pianists by their hair.

J. Finally, general critical preconceptions.  Conscious or unconscious theories interfere endlessly between the reader and the poem.  “Like an unlucky dietetic formula, they may cut him off from what he is starving for, even when it is at his very lips.

 

Dr S. Sreekumar

 

Disclaimer

 

Blogger’s Note

 

The critical summary is for students of Indian universities. The blogger has tried to make the explanations as lucid as possible. This summary does not pretend to offer an alternative to the original. Further, it is for scholarly purposes only. 

Here is a request to the scholars going through this summary. Please point out the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors in it [You can include them in the comments]. The blogger is working from a place/situation where he does not have the services of an efficient proof-reader.