“I. A. Richard’s Figurative Language”

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - II

Paper no. – 08 E-C-203

Year – 2010-11

Topic: “I. A. Richard’s Figurative Language”

Submitted to Dr.Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

         Ivor Armstrong Richards was one of the first teachers of English at the University of Cambridge, where the English school was founded in 1917. His first book was “The Foundation of Aesthetics (1922) written in collaboration with C.G. Ogden and James Wood, and his second book “ The Meaning of Meaning “ written in collaboration with C.G.Ogden in 1923. “ The Principles of Literary criticism” in 1924 was attempted to provide literary criticism with a firm and logical base in theory.

          I.A. Richards has been a constant source of inspiration to the new critics- more particularly to John Crowe Ranson and William Empson- many of whom have used his tools and techniques on an extensive scale. I.A.Richards 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 take into account its effect on the readers.  For him, the real value of a poem lies in the reaction and attitudes it creates weather or not it is conductive to greater emotional balance equilibrium, peace and rest in the mind of the readers. For him the value of a work of art lies in its power to harmonies and organizes complex and warring human impulses into patterns that are lasting and pleasurable.

“Sources of misunderstanding in poetry”:

          In practical criticism a study of literary judgment, I.A.Richards has given the theory of Figurative language. He starts discussion first on sources of misunderstanding in poetry. He says that it is very difficult to find the source which creates misunderstanding. Further, he says that there are four sources of misunderstanding as far as are poetry is concerned. As one source of misunderstanding is connected with the other in different way it becomes very hard to diagnoses, with certainty, the source of some particular mistake or misunderstanding. This kind of source of misunderstanding can be possible but rarely.

          Such misunderstanding may arise, if the reader does not pay attention or his or her sheer carelessness. But carelessness and   inattention results from distraction. And the meter and verse form of poetry itself may be powerful source of distraction. If the reader is not aware of meter and verse form which are in poetry defiantly distraction may arise. To some readers meter and verse form of poetry are as powerful as distraction as a barrel organ or a brass-bend is to one trying to solve difficult mathematical. But as we know, meter and rhymes are essential part of poetry and cannot be differentiated. Therefore, the reader should a poem several times. Because the constant reading of poem can solve the problem regarding the meter and verse. Reader should read a poem for grasping the concept of it. Perhaps the constant readings can solve the various doubts about the poem.  These misunderstanding of sense of the poetry must be solved by the reader. So that he can grasp the idea of the poem.

          If we talk about another misunderstanding of the sense of poetry, we can say that some poets often themselves like to play all manners of tricks with their sense. Sometimes a poet dissolves the coherence of his sense altogether, and may seem chaotic and incoherent. The ordinary laws of syntax and grammar may be thrown to the window. These chaotic and in incoherent structure arise the complex situation in the poetry. Reader feels uncertainty to solve it. As a result, a reader fails to understand the concept of the poetry and feel complicated situation.

          This complicated situation gives rise to misunderstanding or wrong notion that syntax is of less significant in poetry then in prose and that the proper way of understanding poetry is through a kind of guess-work, which may even be called intuition. Such notions are hard solve. Because they are true to some extent. This aspect of truth in poetry makes reader most deceptive and misleading. I.A. Richard warns his readers against this danger. He writes,

“In most poetry the sense is as important as anything else;

It is quite as a subtle, and as dependent of the syntax as in

Prose; it is the poet’s chief instrument to other aims when it is not

Itself his aim. His control of our thoughts is ordinarily his chief means to the

Control of our feeling, and in the immense majority of instances we miss nearly everything

Of value if we misread his sense.

          So, according to I.A.Richards, the sense that should be read in its context. Then, reader does not misunderstand the meaning. However, this does not mean that the sense of a poem can be fully understand apart from the context, that a prose paraphrase, however accurate can fully express its sense. So, reader should take the meaning of sense into the context. The sense as expressed in prose paraphrase is never the full burden of poem; it can never express its full significance. Besides, the literal meaning, a poem also conveys feeling and emotions, and these can never be conveyed through a rendering of its sense. This literal meaning can also propel the reader towards the original meaning. Because if reader reads the poem several times, he will get various meaning and at last perhaps, this constant reading would reach him at right meaning at the sense in the poetry.

            An over literal reading is as great a source of misunderstanding in poetry as careless, intuitive reading. Reader should avoid these both dangerous things. To quote Richards’ own words, “These twin dangers-careless, intuitive reading and prosaic, over literal’ reading- are the simple-grades, the justing rocks, between which too many ventures into poetry are worked.”

          Defective scholarship is a third source of misunderstanding in poetry. The reader may fail to grasp the idea regarding the sense of many a word used by the poet. The words which are used in the poetry may be new, difficult and not familiar to the necessary intellectual context or he may lack of the primary knowledge the meaning. Words used by a poet, besides having a literal meaning, may also have acquired additional richness and value from their having been used by other poets and writers in different contexts, and this associative value and significance would be lost upon  a reader unfamiliar with this literary context of words. So, in a way, reader should have the knowledge of language. He, then, should be capable to poet. The enriched language of the reader can solve the misunderstanding in poetry.

“The importance of visual memory”:

          For a proper appreciation and evaluation of the imagery of a poem, visual memory is also an essential, and its lake misleads the critic and distorts his judgment. The use of the word pencil ... meaning, produce the effect of penciling – is highly suggestive in the poem. its suggestion, “both of the hard, clear outline of the clouds edge and of the shadowy variation in the lighting of its inner recess , is not in the least cancelled by climbed or by the sky scraper hoist of miraculous stocked .  ”

           Miraculous stocked seems at least to have clear advantage over ‘the tremendous triumph of tall towers’ in point of economy and vividness. ‘Puzzle’, has accuracy also on its side against these cavilers. Anyone who watches the rest less shifted of cattle as the shadow suddenly darkness their, would for them will endowers the poet’s observations. But if the cows never noticed any change of light the word would still be justified through its evocative effect upon men. Similarly with paint and ghost; they work as a rapid and fresh notation of not vary unfamiliar effect.

          In short, a proper understanding of figurative language required close study of the poem. Reader should read the poem into the context of close reading. its literal since must be carefully followed, but such literal reading  must not come in the way of imagination appreciation of it judicious balance must be struck between literalism and imaginative freedom . The aim of the poem must be clearly understood for without such and understanding any judgment of the means the poet has used would be fallacious. New critics give importance to means first then the end of the poem. Because by doing this, they can learn the language – metaphor, figure of speech etc... At art, the end of the poetry can be achieved then the liberty can be given to analysis poem from anyway.

          By, the aim of the poem, Richard means the whole state of mind, the mental l condition, in which in another sense is the poem. Roughly he means by it the collection of impulses which shaped the poem originally, two which it gave expression, and to which, in an ideally the susceptible reader, it would again give rise. He does not mean by its ‘aim’ any sociological, aesthetic, and commercial or propagandize intension or hopes of the poet.