Parul Bhardwaj

Miranda House

QUICK NOTES ON I. A. RICHARDS’ PRINCIPLES OF LITERARY

CRITICISM

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1
THE CHAOS OF CRITICAL THEORIES

In his chapter titled "The Chaos of Critical Theories," I.A. Richards critiques the state of
literary criticism, arguing that it is disorganised and lacks a solid foundation.
1. He points out that despite the vast amount of critical literature and the presence of
great intellects in the field, there's a surprising lack of progress in understanding
the fundamental principles of art and its value.
2. He suggests that the experiences with which criticism is concerned are easily
accessible since one can simply open a book, look at a picture, or listen to music.
3. Despite the accessibility of these experiences, Richards notes that there is a lack of
clear and consistent understanding.
Richards attributes this chaos to several factors:
• Lack of Inquiry-
1. He questions whether the literature of criticism is the appropriate place to
look for answers about art, suggesting that perhaps philosophers, moralists,
and aestheticians might be better authorities.
2. He acknowledges that while there is no shortage of treatises on the Good
and the Beautiful, many of these rely on reason, intuition, and abstract
arguments without sufficient grounding in concrete facts.
• The Failure of Reason and Intuition –
1. He critiques those who have attempted to understand art through reason
and intuition alone, without the necessary empirical basis.
2. He asserts that these methods have proven to be fruitless and have
discredited themselves through their barren results.
• Limitations of Empirical Research-

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1. He notes that experimental work on aesthetics has provided useful details

to psychology, but these results are often of "indirect service" to broader
critical problems.
2. He argues that the responses to simple objects are highly variable,
depending on the context in which they are perceived, making it difficult to
draw universal conclusions from experiments.
3. This variability is similar to how a single word can evoke many different
thoughts and feelings and that the context of a sentence or a poem is needed
to fix the range of responses.
• Absence of a Theory of Value:
1. Richards notes a crucial defect in aesthetics: the avoidance of considerations
of value. He contends that the fact that some experiences arising from the
arts are valuable is not irrelevant and may hold the key to understanding
art.
2. He believes that to leave value out of the account is to miss the main point
and that a theory of value is necessary for criticism.
• The Problem of Language –
1. Richards points out the difficulty of using language when discussing art,
asserting that "all our natural turns of speech are misleading, especially
those we use in discussing works of art".
2. He notes that it is common to say that a picture is beautiful instead of saying
it causes a valuable experience in us.
3. He points out that the failure to recognise these linguistic traps contributes
to the confusion in critical theories.
• The Influence of Tradition:
1. He implies that some of the problems in critical theory arise from the
influence of tradition and that it is hard to get out of ruts that have been
shown to lead nowhere.
2. He suggests that many of the concepts and approaches used in literary
criticism are outdated and need to be re-examined.

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The "Chaos of Critical Theories" chapter serves as a starting point for Richards' project,
highlighting the shortcomings of existing critical approaches and establishing the need for
a new, more scientific approach based on psychology and a clear understanding of
language. He advocates for a more rigorous and systematic way of understanding art,
moving beyond vague pronouncements and emotional responses.

2
PHANTOM AESTHETIC STATE

In "The Phantom Aesthetic State," Richards,

1) challenges the widely held assumption that there is a distinct
"aesthetic experience" unique to our encounters with art.
2) He argues that this assumption, which has dominated modern
aesthetics since Kant, is a "phantom problem" that has led to much
confusion and misdirection in the field of literary criticism.

His major arguments are :

• The Prevailing Assumption:
1. Richards begins by noting that modern aesthetics rests on the assumption
that there is a specific kind of mental activity that occurs during "aesthetic
experiences".
2. This idea, tracing back to Kant, tries to define the "judgment of taste" as a
disinterested, universal, unintellectual pleasure distinct from sensory or
emotional pleasures.
3. This attempt to make aesthetic experience sui generis (unique in its
characteristics) has led to the "phantom problem" of an "aesthetic mode" or
"aesthetic state".

• The Search for a Unique Mental Element:

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1. He discusses how critics and theorists have tried to identify a special mental
element or mode of activity that would differentiate aesthetic experiences
from other kinds of experiences. For example, some, like Clive Bell,
proposed the existence of a unique "aesthetic emotion," but psychology has
not found any evidence for such an entity.
2. Others have proposed concepts like empathy, but Richards notes that
empathy also plays a role in non-aesthetic experiences.

• The "Aesthetic Mode" as a Negative Definition:

1. Richards points out that the "aesthetic mode" is often defined negatively, as
that which is neither intellectual inquiry nor practical action.
2. It is described as a contemplative activity that does not seek to understand
or use things but simply to experience them.

• Two Senses of "Aesthetic": Richards argues that the term "aesthetic" is used in two
different senses :
1. The first sense refers to a way of regarding things such that the resulting
experience is valuable, disvaluable or indifferent. This is the sense of
‘aesthetic’ that includes the experience of ugliness, or the experience of
simply putting something in a frame or writing it in verse.
2. The second sense of "aesthetic" is narrower, referring to experiences of
beauty and implying value. Richards notes that these experiences are often
treated as being fundamentally different from other kinds of experiences.

• The Absence of a Unique Mode:

1. Richards asserts that there is no such thing as an aesthetic mode. He argues
that the experience of beauty does not share qualities with the experience of
ugliness, and neither of these share qualities with the vast array of other
experiences not categorized as aesthetic.

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2. he argues that experiences of art, beauty, and ugliness are closely related to
many other experiences, differing in the connections between their
constituents.
3. They are, in his view, developments of ordinary experiences and not a
fundamentally different kind of thing. He illustrates this by noting that we
aren't doing something completely different when we look at a picture than
when we are getting dressed or going to the gallery.

• The Problem of "Aesthetic Value":

1. He argues that the idea of a distinct "aesthetic attitude" often leads to the
postulation of a unique "aesthetic value," a pure art value, that is isolated
from other values in life.
2. This leads to the idea that we do not need to bring any knowledge of life or
emotions to appreciate art. He quotes a recent extreme statement of the
Aesthetic Hypothesis: "To appreciate a work of art, we need to bring with us
nothing from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with
its emotions.". Richards rejects this idea, saying that it hinders the
investigation of art's value.
3. He notes that viewing art as something mystical is related to the aesthetic
mood and that this idea can narrow and restrict the interests active in art,
leading to artificiality and aloofness.

• The Importance of Context:

1. Richards emphasises that experiences of art are modified by the context in
which they are received. He notes that the same elements (e.g., the
description of a murder in a play or a tree in a picture) will have different
effects than they might have in other situations.
2. He says that these differences are just special cases of the general difference
between experiences made up of more and less complex impulses that have
to be brought into coordination.
• Rejection of a Special Faculty:

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1. Richards also rejects the idea that there is a special faculty of mind that can
discern aesthetic value.
2.
To sum up, he concludes that:
1. the notion of a "phantom aesthetic state" is a misleading concept that
complicates our understanding of art.
2. He advocates for a more grounded approach that does not isolate art from
the rest of human experience and values.
3. He wants to reframe the conversation about art in terms of psychological
responses and communication instead of a unique and mysterious aesthetic
faculty or state.

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