Practical Criticism is a method of literary analysis that focuses
on close reading and interpretation of a text without relying on
external sources or information about the author's intentions or
background. It was developed by I. A. Richards and was
influential in the field of literary criticism in the 20th century.
The goal of practical criticism is to understand and appreciate a
text on its own terms, exploring its language, structure, and
themes to derive meaning and significance. This approach
encourages readers to engage directly with the text and form
their own interpretations based on their individual responses and
insights
Literary theory and by extension, practical literary criticism, are
interpretive tools that help us think more deeply and insightfully
about the literature that we read. Literary theory, specifically,
refers to the set of principles evolved for the evaluation of works
of literature. Over time, different schools of literary criticism
have developed, each with its own approaches to the act of
reading. It is important that students study literary theory and
criticism because both offer different ways of interpreting works
of literature. Each theory offers itself as the most (or the only)
accurate means of understanding human experience. In many
instances, advocates of the most popular theories of the day
usually receive the acclamation and respect. However, even
within the ranks of any given critical theory there are countless
disagreements among practitioners that result in the emergence
of different schools of thought gas within a single theory. In
fact, the history of every literary theory is, in effect, the history
of an ongoing debate among its own advocates as well as an
ongoing debate with the advocates of other theories. Thus,
literary theory and criticism will help you in “thinking
theoretically,” that is, to seeing the assumptions, whether stated
or not, that underlie every viewpoint.
To study practical literary criticism is to seek to understand
exactly how readers (critics) interpret (criticize) texts, especially
literary ones. Most scholars today would agree that there is no
single meaning waiting to be simply found in any text. Meaning
is, rather, produced; that is, it is a function of the different
interpretative strategies which various readers bring to bear upon
a text. A cardinal rule of modern literary criticism may be
summed up as follows: the ‘answers’ you get from a text depend
entirely upon the kind of ‘questions’ you put to it. The upshot of
all this is that the same text legitimately means different things
to different people. As a result, for example, a Marxist critic
would necessarily
In Richard's The PrinciplesofLiteraryCriticism(1924), he
establishes
thenatureandvalueofpoetry.Accordingtohim,thesciencethatuneart
hsthesecretsofliteratureispsychology.Hefirstexaminestheworking
ofthehumanminditselftofindoutapsychologicaltheoryofvalue.Hed
escribesthehumanmindasasystemof‘impulses’,whichmaybedefin
edas‘attitudes’orreactionsmotivatedinusby‘stimuli’,thatculminat
einanact.Theseimpulsesareconflictinginstinctsanddesiresandwan
ts—
or‘appetencies’asRichardscallsthem,asopposedto‘aversions’—
inthehumanmind.
Theypullindifferentdirectionsandcauseuneasinesstothehumanmin
dwhichlookstoachieveorderorpoisethroughthesatisfactionofappet
encies.Themindexperiencesastateofpoiseonlywhentheseemotions
organizetofollowacommoncourse.Butwitheachnewexperience,th
ewholesystemisdisturbedandthehumanmindhastoreadjusttheimp
ulsesinanewwaytoachievethedesiredsystemorpoise.Toachievethi
spoise,someimpulsesaresatisfiedandsomegivewaytoothersandare
frustrated.Theidealstatewillbewhenalltheimpulsesarefullysatisfie
d,butsincethisisrarelypossible,thenextbeststateiswhenthemaximu
mnumberofimpulsesaresatisfiedandtheminimumarefrustrated.Th
evalueofartorpoetry–
andbypoetryRichardsmeansallimaginativeliterature–
isthatitenablesthemindtoachievethispoiseorsystemmorequicklyan
dcompletelythanitcoulddootherwise.Inartthereisaresolutionandba
lancingofimpulses.Poetryisarepresentationofthisuniquelyordered
stateofmindinwhichtheimpulsesrespondtoastimulusinsuchamann
erthatthemindhasalife’sexperience.
Thepoetrecordsthishappyplayofimpulsesonaparticularoccasion,t
houghmuchthatgoesintothemakingofapoemisunconsciouslydone.
Itistopartakeofthisexperiencethatthetruereaderreadspoetry.Good
poetryarousesthesameexperienceinthereadertoo.Thus,poetrybeco
mesameansbywhichwecangainemotionalbalance,mentalequilibri
um,peaceandrest.Poetryorganizesourimpulsesandgivesourminda
certainorder,rendersushappyandmakesourmindshealthy.Whatistr
ueoftheindividualisalsotrueofsociety.
Asocietyinwhichartsarefreelycultivatedexhibitsbettermentalande
motionaltranquillitythanthesocietiesinwhichartsarenotvalued.Thi
smoralvalueofartproceedsfromtheworkingofthehumanmindrather
thanfromanyethicalbase.Artorpoetryisvaluableinthatitintegrateso
uractivities,resolvesourmentalconflictsandtensionsandleadsustoa
liberatedstate. Practical Criticism is like the formal study of
litterature itself, a relatively young discipline.
