Literary Criticism: A Note on I.A.Richard's "Two Uses of Language"

What old criticism missed?
In the course of criticism so far, Richard finds that the central question, ‘what kind of activity is poetry and what is its value’ almost untouched. This is due to the absence of the availability of psychological information for the critic. Psychology is ‘the indispensable instrument’ for any inquiry concerning art, because of its influence and impact on the reader and society.
Human psychology and poetry
Richard examines first, the working of human mind to explain the nature of poetry. There are moments in a man’s life when his impulses respond to a stimulus in such an organised way that the mind has a life’s experience. Poetry is a representation of this uniquely ordered state of mind. Poetry means not only verse but all imaginative literature, which is also the product of the same state of mind. A poet is not conscious of embodying any thought in his work. All he is interested in is to record the happy play of impulses on a particular occasion. To approach him therefore for what he says is to misunderstand him. It is to share his experience, the happy play of his impulses that the true reader goes to him. It is all that a poem or poetry is.
Communication and poetry
A poet makes something which is beautiful in it or satisfying to him personally. Or he is making something expressive of his emotions or of himself. He is making something personal and individual. Other people are going to study it. They are going to receive the experiences from it, in the views of the poet, accidentally. Thus, taking it in this view, the communication of his experience is no part of the poet’s work. The extent to which a work accords with a poet’s experience can be known only by the extent to which it arouses the same experience in reader. If it fails to do so, the experience has not been accurately embodied in the work. Man is accustomed to communication from infancy. Each of his experience takes a communicative form even without his conscious effort. Thus communication becomes inseparable from poetic experience.
The two uses of language
Richard examines, what kind of language poetry uses. According to Richard, there are two uses of language – referential or scientific, and emotive. Referential or scientific is the way of science in using words. It is the usage of words for the sake of the references they promote. Using the word ‘fire’ in this way is no more than a reference to a corresponding object in life. The word faithfully recalls the object. Using words in emotive manner means using them for the sake of attitudes and emotions which ensue. This is the way of poetry. In poetry, the word fire may denote ‘with heart on fire’, where ‘on fire’ means ‘in an excited state’. Instead of recalling the object, the word stands to evoke an emotion.
While science makes statements, poetry makes ‘pseudo-statements’. A statement says something and ‘is justified by its truth’. It can always be verified by a reference to its original, outside it. A pseudo-statement, on the other hand, is only a statement in name. What it says is not literally true. Therefore, in the normal sense of a word, a pseudo-statement says nothing at all. What it apparently says has the larger purpose of evoking an emotion or attitude of mind which the poet considers valuable but for which there are no verbal equivalents. So he adopts this indirect method of evoking it. Poetry speaks not to the mind but to the impulses. Its speech, literal or unliteral, logical or illogical, is faithful to its experience to the extent to which it induces the experience in others.
Among these experiences, naturally, some must be good and some bad. It is only the good ones that can be said to be valuable. Experience results from the play of impulses (mentioned before). The mind unconsciously decides which impulses are valuable for it should therefore be satisfied to the full, and which are not valuable and should therefore be suppressed. The impulses are of two kinds – ‘appetencies and aversions’ (or desires and dislikes). The mind instinctively seeks for the satisfaction of appetencies which are more important (eg. Eating, drinking etc). In the same way, it prefers elevating appetencies to those that are depraving. The normal satisfaction of the impulses therefore is involved in almost all the greatest goods of life.
The language of criticism
Criticism uses the language of science. The making of literature is a scientifically analyzable activity. There is a clearly definable reason for every aspects of literature. Through a serious scientific exploration, ‘mysteries’ of literary art will be mysteries no more. Richard looks forward to this stage of human progress. According to Richard, the science that can unearth the secrets of literature is psychology. Criticism hitherto has either merely ‘enjoyed’ literature, often adding something of its own to it. Only an adequate knowledge of psychology can help the critic understand literature fully, and know that criticism is not meant merely to enjoy literature.