Principles of Literary Criticism

I. A. Richards (1893–1979). One of the most influential literary critics of the twentieth century. He taught at the University of Cambridge from 1922 before moving to Harvard University, where, from 1944, he was Professor of English Literature.

'To us Richards was infinitely more than a brilliantly new literary critic: he was our guide, our evangelist, who revealed to us, in a succession of astounding lightning flashes, the entire expanse of the Modern World.' - Christopher Isherwood'Principles of Literary Criticism is an important contribution to the rehabilitation of English criticism - perhaps because of its sustained nature, the most important contribution yet made. Mr Richards begins with an account of the present chaos of critical theories and follows with an analysis of the fallacy in modern aesthetics.' - Herbert Read, Criterion'Richards is simply the most infulential theorist of the century.' - George Watson, The Literary Critics

• 1. The Chaos of Critical Theories, 2. The Phantom Aesthetic State, 3. The Language of Criticism, 4. Communication and the Artist, 5. The Critics' Concern with Value, 6. Value as an Ultimate Idea, 7. A Psychological Theory of Value, 8. Art and Morals, 9. Actual and Possible Misapprehensions, 10. Poetry for Poetry's Sake, 11. A Sketch for a Psychology, 12. Pleasure, 13. Emotion and the Coenesthesia, 14. Memory, 15. Attitudes, 16. The Analysis of a Poem, 17. Rhythm and Metre, 18. On Looking at a Picture, 19. Sculpture and the Construction of Form, 20. The Impasse of Musical Theory, 21. A Theory of Communication, 22. The Availability of the Poet's Experience, 23. Tolstoy's Infection Theory, 24. The Normality of the Artist, 25. Badness in Poetry, 26. Judgement and Divergent Readings, 27. Levels of Response and the Width of Appeal, 28. The Allusiveness of Modern Poetry, 29. Permanence as a Criterion, 30. The Definition of a Poem, 31. Art, Play, and Civilization, 32. The Imagination, 33. Truth and Revelation Theories, 34. The Two Uses of Language, 35. Poetry and Beliefs, Appendix A: On Value, Appendix B: The Poetry of T. S. Eliot, Index