I. A. Richards (1893–1979)

The protocols are a curious read, and the whole exercise in close reading is well conceived and does encourage and train the critical mind, but the results as presented seem to be somewhat dubious in openly begging the question. In fact, Richards' "Principles of Literary Criticism" were published 5 years earlier, and in referring to them quite often the author makes it clear that the experiment was never meant to be a real empirical test for his theories, but something of a didactic aid. The discussion of the protocols deteriorates into repetitious driving home of the main considerations about approaching poetry that are only practical in being propped by a nearly arbitrary collection of critical notes by students. More often than not Richards ends on a note of lugubrious solemnity befitting an elderly academic expatiating on the lamentable state of affairs in our schools. He expresses, however, an awful lot of reservations and shows considerable humility in constantly including himself in the bunch of feeble-minded conceits blinded by irrelevant noise they grow into or out of.
That said, the approach to poetry Richards advocates is the only sane one, and the fact that the book reads like a set of commonplace invectives is in itself Richards' own achievement, and he seems to be a chap who'd be the first to acknowledge that (he did live quite a long life after publishing this book and most probably did say a thing or two about it, but I am ignorant of his later activity, which, of course, immediately disqualifies my "review" anyway).
On the other hand, I would not assume for a moment that if such an experiment were to take place in today's academia, the ensuing "protocols" would show any difference in critical faculties of the students.
Given a hammer, one guy starts using nails to build things, another, as has been wisely observed, takes every protrusion for a nail and causes some damage, another drives a nail through his own foot, a bunch of people fight hammering each other to death, and a number of observers condemn the hammer as an instrument of doom.
I.A.Richards introduced some vast improvements in the construction of the hammer and produced a thorough manual with a lot of practical examples and caveats. The manual is tedious but well worth reading. Also, it is full of fine rhetoric and malicious wit seldom possessed by our contemporaries (alas!), who are wont to nail stuff with their iPads. Also, several of the poems used to baffle the pre-literary-theory nincompoops I will happily live with ever after.… (more)

Richards's attempt to put criticism on an objective footing using psychology as a base largely fails. The psychology is too tentative and too vaguely sketched to support the heavy burden it is intended to bear. On the other hand, many things which are baldly stated as self-evident no longer seem so from a perspective 90 years after they were proposed. Much of the book is difficult, partly because Richards is so delicately careful in almost any statement that the argument gets lost in what amounts to circumlocution. Paradoxically, his rhetorical strategy of avoiding jargon and using instead simple direct ordinary language has the effect of making the argument prolix and more convoluted than it would have been if he would have resorted to the professional vocabulary created to discuss these matters. The book is most interesting when he is doing practical criticism, where his discrimination, wit, and insight produce interesting results.… (more)