Practical Criticism - Essay Example

The purpose of practical criticism is to entice the reader of a particular text to give his or her thoughts and emotions on that text in a critical manner. This, however, has brought up a series of issues regarding the human mind, seeing as the same text can be interpreted in a variety of different manners. The works of I.A. Richards and F.R. Leavis are important to these literary studies because these individuals conducted experiments about the helpfulness of practical criticism and the various conclusions that can be drawn from these varied interpretations. The novel Watt, by Samuel Beckett, can be applied to these theories because it is a story in which a literal interpretation is difficult to come by and, therefore, so is the intended meaning. I.A. Richards published a book called Practical Criticism, which was based on an experiment that he conducted at Cambridge University1. In this experiment, Richards presented an advanced class of undergraduates in English literature with a series of poems that had all identifying marks removed. The names of the authors and any anachronisms were removed from the text and each poem was presented the same typed form as the last. Richards subsequently had the students write down their thoughts on each poem, including the thoughts that the poems brought out in them, and any interpretations that they could produce. The result was nearly the exact opposite of the standard interpretations of works by the poets that were examined. This was a shocking result because it made the argument that often times when interpreting a text, individuals may not be realizing its intended meaning. This, in turn, led Richards to the conclusion that “unrecognised failures are extremely common“2 in criticism. In fact, many of these students could not even grasp the literal meaning of many of these poems, making it impossible for them to grasp any deeper meanings that could have been present, in view of the fact that “the erratic individual cannot himself see that his responses are inappropriate, though others might tell him. When he misreads a poem, no practical consequences arise to teach him his folly“3. These new findings changed the interpretative process forever, seeing that it was now realized that more thorough readings were required in order to successfully interpret a text. For that reason, it could be argued that any literary interpretation could have significant problems since there is always the chance of the text being misread and misinterpreted. Richards believed that this occurred for the reason that “due to differing, past experiences, individuals have developed limited ‘comparison fields‘. These limited fields lead to even more communicative misunderstandings between sender and receiver”4. Furthermore, F.R. Leavis also contributed some significant ideas to literary criticism, as the modern university format of literary studies has been heavily influenced by his work. Leavis believed that evaluation of the text as whole was the most important part of literary criticism, meaning that others must see a work as being effective in order for it to be effective. Leavis believed that a great novelist should be interested in the morality of human beings, for instance “Leavis, together with his wife, made the case for the great novelists’ being concerned, not (or not only) with offering a ‘realistic‘; depiction of society, but also, through that depiction, with making a critique, a diagnostic analysis, of it..”5. He additionally “promoted what he called ‘The Great Tradition’ of the English Novel, where originality of style was subservient to the perceived moral consciousness of the writer”6. Leavis’ idea of a good piece of literature meant that it had to follow a form of composition and this form must show the moral complexity of life in order to be valuable. This fact is highlighted when Leavis speaks of Jane Austen and discloses that “’without her intense moral preoccupation she wouldnt have been a great novelist’”, and goes on to claim that “‘when we examine the formal perfection of Emma, we find that it can be appreciated only in terms of the moral preoccupations that characterize the novelists peculiar interest in life’”7. Following this further, a passage that can be analysed based on these criterions is found between pages 225 and 228 in the novel Watt, by Samuel Beckett. This passage takes place at a train station in the middle of the night where Watt, the novel’s protagonist, is waiting at a closed train station after leaving his master Mr. Knott’s house. Upon his arrival, Watt decides that the train station must be closed and, hence, he must wait. While Watt waits at the train station, he sees a figure in the distance. Watt spends the next period of the novel attempting to determine whether the figure is a man, or a priest, or a woman, or a nun. Watt cannot let the figure go, as he must find out exactly what the figure is and it becomes an obsession. Even though he “did not desire conversation, he did not desire company, he did not desire consolation, he felt no wish for an erection”8, Watt simply had to distinguish what was approaching down the road. The figure appeared as if it was moving towards Watt at a steady pace, but it did not draw any nearer to him. Finally, the figure begins to fade into the distance and it disappears. In the literal sense of this passage, it appears that Watt has simply seen a figure in the distance and is curious, but Beckett wished for the reader to find much more to this encounter. Richards would argue that this passage must be read very closely and every little movement must be examined in order to find its true meaning. He would conclude that there is much more going on here than simply a figure approaching and that an in-depth interpretation is needed. Leavis, on the other hand, would immediately attempt to find some sort of moral issue present. In this situation, it is possible to review this passage from the point of view of both Richards and Leavis. Undoubtedly, this passage furthers the idea that the novel does not have any wholeness or harmony because even though Watt desperately wants to know what the figure is, he never finds out, just as the reader never finds the identity of Watt. The confusing language in this excerpt also adds to the idea of fragmentation, because Watt goes through every possibility of what the figure could be, but never comes up with an answer. Since we never get to hear Watt himself speak, we cannot fully understand what it means to be Watt, or fully understand the events in this novel as a whole. The narrator in this passage contributes to the feeling of fragmentation because the reader cannot get a sense of the total picture of Watt’s reality through words alone. Seeing as it must be Watt who tells Sam his thoughts during this passage, Watt’s use of language, though unproblematic for him to understand, is nearly impossible for someone outside his own head to identify with. This is because Watt uses language in a completely unconventional manner. Notwithstanding this, the reader does get the idea of the point that Watt is attempting to articulate. He does not know what the figure is and he is trying to judge what it may possibly be. The narrator’s role in this passage is to take the reader inside Watt’s head, which he does perhaps a little too intensely. The narrator allows the reader to see Watt’s thoughts in slow motion, by going through his thought process step-by-step. In general, people do not think of their thought process as being like this, but it most likely does work this way, just more rapidly. The narrator, furthermore, comes to the realization that Watt’s concern was “not after all with what the figure was, in reality, but with what the figure appeared to be, in reality,”9 which shows that Watt’s own personal reality is more important than the reality of the world around him. Watt’s mind is in such a disoriented state, that his idea of how reality appears becomes his actual reality. The language in this passage, while unconventional, does successfully portray Watt in his authentic form: A man who is trapped in a reality that is separate from the rest of the world’s reality. This reading of the text will raise moral issues regarding Watt’s life, according to Leavis, as it shows that he has trouble functioning in a social environment and, therefore, his morality should be questioned. At the same time, this reading shows how much an individual can interpret from such a small passage, which would be typical of Richards. Generally speaking, the theories of these two individuals are important to practical criticism as a whole because they both give interesting methods of analysing literature. Richards’ theory is based on the problems that come about because of misreading, which make literary criticism as a whole difficult. Leavis believed that the merit of a piece of literature was entirely based on how it was evaluated and that an effective piece should contain some moral commentary on life and he “uses Jane Austen to launch his account of the novels rise to respectability as a literary form during the course of the nineteenth century. He identifies her as the first novelist to matter in this respect and proceeds to track the ‘great tradition’ from Austen through to its culmination in Henry James”10. When applied to Watt, it is possible to see how these theories can be applied to everyday practical literary criticisms because they show that there is more than one reading present in every piece of literature. Bibliography Armstrong, Nancy "Captivity and cultural capital in the English novel". Novel: A Forum on Fiction. Summer 1998. Viewed 28 Nov. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3643/is_199807/ai_n8783224 Authortrek. "F.R. Leavis Page". Viewed 28 November 2007. http://www.authortrek.com/f_r_leavis_page.html Beckett, Samuel. Watt. New York: Grove Press. 1953. Cahill, Allie. "Proper Meaning Superstition: I.A. Ricahards". University of Colorado. Spring 1998. Viewed 28 November 2007. http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Papers/App_Papers/Cahill.htm Cronin, Anthony. Samuel Beckett: The Last Modernist. New York: Da Capo Press. 1997. Dean, Paul. "The Last Critic? The Importance of F.R. Leavis". The New Criterion. January 1996. Vol.14, No.5. Viewed 28 November 2007. http://newcriterion.com:81/archive/14/jan96/dean.htm Pateman, Trevor. "Morality and Art: The Claims of F.R. Leavis". 2005. Viewed 28 November 2007. http://www.selectedworks.co.uk/moralityandart.html Pilling John. The Cambridge Companion to Beckett. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1994. Richards, I.A. Principles of Literary Criticism. London: Routledge Classics. 2001. Richards, I.A. Practical Criticism: A Study of Literary Judgment. Orlando, Florida: Harcourt Brace & Company. 1956. Read More