A pioneering critic, educator, and poet, I. A. Richards (1893-1979) helped the English-speaking world decide not only what to read but how to read it. Acknowledged "father" of New Criticism, he produced the most systematic body of critical writing in the English language since Coleridge. His method of close reading dominated the English-speaking classroom for half a century.
John Paul Russo draws on close personal acquaintance with Richards as well as on unpublished materials, correspondence, and interviews, to write the first biography (originally published in 1989) of one of last century’s most influential and many-sided men of letters.
List of Illustrations; Preface; Part 1: The Preparation of a Critic; 1. Boyhood and Clifton 2. Cambridge 3. Moral Science and Cambridge Humanism 4. G. E. Moore: "The Other Theory of Art" 5. Beauty and Truth; Part 2: The Theory and Method of Criticism; 6. Agenda in the 1920s 7. Semantics 8. Science, Poetry, and Society 9. The Sherrington Model 10. The Poet in Ideal Perfection 11. How a Poem Works, I: The Parts 12. How a Poem Works, II: Reference and Metaphor 13. How a Poem Works III: The Whole 14. The Pathology of Interpretation 15. Belief and Sincerity 16. Coleridge and the Whole Soul in Activity; Part 3: The Later Career: Education and Poetry; 17: Basic English: The Years in China 18. Experiment in America 19. The Classical Tradition 20. Influence: Empson; Leavis and Scrutiny; American New Criticism 21. Poems and Plays: The Third Career 22. Mysterious Mountains 23. Beyond 24. Final Years: A Portrait of I. A. Richards; Appendix: Additional Entries to John Paul Russo, "A Bibliography of … I. A. Richards"; Abbreviations; Notes; Index
Biography
John Paul Russo
