IA Richards’ P rinciples of Literary Criticism : A ‘machine to think with’ for Stylistics

IA Richards is widely recognised as a founding father in 20th-century English stylistics. A century ago, one of his most important books, Principles of Literary Criticism, was first published. The book – which deals more with poetics than hermeneutics – has remained in print ever since. On the occasion of the centenary of its initial publication, this article focuses on three key topics that Richards explored in his 1924 book: value, experience and communication. As I explain, Richards links them to each other in unique ways that might interest stylisticians today, although English stylistics has since tended to focus more on communication or experience than on value in the past few decades.