Download or read book Practical Criticism written by I. A. Richards and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linguist, critic, poet, psychologist, I. A. Richards (1893-1979) was one of the great polymaths of the twentieth century. He is best known, however, as one of the founders of modern literary critical theory. Richards revolutionized criticism by turning away from biographical and historical readings as well as from the aesthetic impressionism. Seeking a more exacting approach, he analyzed literary texts as syntactical structures that could be broken down into smaller interacting verbal units of meaning. Practical Criticism, fi rst published in 1929, is a landmark volume in demonstrating this method.