The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry

by William K. Wimsatt

The sixteen essays in this volume form a series of related focuses upon various levels and areas of literary criticism. W.K. Wimsatt's assumption is that practice and theory of both the past and the present are integrally related-that there is a continuity in the materials of criticism-that a person who studies poetry today has a critical concern, not merely a historical interest, in what Aristotle or Plato said about poetry. He regards the great perennial problems of criticism as arising not by the whim of a tolerantly pluralist choice, but from the nature of language and reality.

With profound learning and insight, Wimsatt treats almost the whole range of literary criticism. The first group of essays deals with fallacies he believes are involved in prevalent approaches to the literary object. The next two groups face the responsibilities of the critic who defends literature as a form of knowledge; they treat various problems of structure and style. The last group undertakes to examine the relation of literature to other arts, the relation of evaluative criticism to historical studies, and the relation of literature not only to morals, but more broadly to the whole complex of the Christian religious tradition.

Genres: Nonfiction, Poetry, Literary Criticism, Criticism

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1951

Reviews

[Brian]

As is the case with Spinoza, most all readers mistake for intoxication a quality and degree of sobriety unprecedented in their own experience. The ground laid out here is stridently anti-populist, anti-personalist, anti-psychological, and finally, anti-expressionist. By a ruse of Reason's cunning, Humanism, purified of all base sentimentality, becomes coldness and cruelty.

So painfully out of vogue you just know it's gonna be the next new thing.

[Felipe Togni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wimsatt brings many thoughts from other critics and writers to Verbal Icon and that makes it difficult to understand his argument because one must be familiar with the theories and writers that he is referring. Clarity is another problem that appears either because of too many references or perhaps his writing is somewhat unclear. Notwithstanding, the book brings some interesting definitions to light explaining some core aspects of poetry.

[Basilius · Rating 2 out of 5]

A structure of emotive objects so complex and so reliable as to have been taken for great poetry by any past age will never, it seems safe to say, so wane with the waning of human culture as not to be recoverable at least by a willing student.

[Disclaimer: this is a review of The Affective Fallacy only.]

Twin sister to The Intentional Fallacy, Wimsatt and Beardsley’s other contribution to Formalism is The Affective Fallacy. Where the first dealt with the author’s transgression on his art, the second deals with the audience’s. In a nutshell, just as the author’s intention shouldn’t be taken into account when judging a work, neither should an audience’s emotional response. Now, let me frankly say that I had trouble keeping up with the argument. I cannot decide if W+B don’t value the parts of art that invoke emotion, or that the judgment of such invocation should be found in the art itself, not its audience. Almost assuredly the latter, but surely an important metric is the intensity or success as felt by the audience? Here they might counter by saying that such a metric is too vague or idiosyncratic. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

From what I can tell, the reasoning runs like this: a word has both a definition and a suggestion. For example, a prostitute is someone who sells their body for sex. Now a prostitute can be anyone of any age or disposition. But depending on the audience, context, and culture the suggestiveness (or ‘import’) of prostitute can change: I myself imagine a young and sleazy woman, overly thin, dark circles under her eyes and smoking a cigarette. That’s because my imagination and emotions kicked in at the word’s use. But those connotations don’t reflect the word prostitute itself; if anything they say more about me than the word. Thus W+B claim we can’t take emotional response into account, as it’s too varied among an audience. All we can do is simply go back to the work itself for proper criticism. Now here I could disagree and say that we can judge works within given receptional contexts; so judging a work not for eternity but simply within our or another culture.

The problem with that is one of jurisdiction. Does this not cross over into psychology? Or even, if the emotion manifests physically (jumping at a scary movie) physiology? Or anthropology? As important or meaningful as reader-reception is, it’s not lit theory’s concern. In fact an emotion response is by definition irrational, and cannot be articulated through logical study (nonsense, but I acknowledge the point). The closing parts of the essay observe how art seems to stabilize ubiquitous emotions in the particular (aka concrete universals): a work of art functions across time and space because they capture human emotion in form. Therefore it is the only constant we have for study, not the ever changing fields previously mentioned, but the eternal work of art. Again I disagree; each culture cherry-picks art from other era/places because they identify with them, and ignore the ones they don’t. Plus while art may crystallize, our interpretations always change, so how is it superior to the scientific fields in this regard?

What Wimsatt and Beardsley are driving home is that an object cannot be defined by its function, which I think is a fatal position to take. Though once you look at the fine print there are a lot of inconsistencies with my position, and they do a good job of highlighting them. I enjoy The Affective Fallacy for challenging me in this way. But while it’s a sound piece, I’m giving it two stars for being boring and slightly snobbish. Because whether they like it or not, it’s an audience’s appreciation of art that gives it meaning. Logical coherence isn’t always king.

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit dated as it was published in 1954...but this book is still worth reading for serious students of poetry and poets themselves. I particularly enjoyed the middle road taken by the author in the debate between "showing" or "telling" in poetry...between concrete imagism/detail and the explication of meaning.

The author's warning against the two great temptations of poetry criticism (the "Intentional" fallacy and the "Affective" fallacy) is certainly still relevant today. Also a great chapter on rhyming in poetry as well.

Quote: "Poetry is a feat of style by which a complex of meaning is handled all at once."

[Mwillett]

Useful Chapters:
The Inteltional Fallacy
The Affective Fallacy
NeoClassic Species
Poetry and Morals

[David Hirt · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit dry.