Towards the end of his stimulating book, Principles of Literary Criticism, Mr. I. A. Richards discusses what he calls the 'revelation' theory of poetry; that is to say the theory that poetry, in its highest forms, does actually reveal somewhat of the else hidden nature of reality. The theory was first maintained in this country by the 'romantic' poets of the early nineteenth century. It is to be found also in Goethe. Centuries before that we find palpable hints of it in Plotinus; and the enthusiastic sometimes discover it adumbrated in Aristotle's famous dictum that 'Poetry is more highly serious and more philosophic than history.'

Mr. Richards is distinctly scornful of the suggestion.

The joy (he writes) which is so strangely the heart of the experience [of high tragedy] is not an indication that "all's right with the world," or that "somewhere, somehow there is justice"; it is an indication that all is right here and now with the nervous system.

He is ruthless, you see, with our little illusions. When we respond to King Lear or The Cherry Orchard, and leave them with the sweet solemnity of a Nunc dimittis sounding within our souls, a conviction that our eyes have seen our salvation, we are the victims of romantic delusion, pardonable perhaps in such foolish children of earth as we, but to be regarded by the cool-headed expert in knowledge with a blend of amusement and pity.

And yet, I wonder … 'All is right here and now with the nervous system.' It is downright enough. Mr. Richards is obviously quite certain that he knows. Yet Goethe, Coleridge, Keats … were no fools either. We had better take another look at the new theory before we bid a long farewell to the old one.

'All is right with the nervous system.' Queer that we should read King Lear only to find out that. (pp. 177-78)

Probably we misunderstand Mr. Richards. The 'nervous system' sounds a very businesslike affair. No humbug about that, so to speak. And yet, I fancy, it is as vague and nebulous a conception as the 'soul.' In spite of his appearance of scientific rigour, Mr. Richards is saying no more than that the strange and profound satisfaction that comes to us through great tragedy is purely emotional and subjective. We feel it, and that is all. If that is what he means, he might have chosen a less ambiguous way of saying it. Simple things are best said simply.

But, in actual fact, he says more than this. He says that the profound satisfaction we derive from tragedy is an indication that all is right with the nervous system. Whether he meant this, we cannot tell. Perhaps his audacious pen ran away with him. For we must ask why the tragic satisfaction indicates that all is right with the nervous system? Is it because that strange satisfaction is the correct response to tragedy? But who is to determine what is the correct response? From the fact, on which Mr. Richards is so anxious to insist, that all we can say of great tragedy is that it calls forth a certain emotional condition in certain people, it is quite impossible to conclude that the presence of that condition is evidence that nothing is wrong with their nervous systems, or their souls, or their bank-accounts, or their drains.

Mr. Richards cannot have it both ways. He has chosen a complete subjectivism; then he must stick to it. He declares that the fact in question is that certain people, after reading or seeing King Lear, experience a strange satisfaction. Very good. But if we are to accept it as a statement of the fact, he must not go beyond it. The moment he attempts to make deductions from the fact, new and unwarrantable assumptions enter in. Mr. Richards' assumption is that to the people to whom this strange satisfaction comes it comes because their nervous systems are in order. First, it is an unwarrantable assumption; and it is a very doubtful one. It would be laughed at by nine neurologists out of ten, for the chances are that the soundest nervous systems belong to eupeptic Philistines, who would be bored to extinction if they were compelled to read, or even to see, King Lear.

Mr. Richards may reply that in his view the nervous systems of our friends the Philistines are not in order. But in that case he means by the nervous system something quite peculiar—never before described by that name. He means the very delicately refined sensibility which, he believes, is required in order to respond fully to King Lear. I do not doubt that it is required. But the only reason for believing that a refined sensibility is necessary to respond to King Lear, is that King Lear is a very delicate and subtle object. Our response to King Lear can prove that we have a refined sensibility on one condition only, that it is, in itself, something which requires a refined sensibility to respond to it. Except we know the nature of the object, nothing can be deduced as to the nature of the subject.

Mr. Richards has attempted an illegitimate simplification of the problem of poetry. Two things are given in the poetic experience—the poem, and the reader. It is only possible to say a clever thing, such as that the joy of the tragic experience is an indication that all is right with the nervous system, by unconsciously doing a stupid one—namely, to leave the tragedy out of the reckoning. The truth is that the strange joy that comes to the reader of high tragedy is the outcome of the meeting of two elements: some quality in the tragedy itself, and a delicate sensibility in the reader. If the experiencing of that joy indicates that the reader possesses a delicate sensibility, it indicates equally, and by precisely the same logical compulsion, that there is in the tragedy itself as object some quality which causes the delicate sensibility to function in a way so strange.

It is tedious, no doubt, to be compelled thus painfully to indicate that an egg is an egg and not a taste; but subtle logicians like Mr. Richards have to be tediously countered. (pp. 178-80)

So far from having demolished the 'revelation' theory of poetry, Mr. Richards has touched it not at all. Like most writers on literature who are aesthetic philosophers rather than literary critics, he has bemused himself with a phrase. Mr. Richards' talisman—'the nervous system'—has failed him. (pp. 180-81)

[The] 'revelation' theory of poetry and art emerges completely unscathed from Mr. Richards's demolition. He has delivered his blow on the empty air. That is not to say that the 'revelation' theory is right, but that we may with a good conscience retain the theory held by Goethe, Coleridge, and Keats, and still believe that the chances are that they, being at once great poets and subtle thinkers, were not wholly deluded.

Nevertheless, though it would be idle to undertake a systematic defence of the 'revelation' theory without a careful and minute investigation of the creative process, it may be worth while to point out that the real objection to the theory springs generally not from a consideration of the facts, but from an a priori repugnance to the implications of the theory. The philosopher cannot admit the poet's implicit claim to 'know' reality, or the reader's claim to attain through the poet's work a 'knowledge' of reality. 'Knowledge' is the privilege of the philosopher, and he very strongly resents the attempt of the poet to claim it. Therefore, he feels himself compelled, by hook or by crook, to prove that the poet's conviction of knowledge is merely subjective: it is an emotional condition. By some mysterious means (into which the philosopher never really inquires) the poet with this sense of 'knowledge' creates something which arouses in the sensitive reader the same sense of 'knowledge.'

This also must be merely subjective: an emotional condition. The decision is a priori. For if the strange condition of soul, experienced by the poet, and called by him 'knowledge,' which is communicated to us, and called by us 'knowledge,' be not relegated to pure subjectivity, then the philosopher's monopoly of 'knowledge' is threatened. But, unfortunately for the philosopher, his effort to relegate this queer poetic experience to the realm of subjectivity fails, as we have seen it fail in the case of Mr. Richards.

Of course, those who uphold or incline to the 'revelation' theory of poetry do not claim that the poet's 'knowledge' is of the same kind as the philosopher's or the scientist's—it may be remarked in passing that the scientist is just as scornful of the philosopher's claim to knowledge as the philosopher is scornful of the poet's. Roughly, the 'revelation' theory holds that there is a reality outside the perceiving mind and that man has evolved several ways of seeking to know it. Of these several ways the poetic, or aesthetic alone is concerned with the real in its particularity: it does not seek to subsume particulars under universal concepts, nor does it confine itself to the measurable aspects of the world. It is primarily concerned with the world of ordinary human experience; and the materials with which the poet sets about his work are unusually vivid perceptions of real and particular objects. (pp. 181-82)

To know that reality as it is may not be 'knowledge' for the philosopher, or for the scientist; it is 'knowledge' to us, and it is the only knowledge we greatly care about. We go to Shakespeare to learn it, and to learn how to learn more, to have our own small experiencing natures enlarged. We do not go to him in order to learn whether our nervous systems are in order; nor do we get any answer to that doubtless important question through him. The joy that comes to us after a tragedy of his is not indeed a sign that we know the secret of the universe, however much we may feel that we do; but it is a sign that the truer and more complete experience of reality we gain through Shakespeare does bring us, what we sometimes dream all true experience of reality would bring us were we but capable of it, joy and serenity. Once break this contact with the real, once persuade men that high tragedy has not its roots in outward life, there would be no joy and acceptance in the tragic experience any more. But in attempting to break that contact with the real, you are attempting the impossible. Every man capable of experiencing a Shakespearean tragedy at all knows, with the same certainty he has of his own existence, that he is making contact with the real. He is making contact with art also…. [Art] is but a means—the most potent of all means—of bringing reality nearer to us than we have power to bring it to ourselves. (pp. 185-86)