Affective fallacy

Affective fallacy defined  as the error of evaluating a poem by its effects—especially its emotional effects—upon the reader. As a result of this fallacy "the poem itself, as an object of specifically critical judgment, tends to disappear," so that criticism "ends in impressionism and relativism."

The two critics wrote in direct reaction to the view of I. A. Richards, in his influential

Principles of Literary Criticism (1923), that the value of a poem can be

measured by the psychological responses it incites in its readers. Beardsley has

since modified the earlier claim by the admission that "it does not appear that

critical evaluation can be done at all except in relation to certain types of effect

that aesthetic objects have upon their perceivers." So modified, the doctrine

becomes a claim for objective criticism, in which the critic, instead of

describing the effects of a work, focuses on the features, devices, and form of

the work by which such effects are achieved. An extreme reaction against the

doctrine of the affective fallacy was manifested during the 1970s in the development

of reader-response criticism.

Examples of affective fallacy:

1.  

The Colossus by Sylvia Plath

In this incredible poem, Plath defines her relationship with her father. The poem was first published in 1960 in Plath’s collection Colossus and Other Poems. She depicts her father as a fallen statue and herself as the statue’s keeper. She spends her time around the statue, expressing her irritation at points and contentment and peace at others. The speaker sometimes enjoys her ties to this fallen colossus while other times she feels imprisoned by her connection. Here is the second stanza:

        Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,

Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.

Thirty years now I have labored

To dredge the silt from your throat.

I am none the wiser.

 

The speaker can’t stop trying to put her father back together again or reassemble something of their past relationship. She works on and on but still, nothing changes. The affective qualities of this piece of writing are clear from the beginning. The speaker is torn between her loyalty to her job/to her father and her desire to move on.

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

Annabel Lee’ is one of Poe’s best-known poems. It’s perfectly rhymed with beautiful and affective images, making it easy to imagine and hard to forget. It starts with a fairy-tale-like tone but evolves into something darker as it becomes clear that Annabel Lee is dead and, in the speaker’s own words, in Heaven with the angels. They grew jealous of the relationship she had with the speaker and took her away. Here are a few lines:

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

   Of those who were older than we—

   Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

   Nor the demons down under the sea