I. A. Richards (
Ivor Armstrong Richards, 26 February 1893 – 7 September 1979) was an influential English
literary critic and
rhetorician. He was educated at
Clifton College and
Magdalene College, Cambridge, where his love of English was nurtured by the scholar Charles Hickson 'Cabby' Spence. His books, especially
The Meaning of Meaning,
Principles of Literary Criticism,
Practical Criticism, and
The Philosophy of Rhetoric, proved to be founding influences for the
New Criticism. The concept of 'practical criticism' led in time to the practices of
close reading, what is often thought of as the beginning of modern literary criticism. Richards is regularly considered one of the founders of the contemporary study of literature in English.