I conceive then a word, as poetry is concerned with omponent of an act of the mind so subtly dependent on other components of this act and of other acts that it can be distinguished from these interactions only as a convenience of discourse. It sounds nonsense to ay that a word is its interactions with other words; but that is a short way of saying the thing which Poetics is most in danger always of overlooking. Words only work together. We understand no word except in and through its interactions with other words"(I. A. Richards, The Interactions of Words" in The Language Princeton, 1942, P. 74) "The structure meant is a structure of meanings, evalua tions and interpretations; and the principle of unity which informs it seems to be one of balancing and harmo- nizing connotations, attitudes and meanings, But even here one needs to make important qualifications: the principle is not one which involves the arrangement of various elements into homogeneous groupings, pairing like with like. It unites the like with the unlike. It does not unite them, however, by the simple process of allow ing one connotation to cancel out another nor does it reduce the contradictory attitudes to harmony by a process of subtraction. The unity is not a unity of the sort to be achieved by the reduction and simplification appropri ate to an algebraic formula. It is a positive unity, not a rmon ell wrong New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, I947, pp This content downloaded from 128... 148 on Thu, 23 Mar 201709: 43: 44 UTC Allusesubjecttohttpaboutjstor.org/terms"I conceive then a word, as poetry is concerned with it, . . . to be a component of an act of the mind so subtly dependent on other components of this act and of other acts that it can be distinguished from these interactions only as a convenience of discourse. It sounds nonsense to say that a word is its interactions with other words; but that is a short way of saying the thing which Poetics is most in danger always of overlooking. Words only work together. We understand no word except in and through its interactions with other words" (I. A. Richards, "The Interactions of Words" in The Language of Poetry, Princeton, 1942, p. 74). "The structure meant is a structure of meanings, evalua￾tions and interpretations; and the principle of unity which informs it seems to be one of balancing and harmo￾nizing connotations, attitudes and meanings. But even here one needs to make important qualifications: the principle is not one which involves the arrangement of various elements into homogeneous groupings, pairing like with like. It unites the like with the unlike. It does not unite them, however, by the simple process of allow￾ing one connotation to cancel out another nor does it reduce the contradictory attitudes to harmony by a process of subtraction. The unity is not a unity of the sort to be achieved by the reduction and simplification appropri￾ate to an algebraic formula. It is a positive unity, not a negative; it represents not a residue but an achieved harmony" (Cleanth Brooks, The Well Wrought Vrn, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1947, pp. 178-9). This content downloaded from 128.122.230.148 on Thu, 23 Mar 2017 09:43:44 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms