The Affective Fallacy

Is the reader's response to a text an adequate ground for judging meaning and value?



Certainly, for the Formalist critics William K. Wimsatt, Jr., and Monroe C. Beardsley, the emotional response of the reader is never adequate ground for judging the meaning and value of a poetic work. However, I must confess that I often find myself judging the value of a poem based on my emotional reaction to the work. Many times, my emotional response is the ultimate indication of whether or not a poem is successful. I have, admittedly, found the criticism of the Formalists difficult to accept, their views often in stark contrast to my own.

To my understanding, the Formalists believe the reader's job has an obligation, in a way, to "fit" the poem, insofar is the reader has the responsibility to say that the one's immediate emotional reaction to a poem is not the meaning of the poem, or even an appropiate response to a poem. For Wimsatt and Beardsley, emotions have no grounding for judging the meaning of a poem. In contrast, I find myself naturally taking a much more impressionistic critical approach, a position that is in stark contrast with Formalism. It has been a difficult to ask to escape this point of view, even for a class period, and while reading Wimsatt and Beardsley, one thought continued to pop up. I just don't get it.

Poetry is, and always has been, an emotionally manipulative form of art for me. One of my favorite poems is "Funeral Blues" by W.H. Auden, which is a poem that has always stirred me into a contemplative, sorrowful state of mind. I love the poem because it does what I cannot, in that it perfectly articulates what it means to feel grief over a loss. I find the poem to be successful because it expresses feelings which I resonate with, feelings that cloud my judgment when trying to objectively decipher the value of the poem. However, I don't find fault with my belief in the success of the poem. On the contrary, I value the poem mostly because it provides me with a visceral emotional reaction upon my reading.

Ultimately, Wimsatt and Beardsley express an opinion on poetry that I simply don't find to be that compelling in light of my own experiences. Is the reader's emotional response adequate grounds for judging meaning and value? I must say, for me, the answer is always yes.