John Constable (1963­)

College Lecturer in English, Magdalene College, Cambridge, CB30AG, UK.

Email: jbc12@cam.ac.uk.

Last Revised: 16 August 2002

A. Research and Publications Listings

Research

My current research is in two related areas. The first of these is technical metrics (see section 1 below), in which I have produced the first mathematical distinction between verse and prose in English, and the second an edition of the major works, 1919­1938, of the linguistic philosopher and literary theorist, I. A. Richards (1893­1979); (see section 2 below, and also The Richards Web Resource).

For a more or less complete list of publications and conference presentations see section B below.

1. Metrics and the Epidemiology of Cultural Representations

My current research on metrics is framed within the epidemiological programme outlined by Dan Sperber (Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic Approach (Blackwell: Oxford, 1995)), and aims to shed light on large-scale questions such as the functions of metrical language, and why certain metrical features are culturally universal. The majority of this work is computer assisted, and employs programs written by myself specifically to address empirical problems arising in the course of the research.

A mathematical distinction between verse and prose
The current phase of my investigation, much of which is conducted in collaboration with Professor Hideaki Aoyama of the Department of Physics, Kyoto University, concerns the structural characteristics of lineated texts and the resulting effects on diction and syntax (see items 21 and 22 in the article listing below: 'Word Length Frequency and Distribution in English: Part I. Prose', and 'Word Length Frequency and Distribution in English: Part II. An Empirical Mathematical Examination of the Character and Consequences of Isometric Lineation'). This work was supported by a major research award from the Government of Japan, Department of Education and Science. The principal finding is that prose and isometrically lineated text may be distinguished by computing the frequencies of all adjacent sequences of words totalling n syllables (referred to as Qn in our papers). For prose such a computation produces a flat chart, while a verse text exhibits peaks at the most probable number of syllables per line and for multiples of that number. It should be emphasized that this procedure is able to detect lineation in large samples (five thousand words and upwards) without any reference to the visual appearance of the text.

Our analysis of this feature (the elements of which were first reported in a paper of my own (see item 15 below: 'Verse Form: A Pilot Study in the Epidemiology of Representations')) reveals that the flat distribution of prose is dependent on two fundamental properties of word length in English. Namely, that the frequency totals of word lengths in output follow a geometric distribution (such distributions being characteristic of systems with a fixed probability of termination), and that the sequential distribution of these items is random at the global level, with some very minor order evident in the fine structure. This finding, which was derived from a corpus of just under two million words marked up with my software, contradicts other reports by quantitative linguists that the word length characteristics of English are ordered. We are now in the process of assisting other linguists to test for these features in other languages, Arabic for example, to determine whether they are specific to English, or whether some very general principle is at work.

Consequences of Lineation: Shorter words, grammatical disorder
We have also investigated the dynamics underlying the peaking of the Qn frequencies found in verse, and shown that lineation entails non-random sequencing of word length items, thus accounting for the grammatical torsion familiar to readers and writers of verse, and encourages but does not require a reduction in mean word length. This latter finding (also initially reported by me in its elements in article 15 below:) has been confirmed by comparing matched samples of verse and prose, including the complete texts of Milton's Paradise Lost and his History of Britain. Briefly, when writing in verse an author will tend to use shorter words, that is more monosyllables, fewer polysyllables, than they would otherwise have done when composing in prose.

Further implications 1: Frequencies of variant lines are predictable
These findings constitute the first demonstration that isometric lineation is a computable fact of the language, and not merely a typographical fact. Investigating the implications of this finding is one of the major aims of my work. For instance we have suggested that the frequency of variant lines in an otherwise isometrical text can be explained as a response to the word length constraints of lineation. In other words, the use of variants is motivated less by the need for rhythmical variety, as is often supposed, and more by the need to ease the polysyllabic placement problem. We show that not only do lines longer than the norm use longer words than the normal lines, but that their frequency itself follows a geometric distribution, which is exactly what we would expect if such lines were being motivated by the need to include polysyllables.

Further Implications 2: Revision of verse texts is a regular phenomenon
It follows from this work that revised verse texts should exhibit a rise in mean word length and a broader range of solutions for the polysyllabic word placement problem. Investigation of the texts of Wordsworth, Shelley, and Akenside (see conference presentation 5, 'The Compositional Practice of Wordsworth and Shelley', and article 23 below: 'The Composition and Recomposition of Akenside's Pleasures of Imagination') produces mixed results. Wordsworth's word length seems to rise steadily through revised versions, while Akenside's word length falls. However, Akenside's revisions employ much greater variety of internal line structure, as predicted, and there are good reasons for thinking that the decline in word length in this text may be a special case. This is an area for further research.

Further Implications 3: Epidemiology of Verse Form: the mathematical theory weakens traditional accounts
In addition to illuminating many questions within metrics our work has considerable bearing on more general topics in poetics. For example it allows us to add a whole new range of detailed hypotheses to the traditional suggestion that verse is a prevalent cultural form because it supplements the communicative or introspective resources of the language; indeed our findings weaken these traditional hypotheses. I have (see item 15 below below), for instance, given substance to the widely held view that verse is mnemonically superior to prose by showing that the structural properties of lineated text make it resistant to informational degradation. Explicitly, missing sections can be measured exactly, and when these gaps are filled, even at random, there is an above chance probability that the original text has been reconstituted.

Epidemiology of Verse Form: Alternative hypotheses compatible with disruption theory: display
I have also speculated that verse forms may stabilize in linguistic communities because they are a reliable registration of the verbal intelligence of the composer, a suggestion that has already attracted attention from psychologists working on human behaviour in competitive situations (see for example Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind (Heinemann: London, 2000), 379­380). A related hypothesis suggests that verse texts may be employed as gestures of commitment since the labour involved in their construction can be readily appreciated without a corresponding expenditure of effort by the recipient.

Disruption Theory: Mental susceptibility to disrupted text
However, the hypothesis on which I intend to focus in the near future, brings my data into contact with models of mind and language processing drawn from Sperber and Wilson's theory of relevance (it is a theoretical goal of mine to bring Relevance Theory into a working relation with the Epidemiological Program), I aim to account for the peculiar relationship, attested in many cultures, between metrical forms, particularly lineation, and those special effects, those 'visions and vistas' as Gurney called them, that constitute for most readers the defining characteristics of poetry. As is well known, metrical forms are strongly associated with such effects but are neither necessary nor sufficient for their appearance. I have suggested (see the sketches in articles 15, 21, 22, and the extended account in Article 17) that metre, and in particular lineation, restricts linguistic choice so as to disrupt the implicational structure of an utterance without disrupting the grammar in ways which are salient. This increases the probability of a situation in which readers are unable to construct a satisfactory or coherent implicature, but are unable to detect either damage or deliberate attempts to mislead. Thus they are unable either to repair the text or reject it. Believing in accordance with the second principle of relevance (according to which every 'act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance'), that the author would not put them to unnecessary labour, readers thus conclude that they have not yet expended sufficient effort to produce a clear interpretation. Consequently they dig deeper into the hierarchy of implications in search of a still richer resolution. The process is endless, and with every unsuccessful attempt the reader will, instead of abandoning the project, assume still greater but as yet undiscovered rewards. On such a view the interpretational riches of verse texts are the result of a cognitive illusion, a trompe module. This is a controversial hypothesis; however its consistency with the known facts about verse, and its explanatory power, make it too interesting to neglect, and I intend to turn to the further analysis of this proposal in the hope of generating sub-hypotheses that can be tested experimentally.

2. Selected Works of I. A. Richards 1919­1938

Routledge (2001), 10 volumes (3568pp). For detailed set listing and ISBNs see Publications: Books entry below.

I. A. Richards was the most influential literary theorist writing in English in the second and third decades of the twentieth century (for further information see The Richards Web Resource, at this site). His impact on the teaching of English literature was immense, both through his own writings (mainly Principles of Literary Criticism 1924, and Practical Criticism 1929) and through his pupils at Cambridge, such as William Empson. Moreover, Richards' discussion of and insistence upon the importance of poetry, by which he often meant literature or, still more generally, 'art', was a controversial but invigorating brief for two generations of writers. Marginalized in literary circles by his work on improvements in language teaching technique, and overshadowed by the post-structuralist movements of the latter half of the century, his importance was for a time obscured, but it is gradually becoming clearer that Richards' attempt to provide a naturalistic account of the values reported by readers of literature is unique in the honesty and thoroughness with which he attempts an integration with the psychological science of his day, and remarkable in the quality of its introspection.

His importance is twofold; firstly the naturalistic imperatives of his work remind us that a linguistic and psychological science of poetry is still needed, and secondly his own psychological reportage concerning poetic effect is a significant contribution to the data which will form the explanandum of that science. However, it is a flawed achievement, and recognition of one particularly fundamental error is an essential element in recognition of his greatness. Principles of Literary Criticism originally carried the much broader title 'The Principles of Criticism', a form of words which corresponds better with its aim, which, as he reported it in a letter to a friend, was to 'put the arts, as the supreme mode of communication, in the forefront of all values'. But even in that remark, and everywhere in Principles itself, we can see that a fault was becoming evident in Richards' naturalistic position, a fault which continued to trouble him for the rest of his life but was never successfully addressed. While adopting the findings of contemporary psychology, and presenting itself as a branch of scientific inquiry, Richards' analysis confused two issues that any attempt at an intellectually rigorous and intersubjective study of culture must keep distinct. On the one hand, suasive apology for the values of literature, and, on the other, explanatory accounts of the psychological effects which readers reported as valuable. But Richards never succeeded in keeping the first of these from interfering in the second, and consequently expected contemporary science to justify traditional evaluations of the arts, as well as provide detailed causal accounts of the mental processes which led readers to believe that they had undergone something valuable. The resulting damage to his program was extensive, for his apologetic aim compromised his naturalism by ruling off whole classes of explanatory account, namely those which propose that while the arts are indeed seen as valuable by those experiencing them, in fact they are either neutral or harmful. In retrospect we can see that no presumption as to the value of the arts should have been made at the outset of the inquiry, but Richards' own response and sense of benefit were themselves so strong that this would have seemed a perverse refusal to acknowledge the obvious. Nevertheless, Richards' early writings are exemplary in the tendency of their engagement with the neighbouring disciplines of linguistics and psychology, and in spite of his error in relation to naturalistic explanation, his theoretical accounts of poetic experience are amongst the most detailed and subtle descriptions in the literature precisely because he cast them in terms of a technical vocabulary and not the commonsense language of everyday belle-lettristic and academic criticism. In his last major study of poetry, Coleridge on Imagination (1934) Richards wrote that 'It is the merit of Coleridge's Fancy and Imagination as descriptive devices that they note such actual differences in the experiences they apply to.' We may turn this praise over on to Richards almost without alteration. It is the outstanding merit of his linguistic and psychological machinery, however redundant it may now seem, that it accurately models and objectifies our experiences of poetry.

This edition provides corrected texts of all Richards' major writings between 1919 and 1938, the period of his greatest originality. Although the edition has been reset to enhance legibility, the pagination of the original editions has been provided in the margin to facilitate reference. Volume One, The Foundations of Aesthetics (1922), is prefaced with a general overview of Richards' career up until his death, and a checklist of his writings in the period 1919 to 1938, while each separate book in the edition has a substantial introduction drawing heavily on unpublished letters and diaries in the Richards papers now held at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Taken together these introductions trace Richards' development of the theory of emotive language from its first development in The Meaning of Meaning (1923) and his Cambridge lectures of the early 1920s, through Principles of Literary Criticism (1924), and Practical Criticism (1929), which is shown, somewhat unexpectedly, to be a turning point in his views, up to Mencius on the Mind (1932), and Coleridge on Imagination (1934), which new documentary evidence reveals as a passionate response to T. S. Eliot's conservative backsliding in The Use of Poetry (1933). Moreover, Richards' classic discussion of metaphor in The Philosophy of Rhetoric (1936) and his massive but little understood Interpretation in Teaching (1938) are now seen largely as the products of lecture courses delivered as early as 1928 when Richards had begun to entertain serious doubts as to the value of literary criticism within the university curriculum. Volume Nine gathers almost all Richards' substantial periodical writings, and three of his short books.

Volume Ten reprints fifty-six of the most important critical responses to Richards from the period 1919 to 1938, including articles by John Dewey, Edward Sapir, Bertrand Russell, F. P. Ramsey, Conrad Aiken, T. S. Eliot, Allen Tate, R. P. Blackmur, William Empson, Arthur Waley, Kenneth Burke, F. R. Leavis, M. H. Abrams, John Crowe Ransom, and R. S. Crane. The introduction discusses at length, and with a wealth of new information, Richards' relationship with Eliot and Leavis. Richards, it is suggested, was a scrupulously honest thinker who attempted to provide the linguistic and psychological theories required to support the claims made for poetry and its academic study. Eliot and Leavis were both initially interested in this program, but, more intuitively prudent, came to see that Richards' theorizations revealed the extreme character of the claims he was attempting to defend, and thus exposed the authority of both poet and academic critic to a questioning they could not certainly withstand.

B. Publications

(All Listings are in reverse chronological order, newest first)

Articles

26. 'Testing for Mathematical Lineation in Jim Crace's Quarantine and T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets', forthcoming, 2001, in The Belgian Journal of Linguistics. With Hideaki Aoyama.

Abstract: The mathematical distinction between prose and verse may be detected in writings that are not apparently lineated, for example in T. S. Eliot's Burnt Norton, and Jim Crace's Quarantine. In this paper we offer comments on appropriate statistical methods for such work, and also on the nature of formal innovation in these two texts. Additional remarks are made on the roots of lineation as a metrical form, and on the prose-verse continuum.

25. 'The Mating Mind', Psychology, Evolution, and Gender 2/3 (Dec. 2000), 337-341. Review of Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind (Heinemann: London, 2000). (Available online, for a fee, from the Catchword service.)

24. 'Arthur Sale: Teaching for the Love of Literature', The Times, 4 May 2000. Obituary. Reprinted in Magdalene College Magazine (1999-2000), 14-15. Supplemented for this web publication with a checklist of Arthur Sale's articles and books.

23. 'The Composition and Recomposition of Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination', in Robin Dix, ed., Mark Akenside: A Reassessment (Associated University Presses: London, 2000), 249-283.

22. 'Word Length Frequency and Distribution in English: Part II. An Empirical and Mathematical Examination of the Character and Consequences of Isometric Lineation.' With Hideaki Aoyama. Literary and Linguistic Computing 14/4 (Dec. 1999), 507-535.

Abstract: In this paper we build on earlier observations and theory regarding word length frequency and sequential distribution to develop a mathematical characterization of some of the language features distinguishing isometrically lineated text from unlineated text, in other words the features distinguishing isometrical verse from prose. It is shown that the frequency of Qn of n syllables making complete words produces a flat distribution for prose, while that for verse exhibits peaks at the line length position and subsequent multiples of that position. Data from several verse authors is presented, including a detailed mathematical analysis of the dynamics underlying peak creation, and comments are offered on the processes by which authors construct lines. We note that the word-length sequence of prose is random, whereas lineation necessitates non-random word-length sequencing, and that this has the probable consequence of introducing a degree of randomness into the otherwise highly ordered grammatical sequence. In addition we observe that this effect can be ameliorated by a reduction in the mean word length of the text (confirming earlier empirical observations that verse tends to use shorter words than would otherwise have been selected, and also by the use of lines varying from the core isometrical set. The frequency of variant lines is shown to be coincident with the frequency of polysyllables, suggesting that the use of variants is motivated by polysyllabic word placement. The restrictive effects of different line lengths, the relationship between metrical restriction and poetic effect, and the general character of metrical rules are also discussed.

21. 'Word Length Frequency and Distribution in English: Part I. Prose.' With Hideaki Aoyama. Literary and Linguistic Computing 14/3 (Sep. 1999), 339­358.

Abstract: Recent observations in the theory of verse and empirical metrics have suggested that constructing a verse line involves a pattern-matching search through a source text, and that the number of found elements (complete words totalling a specified number of syllables) is given by dividing the total number of words by the mean number of syllables per word in the source text. This paper makes the latter point explicit mathematically, and in the course of this demonstration shows that the word length frequency totals in English prose output are distributed geometrically (previous researchers reported an adjusted Poisson distribution), and that the sequential distribution is random at the global level, with significant non-randomness in the fine structure. Data from a corpus of just under two million words and a syllable-count lexicon of 71,000 word forms is reported, together with some speculations concerning the relationship between the word length frequency distributions in output and in the lexicon. The pattern-matching theory is shown to be internally coherent, and it is observed that some of the analytical techniques described here form a satisfactory test for regular (isometric) lineation in a text.

20. Inritsu keiishiki hyosho no ekigaku ni okeru yobiteki kenkyu (Verse Form: A Pilot Study in the Epidemiology of Representations), Shiso (Thought. Published by Iwanami-shoten. ISSN 0386-2755) No. 901 (July 1999): 88-109. Translated by Yasuhiko Tomida and Hajime Nozawa.

19. 'Culture and the Darwinian Heritage: Implications for Literary Research in the University', in Johan M. G. van der Dennen, et. al. eds, The Darwinian Heritage (Praeger: Westport and London, 1999), 101­115. Based on a conference paper of 1995.

18. Report on the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society 1998 Conference at U. C. Davis, Human Behavior and Evolution Society Newsletter, 7/2 (Fall 1998): 5.

17. 'The Character and Future of Rich Poetic Effects', in Shoichiro Sakurai, ed., The View from Kyoto: Essays on Twentieth-Century Poetry (Rinsen Books: Kyoto, 1998), 89­108.

Abstract: The description of multiple weak implicature offered in the theory of relevance is now sometimes held sufficient not only to explain poetic effects, which are common in much utterance, but the very rich effects reported by readers of poetry. Though promising, this explanation is at present inadequate, partly because the implicative effects observed in these cases are too disorganized to be accounted for by the structured systems described in the theory, and partly because Sperber and Wilson's work, and that derived from it, does not yet address the strong but irregular connection between these effects and metrical form. This paper attempts to develop an approach to the relations between relevance and rich poetic effects by building on extensive numerical data showing that composition in isometric lines tends to depress the mean number of syllables per word. It is suggested that metre restricts linguistic choice in ways that disrupt the implicational structure of utterance but leave grammar largely intact, and it is further hypothesized that this unusual combination produces output to which readers are highly susceptible, since they can neither interpret it conclusively nor reject it as irrecoverably damaged. Readers are thus lead to the assumption of infinite relevance. In concluding I will relate these findings and hypotheses to the status of poetry in the twentieth century.

16. 'Jezik v poeziji: Poskusna studija o epidemiologiji reprezentacij', Casopis za kritiko znanosti [Journal for the Critique of Science], 25/186-187 (1997): 333-347. Translation into Slovene, by Jan Jona Javorsek, of 'Language in Verse: A Pilot Study in the Epidemiology of Representations', a modified version of item 13 below.

15. 'Verse Form: A Pilot Study in the Epidemiology of Representations', Human Nature, 8/2 (1997), 171-203.

Abstract: This paper presents a pilot study in the 'epidemiological' program for cultural research put forward by Dan Sperber. Theory is offered to argue that verse form is so disabling that its worldwide distribution must be explained by functions other than the broad communicative, or ideological, power traditionally attributed to it. The theoretical case is confirmed by numerical data showing that in matched texts of English prose and verse the latter contain words of a lower mean length (measured in syllables). Candidate hypotheses for the epidemiology of verse are offered, including design for mnemonic properties, the registration of differences in verbal intelligence, the presentation of gestures of commitment, and the introduction of levels of quasi-randomness that lead to an impression of semantic richness and the illusion of profound and powerful communication.

14. Review article discussing Derek Attridge, Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction (Cambridge U.P.: Cambridge, 1995) . Albion, New Series 42 (1996), 64-71.

13. Review article discussing Joseph Carroll's Evolution and Literary Theory (University of Missouri Press, 1995), Studies in English Literature (journal of the English Literary Society of Japan, ISSN 0387-3439), English Number 1996: 91-99.

12. 'Science in Poetry: How to Make Literature Interesting Again', Kyoto Seika University Journal, No. 6 (31 Jan. 1994), 24-34, 269-270.

11. Review of John Paul Russo, I. A. Richards: His Life and Work (Johns Hopkins UP; Routledge & Kegan Paul: Baltimore and London, 1989), in journal of literary semantics, 22/1 (Apr. 1993), 86-9. Revised version of item 7. below.

10. 'The Lewis Question', Essays in Criticism, 43/3 (July 1993), 265-71. Review essay concerning David Ayers, Wyndham Lewis and Western Man (Macmillan: London, 1992).

9. 'Critic or Creator: Wyndham Lewis and The Childermass', Review of English Literature (Kyoto University), 64 (Sep. 1992), 1-19.

8. 'From Magdalen to Magdalene: C. S. Lewis', in George Watson, ed, Critical Essays on C. S. Lewis (Scolar Press, 1992). Reprint of item 2 below.

7. Review of John Paul Russo, I. A. Richards: His Life and Work (Johns Hopkins UP; Routledge & Kegan Paul: Baltimore and London, 1989), in Studies in English Literature (English Literature Society of Japan) (March, 1991), 63-8. Reprinted, in a shortened and revised form, in the Journal of literary semantics, 22/1 (Apr. 1993), 86-9.

6. Review of Dennis Brown, Intertextual Dynamics within the Literary Group, Joyce, Lewis, Pound and Eliot: The Men of 1914 (Macmillan: London, 1990), in Enemy News, No. 31 (Winter 1990), 20-21.

5. 'Meaningless Energies: Satire of Hemingway in Wyndham Lewis's Snooty Baronet', Review of English Literature (Kyoto University), 60 (Oct. 1990), 111-39. Extended version of item 4 below.

4. '"Meaningless Energies": Hemingway and Snooty Baronet', Enemy News, No. 30 (Summer 1990), 14­20. Outline version of item 5 above.

3. 'I. A. Richards, T. S. Eliot, and the Poetry of Belief', Essays in Criticism, 40/3 (July 1990), 222-243. Reprinted in Yuzuru Katagiri, ed, Richards Now (Tokyo, 1993), 97-122. The Web text includes two photographs, one of Richards in 1930, and one of Richards and Eliot in 1947.

2. "From Magdalen to Magdalene: C. S. Lewis", Magdalene College Magazine and Record, New Series no. 32: 1987-8 (Oct. 1989), 42-6. Reprinted in George Watson, ed, Critical Essays on C. S. Lewis (Scolar Press, 1992).

1. '"Either was the other's mine": "The Phoenix and the Turtle": A New Reading', Notes and Queries, 234/3 (Sep. 1989), 327-8.

 

Books

5. Selected Works of I. A. Richards 1919­1938. (Routledge: London, 2001). 10 volumes (400 pages of introductions, 3000 pages of text). Set ISBN: 0-415-21731-8. Individual volumes are available separately. The set has recently been reviewed by Terry Eagleton:

Terry Eagleton, 'A Good Reason to Murder Your Landlady', London Review of Books, 24/8 (25 Apr. 2002), pp. 13­15.

Title and contents pages are available as pdf files below: NB: The pdf files below may not display correctly at first in some situations: hit your reload button or key to ensure correct loading of fonts.

Vol. 1. The Foundations of Aesthetics. lxii + 82 pp. (ISBN 0-415-21732-6) View title and contents pages.

Vol. 2. The Meaning of Meaning. xlvi + 386 pp. (ISBN 0-415-21733-4) View title and contents pages.

Vol. 3. Principles of Literary Criticism. lii + 331 pp. (ISBN 0-415-21734-2) View title and contents pages.

Vol. 4. Practical Criticism. xxxvii + 361 pp. (ISBN 0-415-21735-0) View title and contents pages.

Vol. 5. Mencius on the Mind. xxxvi + 170 pp. (ISBN 0-415-21736-9) View title and contents pages.

Vol. 6. Coleridge on Imagination. xxxvi + 187 pp. (ISBN 0-415-21737-7) View title and contents pages.

Vol. 7. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. xvii + 94 pp. (ISBN 0-415-21738-5)View title and contents pages.

Vol. 8. Interpretation in Teaching. xxvi + 484 pp. (ISBN 0-415-21739-3)View title and contents pages.

Vol. 9. Collected Shorter Writings 1919-1938. vii + 567 pp. (ISBN 0-415-21740-7) View title and contents pages.

Vol. 10. I. A. Richards and his Critics: Selected Reviews and Critical Articles. lxxv + 499pp. (ISBN 0-415-21741-5) View title and contents pages.

4. Critical Essays on William Empson, Critical Thought Series: 3 (Scolar Press: Aldershot and Brookfield, Vermont, 1993), xii + 555pp. Edited, with an introductory essay (pp. 1-14). Online text of introduction and contents list available via the preceding link.

3. A Semantically Sequenced Way of Teaching English: Selected and Uncollected Writings by I. A. Richards, edited with Yuzuru Katagiri (Yamaguchi Publishing House: Kyoto, 1993), 423 pp.

2. Selected Letters of I. A. Richards, (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1990), xlvi + 226pp. Introduction by Richard Luckett.

1. Wyndham Lewis & I. A. Richards: A Friendship Documented 1928-1957 (Skate Press: Cambridge, 1989), 72 pp. Edited and introduced in collaboration with S. J. M. Watson. To order send e-mail to sjmw@dial.pipex.com

 

Presentations

10. 'I. A. Richards, T. S. Eliot and "A Background for Contemporary Poetry"', presented at 'The Criterion; A Symposium', Nottingham Trent University, 6 July 2002.

9. 'Towards a General Theory of Metrical Composition: The Mathematical Character and Cognitive Effects of Verse', invited speaker at the Research Seminar of the Department of English Studies, University of Durham, 31 October 2001.

8. 'Word-length Frequency and Distribution in English Prose and Verse: An Empirical and Mathematical Examination of the Character and Consequences of Isometric Lineation', with Hideaki Aoyama. Presented at the International Conference of the Linguistic Society of Belgium 'Linguistic approaches to Poetry', 13-15 January 2000, at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

7. 'Metre as an Engine of Unstructured Implication', Relevance Theory Workshop, University of Luton, England, 8-10 September 1998.

6. 'Metrical Form and Prophetic Utterance',  presented in a panel on cultural transmission at the annual conference of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, University of California, Davis, July 8-12 1998.

5. 'The Compositional Practice of Wordsworth and Shelley'. Wordsworth Summer Conference, Grasmere, 13 August 1997. In collaboration with Tatsuo Tokoo.

4. 'Verse Form: A Pilot Study in the Epidemiology of Representations', Tokyo University Human Biology Research Group Conference, 1 December 1996.

3. 'The Epidemiology of Cultural Representations: Verse Forms in English Language Poetry'. Human Behaviour and Evolution Society, Eighth Annual Meeting, Northwestern University, Evanston, 26-30 June 1996.

2. 'Using Literary Material as Data in Human Behavioral Studies: Establishing a Right Relationship Between Literary Research and Evolutionary Psychology', Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Seventh Annual Meeting, University of California, Santa Barbara, 28 June­2 July 1995.

1. 'Critic or Creator: Wyndham Lewis and The Childermass',  in a series, 'The Sociology of the Text', at the Centre for English Studies, London University, 11 March 1992.