W. K. Wimsatt and Monroe C. Beardsley in 1946.
Affective fallacy refers to the error of evaluating the poem because of its emotional effects.
When a reader attaches with the poem emotionally, one cannot judge it critically.
I. A. Richards in Principles of Literary Criticism (1923) reacted to it by saying that the psychological responses could be incited in readers only when the reader got attached to it.
Beardsley modified it saying that the critical evaluation can be only done through the effects on perceivers. It ultimately leads to objective criticism (instead of describing the effects of the poem on reader, the features, form and devices are considered.)
Extreme reaction against it in the form of reader- response criticism.
Explanation:
Let's understand.
Affective means something that affects you. Here it denotes that the reader when reads the poem, he/she is affected emotionally or gets attached to the poem.
Fallacy means wrong belief or idea. The reader would be biased while criticising it. So, one should not be connected with the poetry while evaluating it. The reader can't criticise because there is an already a mindset that it is good.
Suppose, you have to evaluate the singing quality of your best friend and a stranger. Then, you would like to favour your friend. You can't be fair enough because you have already an emotional attachment with the person. You won't be able to judge adequate perhaps. This is the affective fallacy.This term is coined by Wimsatt and Beardsley in 1946.
Later on, this gives rise to Objective Criticism i.e. There should be unbiased opinions based on facts or features of the text rather than personal preferences. That's all about it.
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