A
Poet-Critic: His Greatness
Eliot is one of the long-line of poet-critics extending from Sir Philip Sydney to our own day and including such names as Ben Jonson, Dryden, Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Arnold. Both from the point of view of the bulk and quality of his critical writings, Eliot is one of the greatest of literary critics of England. His five hundred and odd essays published as reviews and articles from time to time, have had a far-reaching influence on the course of literary criticism in the country.
“Eliot made English criticism look different” says George Watson, “through not in a simple sense”. His criticism has been revolutionary; he has turned the critical tradition of the whole English speaking world upside down. The Sacred Wood was published in 1920 and since then his authority has steadily increased. “I cannot think”, say John Hayward, “of a critic who has been more widely read and discussed in his own lifetime; not only in English, but in almost every language, except Russian, throughout the civilised world.”
His Faults
As a critic Eliot has his faults, and some of them are quite glaring ones. Sometimes he is pontifical, assumes a hanging-judge attitude, and instead of sympathetic understanding his pronouncements savour of a verdict. Often his criticism is marred by personal and religious prejudices, and dislike of the man comes in the way of an honest and impartial estimate. In this respect he does not live up to his own theory of the objectivity and impersonality of poetry. His condemnation of Milton, and that of Shelley, can hardly be called sound literary criticism. When he scoffs at Arnold for his being an overworked inspector of schools, he drifts away from criticism proper and stoops to personal invective. Moreover, he does not judge all by the same standards of criticism. For example, in his essay on Dante he remarks that knowledge of the ideas and beliefs of a poet is not essential for an appreciation of his poetry. But he condemns Shelley for his ‘repellent ideas’. There is an element of didacticism in his later essays and with the passing of time his critical faculties were more and more exercised on social problems. Critics have also found fault with his style as too full of doubts, reservations and qualifications.
His Contribution: Reassessment of Earlier Writers
However, such faults do not detract from Eliot’s greatness as a critic. His criticism offers both a reaction and a re-assessment. Through his practical criticism, he has brought about a revaluation of the great literary names of the past three centuries. His recognition of the greatness of Donne and the other Metaphysical poets of the 17th century, has resulted in the Metaphysical revival of the 20th century. The credit for the renewal of interest in the Metaphysicals and the Jacobean dramatists must go to Eliot, and Eliot alone. Similarly, he has restored Dryden and the other Augustan poets to their rightful place in the hierarchy of the Englishmen of letters. According to Bradbrook, his essay on Dante resulted not only in a greater appreciation of the Italian poet, it aroused keen curiosity and enthusiasm for the latter middle ages. We may not, sometimes, agree with his views, but there can be little doubt that he is highly original and thought-provoking. The novelty of his statements, couched in tenchant phrases, startles and arrests attention. He has shed new light on a number of English writers and has made them look entirely different—According to Eliot, the end of criticism is to bring about a readjustment between the old and the new, and his own criticism performs this function to a nicety. He says, “From time to time it is desirable that some critic shall appear to review the past of our literature, and set the poets and the poems in a new order.” Such critics are rare, for they must possess, in addition to an unusual capacity for judgment, an independence of mind powerful enough to recognise and interpret for their generation its own values and categories of appreciation. “Matthew Arnold was such a critic as were Coleridge and Johnson and Dryden before him; and such, to our own day, is Eliot himself (John Hayward). Eliot’s re estimation of the dramatists and poets of the 17th century, remains unrivalled in the history of English criticism.
Raised Criticism to the Level of Science
Eliot’s practical criticism offers a re-assessment of earlier writers; his theoretical criticism represents a reaction to romantic and Victorian critical creed. He called himself, ‘a classicist in literature’, and one of his important contributions in the reaction against romanticism and humanism which he strengthened. The reaction had been started by T.B. Hulme. Eliot carried it on, made it a force in literature, and thus brought about a classical revival both in art and criticism. He rejected the romantic view of the perfectibility of the individual, stressed the doctrine of the original sin, and exposed the hollowness of the romantic faith in the ‘Inner voice’ as merely doing, ‘what one likes’. He stressed that a critic must follow objective standards; instead of following merely his, ‘inner voice’ he must conform to tradition. A sense of tradition, a respect for order and authority is at the core of Eliot’s classicism, and in this respect the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent is the manifesto of his critical creed. In this way, his criticism is a corrective to the eccentricity and waywardness of the contemporary impressionistic school of criticism. Similarly, he sought to correct the excesses of what he contemptuously called ‘the abstract and intellectual’ school of criticism represented by Arnold. The critic must have a highly developed sense of fact and he must judge on the basis of these facts with perfect detachment and impartiality. He thus sought to raise criticism to the level of science; in his objectivity and scientific attitude Eliot is the English critic who most closely resembles Aristotle. In this stress on facts, on ‘comparison and analysis’, Eliot has exercised a profound influence on the New Critics. He has started many new trends in English criticism.
His Revolutionary Theory of Poetry
“Eliot’s theory of the impersonality of poetry”, says A.G. George, “is the greatest theory on the nature of the poetic process after Wordsworth’s romantic conception of poetry.” According to the romantics, poetry was an expression of the emotions, the personality of the poet. Thus Wordsworth said that poetry was an overflow of powerful emotions, and that it had its origins in, ‘emotions recollected in tranquillity’. Eliot rejects romantic subjectivism and propounds the revolutionary doctrine that poetry is not a letting loose of emotion but an escape from emotion, not an expression of personality, but an escape from personality. The poet is merely a catalytic agent in the presence of which varied emotions fuse to form new wholes. He differentiates between the emotions of the poet and the artistic emotion, and points out that the function is to turn attention from the poet to his poetry. Thus his criticism is a corrective to the excesses of the biographical, historical and sociological schools of criticism. He thus changed the entire cause of critical theory and practice in many ways of far-reaching significance.
Poetry as Organisation: Break from Romantic Tradition
Eliot’s views on the nature of poetic process are equally revolutionary. According to him, poetry is not inspiration; it is organisation. The poet’s mind is like a receptable in which are stored a number of varied feelings, emotions and experiences. The poetic process is the process of fusing these disparate experiences and emotions into new wholes. In his essays on The Metaphysical Poets, he writes, “When a poet’s mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences; the ordinary man’s experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary”, but in the mind of the poet varied experiences are always forming new wholes. Perfect poetry results when, instead of dissociation of sensibility’, there is ‘unification of sensibility’. The emotional and the intellectual, the creative and the critical, faculties must work in harmony to produce a really great work of art. Until now critics had either stressed that the aim of poetry is to give pleasure and in this way to mitigate pain, or that its function is moral edification A great poet both instructs and delights. However, for Eliot the greatness of a poem is tested not by the pleasure it gives or the moral elevation it leads to, but by the order and unity it imposes on the chaotic and disparate experiences of the poet. Wimsatt and Brooks are, therefore, right in saying, “Hardly since the 17th century had a critic writing in English so resolutely transposed poetic theory from the axis of pleasure versus pain to that of unity versus multiplicity.” In this way, Eliot’s theory of poetry marks a break from tradition, and gives a new direction to literary criticism.
His Critical Concepts and Their Popularity
Eliot has formulated a number of new critical concepts which thanks to his gift of phrasing, have gained wide currency, and exercised a far-reaching influence on criticism ever since. Objective co-relative, Dissociation of sensibility, Unification of sensibility, are only a few of the Eliot cliches which have been hotly debated by a host of critics, and have made people sit up and think. His dynamic theory of tradition, his theory of impersonality of poetry, his insistence on, ‘a highly developed sense of fact’, on the part of the critic, have all tended to impart to literary criticism both catholicity and rationalism.
His Influence: Wide and Continuing
To conclude: Eliot’s influence as a critic has been wide and all-pervasive, it has also been a continuing one. He has corrected and educated the taste of his readers and has brought about a rethinking regarding the function of poetry and the nature of the poetic process. He gave a new orientation, new critical ideas and new tools of criticism. It is in the re-consideration and revitalisation of English poetry of the past “that his influence as a critic, has been most fruitful and inspiring. ‘No critic, indeed, since Coleridge has shown more clearly the use of poetry and of criticism’ (John Hayward). Estimating the achievement of Eliot as a critic, George Watson writes, “Eliot made English criticism look different, but not in a simple sense.” He offered it a new range of rhetorical possibilities, confirmed it in its increasing contempt for historical processes and yet reshaped its notion of period by a handful of brilliant intuitions. It is not to be expected that so expert and professional an observer of poetry should allow his achievement to be more nearly classified than this.” His comments on the nature of Poetic Drama and the relation between poetry and drama have done much to bring about revival of Poetic Drama in the modern age. There is hardly any critic now who does not bear the stamp of his influence. Even if he had written no poetry, he would have made his mark as a distinguished subtle critic.
Eliot is one of the long-line of poet-critics extending from Sir Philip Sydney to our own day and including such names as Ben Jonson, Dryden, Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Arnold. Both from the point of view of the bulk and quality of his critical writings, Eliot is one of the greatest of literary critics of England. His five hundred and odd essays published as reviews and articles from time to time, have had a far-reaching influence on the course of literary criticism in the country.
“Eliot made English criticism look different” says George Watson, “through not in a simple sense”. His criticism has been revolutionary; he has turned the critical tradition of the whole English speaking world upside down. The Sacred Wood was published in 1920 and since then his authority has steadily increased. “I cannot think”, say John Hayward, “of a critic who has been more widely read and discussed in his own lifetime; not only in English, but in almost every language, except Russian, throughout the civilised world.”
His Faults
As a critic Eliot has his faults, and some of them are quite glaring ones. Sometimes he is pontifical, assumes a hanging-judge attitude, and instead of sympathetic understanding his pronouncements savour of a verdict. Often his criticism is marred by personal and religious prejudices, and dislike of the man comes in the way of an honest and impartial estimate. In this respect he does not live up to his own theory of the objectivity and impersonality of poetry. His condemnation of Milton, and that of Shelley, can hardly be called sound literary criticism. When he scoffs at Arnold for his being an overworked inspector of schools, he drifts away from criticism proper and stoops to personal invective. Moreover, he does not judge all by the same standards of criticism. For example, in his essay on Dante he remarks that knowledge of the ideas and beliefs of a poet is not essential for an appreciation of his poetry. But he condemns Shelley for his ‘repellent ideas’. There is an element of didacticism in his later essays and with the passing of time his critical faculties were more and more exercised on social problems. Critics have also found fault with his style as too full of doubts, reservations and qualifications.
His Contribution: Reassessment of Earlier Writers
However, such faults do not detract from Eliot’s greatness as a critic. His criticism offers both a reaction and a re-assessment. Through his practical criticism, he has brought about a revaluation of the great literary names of the past three centuries. His recognition of the greatness of Donne and the other Metaphysical poets of the 17th century, has resulted in the Metaphysical revival of the 20th century. The credit for the renewal of interest in the Metaphysicals and the Jacobean dramatists must go to Eliot, and Eliot alone. Similarly, he has restored Dryden and the other Augustan poets to their rightful place in the hierarchy of the Englishmen of letters. According to Bradbrook, his essay on Dante resulted not only in a greater appreciation of the Italian poet, it aroused keen curiosity and enthusiasm for the latter middle ages. We may not, sometimes, agree with his views, but there can be little doubt that he is highly original and thought-provoking. The novelty of his statements, couched in tenchant phrases, startles and arrests attention. He has shed new light on a number of English writers and has made them look entirely different—According to Eliot, the end of criticism is to bring about a readjustment between the old and the new, and his own criticism performs this function to a nicety. He says, “From time to time it is desirable that some critic shall appear to review the past of our literature, and set the poets and the poems in a new order.” Such critics are rare, for they must possess, in addition to an unusual capacity for judgment, an independence of mind powerful enough to recognise and interpret for their generation its own values and categories of appreciation. “Matthew Arnold was such a critic as were Coleridge and Johnson and Dryden before him; and such, to our own day, is Eliot himself (John Hayward). Eliot’s re estimation of the dramatists and poets of the 17th century, remains unrivalled in the history of English criticism.
Raised Criticism to the Level of Science
Eliot’s practical criticism offers a re-assessment of earlier writers; his theoretical criticism represents a reaction to romantic and Victorian critical creed. He called himself, ‘a classicist in literature’, and one of his important contributions in the reaction against romanticism and humanism which he strengthened. The reaction had been started by T.B. Hulme. Eliot carried it on, made it a force in literature, and thus brought about a classical revival both in art and criticism. He rejected the romantic view of the perfectibility of the individual, stressed the doctrine of the original sin, and exposed the hollowness of the romantic faith in the ‘Inner voice’ as merely doing, ‘what one likes’. He stressed that a critic must follow objective standards; instead of following merely his, ‘inner voice’ he must conform to tradition. A sense of tradition, a respect for order and authority is at the core of Eliot’s classicism, and in this respect the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent is the manifesto of his critical creed. In this way, his criticism is a corrective to the eccentricity and waywardness of the contemporary impressionistic school of criticism. Similarly, he sought to correct the excesses of what he contemptuously called ‘the abstract and intellectual’ school of criticism represented by Arnold. The critic must have a highly developed sense of fact and he must judge on the basis of these facts with perfect detachment and impartiality. He thus sought to raise criticism to the level of science; in his objectivity and scientific attitude Eliot is the English critic who most closely resembles Aristotle. In this stress on facts, on ‘comparison and analysis’, Eliot has exercised a profound influence on the New Critics. He has started many new trends in English criticism.
His Revolutionary Theory of Poetry
“Eliot’s theory of the impersonality of poetry”, says A.G. George, “is the greatest theory on the nature of the poetic process after Wordsworth’s romantic conception of poetry.” According to the romantics, poetry was an expression of the emotions, the personality of the poet. Thus Wordsworth said that poetry was an overflow of powerful emotions, and that it had its origins in, ‘emotions recollected in tranquillity’. Eliot rejects romantic subjectivism and propounds the revolutionary doctrine that poetry is not a letting loose of emotion but an escape from emotion, not an expression of personality, but an escape from personality. The poet is merely a catalytic agent in the presence of which varied emotions fuse to form new wholes. He differentiates between the emotions of the poet and the artistic emotion, and points out that the function is to turn attention from the poet to his poetry. Thus his criticism is a corrective to the excesses of the biographical, historical and sociological schools of criticism. He thus changed the entire cause of critical theory and practice in many ways of far-reaching significance.
Poetry as Organisation: Break from Romantic Tradition
Eliot’s views on the nature of poetic process are equally revolutionary. According to him, poetry is not inspiration; it is organisation. The poet’s mind is like a receptable in which are stored a number of varied feelings, emotions and experiences. The poetic process is the process of fusing these disparate experiences and emotions into new wholes. In his essays on The Metaphysical Poets, he writes, “When a poet’s mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experiences; the ordinary man’s experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary”, but in the mind of the poet varied experiences are always forming new wholes. Perfect poetry results when, instead of dissociation of sensibility’, there is ‘unification of sensibility’. The emotional and the intellectual, the creative and the critical, faculties must work in harmony to produce a really great work of art. Until now critics had either stressed that the aim of poetry is to give pleasure and in this way to mitigate pain, or that its function is moral edification A great poet both instructs and delights. However, for Eliot the greatness of a poem is tested not by the pleasure it gives or the moral elevation it leads to, but by the order and unity it imposes on the chaotic and disparate experiences of the poet. Wimsatt and Brooks are, therefore, right in saying, “Hardly since the 17th century had a critic writing in English so resolutely transposed poetic theory from the axis of pleasure versus pain to that of unity versus multiplicity.” In this way, Eliot’s theory of poetry marks a break from tradition, and gives a new direction to literary criticism.
His Critical Concepts and Their Popularity
Eliot has formulated a number of new critical concepts which thanks to his gift of phrasing, have gained wide currency, and exercised a far-reaching influence on criticism ever since. Objective co-relative, Dissociation of sensibility, Unification of sensibility, are only a few of the Eliot cliches which have been hotly debated by a host of critics, and have made people sit up and think. His dynamic theory of tradition, his theory of impersonality of poetry, his insistence on, ‘a highly developed sense of fact’, on the part of the critic, have all tended to impart to literary criticism both catholicity and rationalism.
His Influence: Wide and Continuing
To conclude: Eliot’s influence as a critic has been wide and all-pervasive, it has also been a continuing one. He has corrected and educated the taste of his readers and has brought about a rethinking regarding the function of poetry and the nature of the poetic process. He gave a new orientation, new critical ideas and new tools of criticism. It is in the re-consideration and revitalisation of English poetry of the past “that his influence as a critic, has been most fruitful and inspiring. ‘No critic, indeed, since Coleridge has shown more clearly the use of poetry and of criticism’ (John Hayward). Estimating the achievement of Eliot as a critic, George Watson writes, “Eliot made English criticism look different, but not in a simple sense.” He offered it a new range of rhetorical possibilities, confirmed it in its increasing contempt for historical processes and yet reshaped its notion of period by a handful of brilliant intuitions. It is not to be expected that so expert and professional an observer of poetry should allow his achievement to be more nearly classified than this.” His comments on the nature of Poetic Drama and the relation between poetry and drama have done much to bring about revival of Poetic Drama in the modern age. There is hardly any critic now who does not bear the stamp of his influence. Even if he had written no poetry, he would have made his mark as a distinguished subtle critic.
Besides being a poet,
playwright and publisher, T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was one of the most seminal
critics of his time. Carlo Linati, his Italian critic, found his poetry to be
‘irrational, incomprehensible… a magnificent puzzle’, and in his poetic
endeavors ‘a deliberate critical purpose’. Also in his literary criticism Eliot’s
personality has found its full expression. Thus Eliot’s literary criticism can
be seen as expression of his poetic credo. As one of the seminal critics of the
twentieth century; Eliot shows a disinterested endeavour of critical faculty
and intelligence in analyzing a work of art. For the sake a systematic
discussion, his critical works may be grouped under the following headings:
a) theoretical criticism dealing with the principles of literature,
b) descriptive and practical criticism dealing with the works of individual writers and evaluation of their achievements, and
c) theological essays.
‘Tradition and Individual Talent’ has been one of his extraordinarily influential critical works. It was first published in 1922 in Sacred Woods, and was subsequently included in the ‘Selected Essays’ (1917-1932). In this essay, Eliot has primarily dealt with his concepts of
1. Historical Sense, and Tradition
2. Interdependence of the past and the present
3. Impersonality in art in general and poetry in particular
a) theoretical criticism dealing with the principles of literature,
b) descriptive and practical criticism dealing with the works of individual writers and evaluation of their achievements, and
c) theological essays.
‘Tradition and Individual Talent’ has been one of his extraordinarily influential critical works. It was first published in 1922 in Sacred Woods, and was subsequently included in the ‘Selected Essays’ (1917-1932). In this essay, Eliot has primarily dealt with his concepts of
1. Historical Sense, and Tradition
2. Interdependence of the past and the present
3. Impersonality in art in general and poetry in particular
Eliot commences the essay
with the general attitude towards ‘Tradition’.He points out that every nation
and race has its creative and critical turn of mind, and emphasises the need
for critical thinking. ‘We might remind ourselves that criticism is as
inevitable as breathing.’In ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’, Eliot introduces
the idea of Tradition. Interestingly enough, Eliot’s contemporaries and
commentators either derided the idea as irrelevant, conservative and
backward-looking stance or appreciated the idea and read it in connection with
Matthew Arnold’s historical criticism of texts popularly known as ‘touchstone’
method. In this section we will first make an attempt to summarize Eliot’s
concept of tradition and then will seek to critique it for a comprehensive
understanding of the texts.
At the very outset, Eliot makes it clear that he is using the term tradition as an adjective to explain the relationship of a poem or a work to the works of dead poets and artists. He regrets that in our appreciation of authors we hardly include their connections with those living and dead. Also our critical apparatus is significantly limited to the language in which the work is produced. A work produced in a different language can be considered for a better appreciation of the work. In this connection, he notices “our tendency to insist…those aspects” of a writer’s work in which “he least resembles anyone else”. Thus, our appreciation of the writer is derived from exhumation of the uniqueness of the work. In the process, the interpretation of the work focuses on identifying the writer’s difference from his predecessors. Eliot critiques this tendency in literary appreciation and favours inclusion of work or parts of work of dead poets and predecessors.
Although Eliot attaches greater importance to the idea of tradition, he rejects the idea of tradition in the name of ‘Blind or Timid Adherence’ to successful compositions of the past. By subscribing to the idea of tradition, Eliot does not mean sacrificing novelty nor does he mean slavish repetitions of stylistic and structural features. By the term ‘Tradition’, he comes up with something ‘of much wider significance”. By ‘Tradition’, he does not refer to a legacy of writers which can be handed down from a generation to another generation. It has nothing to do with the idea of inheritance; rather it regrets a great deal of endeavour. He further argues, “It involves... The historical sense... and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past but its presence; … This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.” By this statement, Eliot wants to emphasize that the writer or the poet must develop a sense of the pastness of the past and always seeks to examine the poem or the work in its relation to the works of the dead writers or the poets. To substantiate his point of view, Eliot says, “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and the artists.” As he says this, he is perfectly aware of Matthew Arnold’s notion of historical criticism and therefore distances himself from such the Arnoldian critical stance. He identifies his approach to literary appreciation “as a principle of aesthetics and thereby distinguishes it from Arnold’s “Historical Criticism”. Thus, Eliot offers an organic theory and practice of literary criticism. In this, he treats tradition not as a legacy but as an invention of anyone who is ready to create his or her literary pantheon, depending on his literary tastes and positions. This means that the development of the writer will depend on his or her ability to build such private spaces for continual negotiation and even struggle with illustrious antecedents, and strong influences. Harold Bloom terms the state of struggle as “The anxiety of influence”, and he derides Eliot for suggesting a complex, an elusive relationship between the tradition and the individual, and goes on to develop his own theory of influence.
At the very outset, Eliot makes it clear that he is using the term tradition as an adjective to explain the relationship of a poem or a work to the works of dead poets and artists. He regrets that in our appreciation of authors we hardly include their connections with those living and dead. Also our critical apparatus is significantly limited to the language in which the work is produced. A work produced in a different language can be considered for a better appreciation of the work. In this connection, he notices “our tendency to insist…those aspects” of a writer’s work in which “he least resembles anyone else”. Thus, our appreciation of the writer is derived from exhumation of the uniqueness of the work. In the process, the interpretation of the work focuses on identifying the writer’s difference from his predecessors. Eliot critiques this tendency in literary appreciation and favours inclusion of work or parts of work of dead poets and predecessors.
Although Eliot attaches greater importance to the idea of tradition, he rejects the idea of tradition in the name of ‘Blind or Timid Adherence’ to successful compositions of the past. By subscribing to the idea of tradition, Eliot does not mean sacrificing novelty nor does he mean slavish repetitions of stylistic and structural features. By the term ‘Tradition’, he comes up with something ‘of much wider significance”. By ‘Tradition’, he does not refer to a legacy of writers which can be handed down from a generation to another generation. It has nothing to do with the idea of inheritance; rather it regrets a great deal of endeavour. He further argues, “It involves... The historical sense... and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past but its presence; … This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.” By this statement, Eliot wants to emphasize that the writer or the poet must develop a sense of the pastness of the past and always seeks to examine the poem or the work in its relation to the works of the dead writers or the poets. To substantiate his point of view, Eliot says, “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and the artists.” As he says this, he is perfectly aware of Matthew Arnold’s notion of historical criticism and therefore distances himself from such the Arnoldian critical stance. He identifies his approach to literary appreciation “as a principle of aesthetics and thereby distinguishes it from Arnold’s “Historical Criticism”. Thus, Eliot offers an organic theory and practice of literary criticism. In this, he treats tradition not as a legacy but as an invention of anyone who is ready to create his or her literary pantheon, depending on his literary tastes and positions. This means that the development of the writer will depend on his or her ability to build such private spaces for continual negotiation and even struggle with illustrious antecedents, and strong influences. Harold Bloom terms the state of struggle as “The anxiety of influence”, and he derides Eliot for suggesting a complex, an elusive relationship between the tradition and the individual, and goes on to develop his own theory of influence.
Although Eliot
attaches greater importance to the idea of tradition, he rejects the idea of
tradition in the name of ‘Blind or Timid Adherence’ to successful compositions
of the past. By subscribing to the idea of tradition, Eliot does not mean
sacrificing novelty nor does he mean slavish repetitions of stylistic and
structural features. By the term ‘Tradition’, he comes up with something ‘of
much wider significance”. By ‘Tradition’, he does not refer to a legacy of
writers which can be handed down from a generation to another generation. It
has nothing to do with the idea of inheritance; rather it regrets a great deal
of endeavour. He further argues, “It involves... The historical sense... and
the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the
past but its presence; … This historical sense, which is a sense of the
timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal
together, is what makes a writer traditional.” By this statement, Eliot wants
to emphasize that the writer or the poet must develop a sense of the pastness
of the past and always seeks to examine the poem or the work in its relation to
the works of the dead writers or the poets. To substantiate his point of view,
Eliot says, “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His
significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead
poets and the artists.” As he says this, he is perfectly aware of Matthew
Arnold’s notion of historical criticism and therefore distances himself from
such the Arnoldian critical stance. He identifies his approach to literary
appreciation “as a principle of aesthetics and thereby distinguishes it from
Arnold’s “Historical Criticism”. Thus, Eliot offers an organic theory and
practice of literary criticism. In this, he treats tradition not as a legacy
but as an invention of anyone who is ready to create his or her literary
pantheon, depending on his literary tastes and positions. This means that the
development of the writer will depend on his or her ability to build such
private spaces for continual negotiation and even struggle with illustrious
antecedents, and strong influences. Harold Bloom terms the state of struggle as
“The anxiety of influence”, and he derides Eliot for suggesting a complex, an
elusive relationship between the tradition and the individual, and goes on to
develop his own theory of influence.
Eliot argues that “Honest
Criticism and sensitive appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon
the poetry”. This hints at the actual beginning of ‘New Criticism’ where the
focus will shift from author to the text. Eliot here defines the poet’s responsibility.
The poet is not supposed to compose poetry which is full of his personal
emotions. He must subscribe himself to something more valuable, i.e., what
others have composed in the past. Thus, Eliot emphasizes objectivity in poetry.
Eliot believes that some sort of ‘physical distancing’, to use Bullough’s term,
is necessary for successful composition. He also mentions that the poet has to
merge his personality with the tradition:"The progress of the artist is a
continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality." The mind
of the poet is a medium in which experiences can enter new combinations. He
exemplifies this process as when oxygen and sulphur dioxide are mixed in the
presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphuric acid. This combination
takes place only in the presence of platinum, which acts as the catalyst. But
the sulphuric acid shows no trace of platinum, and remains unaffected. The
catalyst facilitates the chemical change, but does not participate in the
chemical reaction, and remains unchanged. Eliot compares the mind of the poet
to the shred of platinum, which will "digest and transmute the passions
which are its material". He suggests the analogy of a catalyst’s role in a
chemical process in a scientific laboratory for this process of
depersonalization.
Eliot sees the poet's mind as "a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together." He says that concepts like "sublimity", "greatness" or "intensity" of emotion are irrelevant. It is not the greatness of the emotion that matters, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure under which the artistic process takes place, that is important. In this way he dissociates the notion on the artistic process from an added emphasis on 'genius' and the exceptional mind.
Eliot refutes the idea that poetry is the expression of poet’s personality. Experiences in the life of the man may have no place in his poems, and vice-versa. The emotions occasioned by events in the personal life of the poet are not important. What matters is the emotion transmuted into poetry, the feelings expressed in the poetry. "Emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him". Eliot critiques Wordsworth's definition of poetry in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility."For Eliot, poetry is not recollection of feeling, "it is a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences . . . it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation." Eliot defines that "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality." For him, the emotion of art is impersonal, and the artist can achieve this impersonality only by and being conscious of the tradition, He is talking about the poetic tradition and neglects the fact that even the poetic tradition is a complex mixture of written and oral poetry and the elements that go into them. It was only in his later writings that he realized that in poetic composition many elements are involved. In his poetic dramas, he sought to broaden his scope.
Eliot has also ignored other traditions that go into social formations. In 'Religion and Literature', he has dealt with the non-poetic elements of tradition at length. He kept on developing his notion of tradition right up to the time he wrote ‘Notes towards a definition on culture’.
Eliot sees the poet's mind as "a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together." He says that concepts like "sublimity", "greatness" or "intensity" of emotion are irrelevant. It is not the greatness of the emotion that matters, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure under which the artistic process takes place, that is important. In this way he dissociates the notion on the artistic process from an added emphasis on 'genius' and the exceptional mind.
Eliot refutes the idea that poetry is the expression of poet’s personality. Experiences in the life of the man may have no place in his poems, and vice-versa. The emotions occasioned by events in the personal life of the poet are not important. What matters is the emotion transmuted into poetry, the feelings expressed in the poetry. "Emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him". Eliot critiques Wordsworth's definition of poetry in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility."For Eliot, poetry is not recollection of feeling, "it is a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences . . . it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation." Eliot defines that "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality." For him, the emotion of art is impersonal, and the artist can achieve this impersonality only by and being conscious of the tradition, He is talking about the poetic tradition and neglects the fact that even the poetic tradition is a complex mixture of written and oral poetry and the elements that go into them. It was only in his later writings that he realized that in poetic composition many elements are involved. In his poetic dramas, he sought to broaden his scope.
Eliot has also ignored other traditions that go into social formations. In 'Religion and Literature', he has dealt with the non-poetic elements of tradition at length. He kept on developing his notion of tradition right up to the time he wrote ‘Notes towards a definition on culture’.
P.S. : Notes Made with the help of Internet Sources.
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