T. S. ELIOT

T. S. Eliot was a great poet and critic of modern age T. S. Eliot was a great poet and critic of modern age. He had declared himself as a classicist in literature, an Anglo-Catholic in religion and a royalist. He wrote in his essay on Matthew Arnold “From time to time, every hundred years or so, it is desirable that some critic should appear to review the past of literature and set the poets and poems in a new order. This task is but of re-adjustment”.

Eliot has almost accomplished a revolution in critical taste Eliot has almost accomplished a revolution in critical taste. He has compelled us to reconsider and re-assess the whole critical theory from Plato to the Victorian Era. His critical achievements have been tremendous.

Tradition and Individual Talent In this essay Eliot discusses some vital problems of literature in a sustained manner. The idea of tradition is germane to both literary creation and literary criticism. He challenges the notion that a poet should be traced in proportion to his originality. Apart from tradition a poet is a mere phantom. He cannot be understood. He must therefore flow in the main current of literature. “Tradition” does not mean a blind or timid adherence to the success of a former generation. It involves in the first place historical sense which we may call merely indispensible to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty fifth year.

Tradition and Individual Talent And the historical sense involves a perception of the pastiness of the past but of its presence. The historical sense compels a man to write with not merely his own generation in the bones but with the feeling that the whole literature of Europe from Homer and within it, the whole literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. It is this historical sense which makes a writer traditional.

Eliot is attacking the romantic cut of personality Eliot is attacking the romantic cut of personality. The business of a poet is not to find new emotions but to use ordinary ones and in working them up into poetry to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve the purpose as well as those familiar to him. He does not accept Wordsworth’s theory of emotions recollected in tranquility. There he finds neither emotions, nor recollection nor tranquility.

He vehemently attacks the romantic theory of poetry in these lines “ poetry is not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from personality. But of course those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. Progress of an artist is continual self sacrifice, continual extinction of personality. The poet’s personality is a mere medium, a catalyst which makes it possible for diverse emotions and feelings to be fused organically in a poem.”

Eliot’s idea of tradition holds good for the literary critic also Eliot’s idea of tradition holds good for the literary critic also. No poet, no artist of any art has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relations to the dead poets and the artists. You cannot value him alone, you must set him for contrast and comparison for criticism. This is a principle of aesthetics not merely historic criticism.

The necessity that he shall conform that he shall cohere is not one-sided. What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves which is modified by the introduction of the new work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives. For order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be if ever so slightly altered and so the relations proportions values of each work of art towards that whole are readjusted and this is the conformity between the new and the old.

In the process there is a clear exposition of the impersonal theory of poetry which has become so closely associated with Eliot. In the essay we find the exposition of certain principles and theories which never changed radically in the course of time. One cannot overlook the fact that this essay serves as a framework to which many of his future critical essays refer. The concept of tradition basic to Eliot’s theory of poetry demands the surrender of the poet’s subjectivity to an outside authority. Tradition is that outside authority to which the writer as well as the critic have to submit.

The impersonal theory of poetry has two aspects: it expresses the relation between the poet and literary tradition on one hand and on the other it brings out the relation of the poet with himself in the creation of a work of art.

It has been the habit of critics to praise a poet for his individual features in his poetry. There is importance given to those features in which a poet least resembles others. In other words the poet is praised for being untraditional. This, according to Eliot shows ignorance of literary heritage. On shedding prejudice it will be noted that the most original portions of a poet’s work are those in which the dead poets, his ancestors assert their immortality most vigorously.

Being traditional however does not imply blind imitation Being traditional however does not imply blind imitation. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, one has to work hard to acquire it. It involves historical sense which is the sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal together. This sense of time being eternally present of the existence of the past and the present together is what makes a write traditional.

CONCEPT OF GREATNESS OF THE PAST It is necessary to note that the Eliot’s concept of the importance of past in the idea of literary tradition is different from Arnold’s idea of greatness of past. Arnold considers the works of the past as a standing reference to which the modern poets should look if they were to make anything of their poetry. The past cannot be seen separately from the present. It has to be seen in close relationship to the present. The poet with a sense of tradition will neither reject the past nor respect or imitate it indiscriminately.

CONCEPT OF GREATNESS OF THE PAST He will assimilate the past so completely that it becomes a part of himself. When he works, he will create something in which the past should be modified by the present and the present will be directed by the past. An artist has to submit his subjective self to the awareness of tradition in the creation of art, it becomes necessary that the artist makes a continual self-sacrifice, the process of gaining maturity involves a continual extinction of personality.

IMPERSONAL THEORY OF ART T. S. Eliot believes in the impersonal theory of art. When he comes to discuss of the relation of the poem to its author, he insists on separating the man and the poet experience from art. He says the more perfect the artist the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates. He regards the poet’s mind as a medium rather than a personality. He says that the feeling or emotion or vision resulting from the poem is something different from the feeling or emotion or vision in the mind of the poet.

A poet is great not because he puts his personality into his work but because he has a mind in which he varied feelings enter into new combinations. There are two kinds of emotions: one is the emotion of the poet which is impure and crude and the other is the emotion of the poem which he calls the significant emotion. The significant emotion has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal.

It is not the greatness, the intensity of the emotion, the confidence but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure so to speak under which the fusion takes place that counts.

Poetry is a conscious art and requires constant effort Poetry is a conscious art and requires constant effort. There is a great deal in the writing of poetry which must be conscious and deliberate. In fact, the bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him personal.