T.S.
ELIOT’S LITERARY CRITICISM – TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT
Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 – 1915) was a versatile genius
who during his lifelong span of literary activity achieved distinction as a
poet, playwright, journalist and critic.
In 1948, he was awarded Nobel Prize for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present day poetry. As
he said, his criticism was merely a 'by-product' of his 'private poetry work
shop'. The value of Eliot’s criticism
arises from the fact that he speaks with authority and conviction and his prose
style is as precise and memorable as his poetry. The critical concepts like ‘Dissociation of
sensibility’, ‘Unified Sensibility’ and ‘Objective Correlative’ have gained for
him wide popularity and appeal.
The phrase ‘Objective Co-relative’ was first used by Eliot
in his essay on ‘Hamlet’. Eliot defines
‘objective co-relative’ as ‘a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events’,
which shall be the formula for the poets’ emotion, so that ‘when the external
facts are given, the emotion is at once evoked’. In his opinion the emotion can best be
expressed in poetry through the use of some suitable objective
co-relative. For example in ‘Macbeth’
the dramatist has to convey the mental agony of Lady Macbeth and he does so in,
‘The sleep, walking scene’, not through direct descriptions, but through an
unconscious repetition of her past actions.
Her mental agony has been made objective so that it can as well be seen
by the eyes as felt by the heart. Here
the external situation is adequate to convey the emotions. Instead of communicating the emotions
directly to the reader, the dramatist has embodied them in a situation or chain
of events that suitably communicate the emotions to the reader. But, ‘Hamlet’ is an artistic failure as the
external situation does not suitably embody the effect of a mother’s guilt on
her son. The disgust of Hamlet is also
in excess of the facts as presented in the drama.
Another popular phrase ‘Dissociation of sensibility’ and
‘Unification of Sensibility’ were first used by T.S. Eliot in his essay on the
Metaphysical poets of the early 17th century. By ‘Unification of Sensibility’ he means ‘a
fusion of thought and feeling’, ‘a recreation of thought into feeling’. Such fashion of thought and feeling is
essential for good poetry. Bad poetry
results when there is ‘dissociation of sensibility’. There the poet is unable to feel his
thoughts. Eliot finds such unification
of sensibility in the metaphysical poets, and regrets that dissociation of
sensibility set in the late 17th century. According to him, 'Tennyson and Browning are
poets; and they think, but they do not feel their thoughts as immediately as
the odour of a rose. But, a thought to
Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility'. Similarly Eliot’s 'The Theory of Impersonality
of poetry’ is the greatest theory on the nature of the poetic process after
Wordsworth’s romantic conception of poetry.
According to him poetry is not letting loose of emotion but an escape
from emotion, not an expression of personality, but an escape from
personality. Moreover as he considered
drama as one among several forms of poetry, he always advocated for a revival
of poetic drama in the modern age.
TRADITION
AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT
The ESSAY ‘Tradition and Individual talent’ was published
in 1919 in the Times literary supplement, as a critical article. The essay is divided into three parts. The first part gives us Eliot’s concepts of
Tradition and the second part deals with his theory of the impersonality of
poetry. The third part sums up the whole
discussion.
According to T.S Eliot the word ‘tradition’ is disagreeable
to English ears. Because, when they
praise a poet, they praise him for those aspects of his work, which are
‘individual’ and ‘original’. Actually
they praise the poet for the wrong thing here.
If they examine the matter critically with an unprejudiced mind, they
will realize that the best and the most individual part of a poet’s work is
that, which shows the maximum influence of the writers of the past. Here, tradition does not mean a blind
adherence to the ways of the previous generations. For Eliot, tradition is a matter of much
wider significance. Tradition, in the
true sense of the term, cannot be inherited.
It can only be obtained by hard labour.
This labour is actually, knowing the past writers. It is the critical labour of shifting the
good from the bad. A writer who has the
historic sense feels that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer down
to his own day, including of his own country, forms one continuous ‘literary
tradition’. As tradition represents the
accumulated wisdom and experience of ages, its knowledge is essential for
really great and noble achievements.
The sense of Tradition doesn’t mean that the poet should
try to know the past as a whole, take it to be a lump or mass without any
discrimination. The past must be
examined critically and only the significant in it should be acquired. The poet must also realize that the main
literary trends are not determined by the great poets alone. Smaller poets also are significant. According to T.S. Eliot, knowledge does not
merely mean bookish knowledge and the capacity for acquiring knowledge differs
from person to person. Shakespeare, for
example could know more of Roman history from Plutarch than most men can from
British museum. Such awareness of tradition
sharpens poetic sensibility and is indispensible for poetic creation.
In the second part of the essay Eliot develops further his
theory of the impersonality of poetry.
He compares the mind of the poet to a catalyst and the process of poetic
creation to the process of a chemical reaction.
Suppose there is a jar containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide. These two gases combine to form sulphurous
acid, when a fine filament of platinum is introduced into the jar. The combination takes place only in the
presence of the piece of platinum, but the metal itself does not undergo any
change. It remains inert, neutral and
unaffected. The mind of the poet is like
the catalytic agent. It is necessary for
combinations of emotions and experiences to take place, but it itself does not
undergo any change during the process of poetic combination. The experiences which enter the poetic
process, says Eliot, may be of two kinds.
They are emotions and feelings.
Poetry may be composed out of emotions or feelings or out of both.
As Eliot believes that poetry is not letting loose of
emotion but an escape from emotion and it is not the expression of personality
but an escape from personality, it doesn’t mean that he denies personality or
emotion to the poet. Only he needs the
poet depersonalize his emotions. There
should be an extinction of his personality.
This impersonality can be achieved only when the poet surrenders himself
completely to the work that is to be done.
It is possible only if he acquires a sense of tradition and the historic
sense along with the sense of the present moment of the past. This is how the separation of art from artist
is achieved.
-----Thulasidharan V
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