Course:
M.A (English)
Topic: Poetic Process and the process of
Depersonalization by T.S.Eliot
Semester:
02
Roll
No. : 07
Paper
No.: 07
Paper
Name: Literary Theory & Criticism: The 20th Western & Indian
Poetics-2
Submitted
to: Dr. Dilip Barad,
Smt.
S.B.Gardi
Department
of English,
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Poetic Process and
the process of Depersonalization by T.S.Eliot
The
vast accumulations of knowledge—or at least of
information—deposited by the nineteenth century have
been responsible for an equally vast ignorance.
—TS
Eliot
Tradition
and Individual Talent:-
Thomas Stearns
Eliot was an American-born English poet, playwright, and literary
critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Eliot
was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. His most famous work is
“The Waste Land.” On one level this highly complex poem describes cultural and
spiritual crisis.
"The point of view which I am struggling to
attack is perhaps related to the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity
of the soul: for my meaning is, that the poet has, not a 'personality' to
express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality,
in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected
ways." (From 'Tradition and the Individual Talent,' 1920)
T.S Eliot’s works:-
Poetry Plays Nonfiction:- “Tradition and Individual Talent
(1920)” The sacred wood: Essays on poetry and
criticism A choice of Kipling’s verse ( 1941) The Frontiers of criticism (1956)
Eliot is most often known for his
poetry, he also contributed to the field of literary theory. In this dual role,
he acted as poet- critic, comparable to Sir Philip Sidney and Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. “Tradition and Individual Talent” is one of the more well known
works that Elion produced in his critic capacity. It formulates Eliot’s
influential conception of the relationship between the poet and the literary
tradition which precedes him.
T.S.
Eliot’s “Tradition and Individual Talent” was published in
1919 in The Egoist- the Times Literary supplement. Later, the essay was
published in “The Sacred Wood: Essays on poetry and criticism in 1920. This
essay is described by David Lodge as the English of the twentieth century. The
essay is divided into three main sections:-
The first
gives us Eliot’s concept of tradition The Second exemplifies his theory of
depersonalization and poetry. The third part he concludes the debate by
saying that the poet’s sense of poetry are complementary things.
Eliot asserts that the word
“tradition’’ is not a very favorable term with the English, who generally
utilize the same as a term of censure. The English do not possess an
orientation towards Criticism as the French do; they praise a poet for those
aspects of the work that are individualistic.
For Eliot,
tradition has a three-fold significance. Firstly, tradition can not be inherited, and
involves a great deal of labor and erudition. Secondly,
it involves the historical sense which involves apperception not only of the
pastness of the past, but also of its present. Thirdly,
the Historical sense enables a writer to write not only with his own generation
in mind, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature from Homer down to
the literature of his own country farms a continuous literary tradition.
Eliot presents his
conception of tradition and the definition of the poet and poetry in relation
to it. He wishes to correct for the fact that, as he perceives it, "in
English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its
name in deploring its absence." Eliot posits that, though the English
tradition generally upholds the belief that art progresses through change - a
separation from tradition, literary advancements are instead recognized only
when they conform to the tradition. Eliot, a Classicist,
felt that the true incorporation of tradition into literature was unrecognized,
that tradition, a word that "seldom... appears except in a phrase of
censure," was actually a thus-far unrealized element of literary
criticism. Eliot says that the Englishmen have a tendency to insist, when they
praise a poet, upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles anyone
else. In these aspects of his work they try to find out what is individual,
what is the peculiar essence of that man. They try to find out the difference
of the poet with his contemporaries and predecessors. They try to find out
something that can be separated in order to be enjoyed.
But
if we study the poet without bias or prejudice, we shall often find that not
the best, but the most individual of his work may be those in which the dead
poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality forcefully and vigorously.
According to Eliot tradition and individual talent are not separate entity.
They are inseparable and hence go together.
Historical Sense/ “the historical
sense involves a perception not only of the pastness of the past, but of its
presence”
According to Eliot, knowledge of
tradition plays vital role in the development of personal talent, He writes:
‘Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited and
if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves the historical
sense.’
This
means sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of past, but of 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
write traditional and it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely
conscious of his place in time, of his contemporanity. For Eliot,
the term "tradition" is imbued with a special and complex character.
It represents a "simultaneous order," by which Eliot
means a historical timelessness – a fusion of past and present – and, at the
same time, a sense of present temporality. Eliot challenges our common
perception that a poet’s greatness and individuality lies in his departure from
his predecessors. Rather, Eliot argues that "the most individual parts of
his (the poet) work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert
their immortality most vigorously." Eliot claims that this "historical
sense," that is, not only a resemblance to traditional works, but
an awareness and understanding of their relation to his poetry.
Eliot gives importance to the interdependence of
past and the present. He finds not contradictory but supplementary elements in
the co- relationship of the past and the present. He expresses his views as
follows:-
“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 artist. You cannot value him alone; you must set
him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. Mean this as a principle of
aesthetic, that he merely historical 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 relation, proportions, values of each
work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the
old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of
European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past
should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the
past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and
responsibilities.”
Eliot’s theory of poetic process and the process of
depersonalization:-
Eliot
starts the second part of his essay with: “Honest criticism and sensitive
appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.”
The artist or
the poet adopts the process of depersonalization, which is “a continual
surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more
valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self – sacrifice, a
continual extinction of personality”. There still remains this process of
depersonalization and its relation to sense of tradition. The mature poet is
viewed as a medium, through which tradition is channelled and elaborated. He
compares the poet to a catalyst in a chemical reaction, in which the reactants
are feelings, and emotions that are synthesized to create an artistic image
that captures and relays these same feelings and emotions. While the mind of
the poet is necessary for the production, it emerges unaffected by the process.
The artist stores feelings and emotions and properly unites them into a
specific combination, which is the artistic product. What lend greatness to a work
of art is not the feelings and emotions themselves, but the nature of the
artistic process by which they are synthesized. The artist is
responsible for creating "the pressure, so to speak, under which the
fusion takes place." And, it is the intensity of fusion that
renders art great. In this view, Eliot rejects the theory that art expresses
metaphysical unity in the soul of the poet. The poet is a depersonalized
vessel, a mere medium.
Analogy of
chemical reaction and poetic process-
“The analogy was that of that catalyst, when the
two gases oxygen and sulphur dioxide, are mixed in the presence of a filament
of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if
the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace
of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected; has remained
inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum.
It may partly or exclusively operate upon the experience of the man himself;
but the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be
the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the
mind digest and transmute the passions which are material.”
Eliot
explains his theory of depersonalization more elaborately. He elaborates his
idea by saying that the emotion and experiences in the art are different than
the emotion and experiences of the artist He writes:-
“If you compare several representative passages of
the greatest poetry, you see how completely any semi ethical criterion of
“sublimity” misses the mark. For it is not the “greatness” the intensity, of
the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artist process, the
pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place that counts” He
further writes:-
“The poet has, not
a ‘personality’ to express, but a particular medium which is only a medium and
not a personality in which
impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. In
impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place
in the poetry and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a
negligible part in the man, the personality.”
“Emotion
recollected in tranquility” is an inexact formula for it is neither emotion,
nor recollection, nor with without distortion of meaning, tranquility.”
It
is not in his personal emotions, the emotions provoked by particular events in
any way remarkable or interesting. His particular emotion or may be simple, or
crude, or flat. The emotion in his poetry will be a very complex thing of the
emotion of people. Who have very complex or unusual emotions in eccentricity in
poetry is to seek for new human emotions to express: and in this search for
novelty in the wrong place it discovers the perverse. The business of the poet
is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, to express
feelings which are not in actual emotion at all. And emotion which he has never
experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him. Consequently,
we must believe that “emotion” recollected in tranquility is
an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection; not without
distortion of meaning, tranquility. It is a concentration, and a new thing
resulting from the concentration, of a very great number of experiences which
to the practical and active person would not seem to be experiences
at all; it is a concentration which does not happen consciously or of
deliberation. These experiences are not ‘recollected’ and they
finally unite in an atmosphere which is ‘tranquil’ only in
that it is a passive attending upon the event of course this is a great deal in
the writing of poetry, which must be conscious and deliberate.
The
third part he concludes the debate by saying that the poet’s sense of tradition
and the impersonality of poetry are complementary things.
In
the last section of this essay; Eliot says that poet’s sense of tradition and
the impersonality of poetry are complementary things. He writes “To divert interest from the poet to the poetry is
a laudable aim: for it would conclude to a juster estimation of actual poetry,
good and bad.” Finally he ends his essay with: “very few know when ether is
expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and
not in the history of the poet. The emotion of art is impersonal and the poet
cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work
to be done and he is not merely the present, but the present moment of the
past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already
living.”
Conclusion:-
To
conclude, Harold Bloom presents a conception of tradition that differs from
that Eliot. Whereas Eliot believes that the great poet is faithful to his
predecessors and evolves in a concordant manner, Bloom according to his theory
of ‘anxiety of influence envisions the strong poet to engage in a much more
aggressive and tumultuous rebellion against tradition.
In 1964, his last year, Eliot published in a reprint of the use of poetry and the use of criticism, a series of lectures he gave at Harvard university in 1932 and 1933, a new preface in which he called “Tradition and the Individual talent” the most juvenile of his essays.
In 1964, his last year, Eliot published in a reprint of the use of poetry and the use of criticism, a series of lectures he gave at Harvard university in 1932 and 1933, a new preface in which he called “Tradition and the Individual talent” the most juvenile of his essays.
