T. S. Eliot’s The Critic

 T. S. Eliot as a Critic

Eliot is one of the greatest literary critics of England. Both from the point of view of the bulk and quality of his critical writings. His critical articles have a far-reaching influence on literary criticism. His criticism was revolutionary which inverted the critical tradition of the whole English speaking world. John Hayward says: “I cannot think of a critic who has been more widely read and discussed in his own life-time; and not only in English, but in almost every language, except Russian.”

As a critic Eliot has his faults. At times he assumes a hanging-judge attitude and his statements savor of a verdict. Often his criticism is marred by personal and religious prejudices blocking an honest and impartial estimate. Moreover, he does not judge all by the same standards. Critics have also found fault with his style as too full of doubts, reservations and qualifications.

Eliot’s criticism has revolutionized the great writers of the past three centuries. His recognition of the greatness of the Metaphysical poets of the 17th century resulted in the Metaphysical revival of the 20th century. The credit for the renewal of interest in the Jacobean dramatists goes to Eliot. He has restored Dryden and other Augustan poets to their due place. His essay on Dante aroused curiosity for the latter middle ages. The novelty of his statements, hidden in sharp phrases, startles and arrests attention. According to Eliot, the end of criticism is to bring readjustment between the old and the new. 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, besides ability for judgment, powerful liberty of mind to identify and interpret its own values and category of admiration for their generation. John Hayward says: “Matthew Arnold was such a critic as were Coleridge and Johnson and Dryden before him; and such, in our own day, is Eliot himself.”

Eliot’s criticism offers both reassessment and reaction to earlier writers. He called himself “a classicist in literature”. His vital contribution is the reaction against romanticism and humanism which brought a classical revival in art and criticism. He rejected the romantic view of the individual’s perfectibility, stressed the doctrine of the original sin and exposed the futility of the romantic faith in the “Inner Voice”. Instead of following his ‘inner voice’, a critic must follow objective standards and must conform to tradition. A sense of tradition, respect for order and authority is central to Eliot’s classicism. He sought to correct the excesses of “the abstract and intellectual” school of criticism represented by Arnold. He sought to raise criticism to the level of science. In his objectivity and logical attitude, Eliot most closely resembles Aristotle. A. G. George says: “Eliot’s theory of the impersonality of poetry is the greatest theory on the nature of the process after Wordsworth’s romantic conception of poetry.”

Poetry was an expression of the emotions and personality for romantics. Wordsworth said that poetry was an overflow of powerful emotions and its origin is in “Emotions recollected in tranquility”. Eliot rejects this view and says that poetry is not an expression of emotion and personality but an escape from them. The poet is only a catalytic agent that fuses varied emotions into new wholes. He distinguishes between the emotions of the poet and the artistic emotion, and points out that the function of criticism is to turn attention from the poet to his poetry. 

Eliot’s views on the nature of poetic process are equally revolutionary. According to him, poetry is not inspiration, it is organization. The poet’s mind is like a vessel in which are stored numerous feelings, emotions and experiences. The poetic process fuses these distinct experiences and emotions into new wholes. In “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”.

Perfect poetry results when instead of ‘dissociation of sensibility’ there is ‘unification of sensibility’. The emotional and the rational, the creative and the critical, faculties must work in harmony to produce great work of art. Critics stressed that the aim of poetry is to give pleasure or to teach morally. However, for Eliot the greatness of a poem is tested by the order and unity it imposes on the chaotic and disparate experiences of the poet. Wimsatt and Brooks are right in saying: “Hardly since the 17th century had critical writing in English so resolutely transposed poetic theory from the axis of pleasure versus pain to that of unity versus multiplicity.”

Eliot devised numerous critical concepts that gained wide acclaim and has a broad influence on criticism. ‘Objective co-relative’, ‘Dissociation of sensibility’, ‘Unification of sensibility’ are few of Eliot clichés hotly debated by critics. His dynamic theory of tradition, of impersonality of poetry, his assertion on ‘a highly developed sense of fact’ tended to impart to literary criticism catholicity and rationalism.

To conclude, Eliot’s influence as a critic has been wide, constant, fruitful and inspiring. He brought about a rethinking regarding the function of poetry and the nature of the poetic process. He gave a new direction and new tools of criticism.

 “Tradition and the Individual Talent”

"No poet, no artist of any sort, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists."

T. S. Eliot questions the habit of praising a poet especially for those elements in his work which are most ‘individual’, and differentiate him from others. He argues that ‘the best’, even ‘the most individual parts’ of a poet’s work may be those most alive with the influence of his poetic ancestors. No poet or artist is significant in isolation. The whole of past literature will be ‘in the bones’ of the poet, with the true historic sense which recognizes the presence as well as the ‘pastness’ of the past. Eliot’s sense of the interdependence of present and the past is something which he believed the poet must cultivate. Tradition can be obtained only by those who have a historical sense. This sense of tradition implies recognition of the continuity of literature, a critical judgment as to which writers of the past continue to be significant in the present, and a knowledge of these writers obtained through painstaking effort. A writer with the sense of tradition is fully conscious of his own generation, of his place in the present but he is also acutely conscious of his relationship with the writers of the past. 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.” In short, tradition represents the accumulated wisdom of and experience of the ages and so its knowledge is essential for really great and noble achievements. 

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. He believes that, ‘novelty is better than repetition.’  By the term ‘Tradition’, he comes up with something ‘of much wider significance”. He believes tradition is not static or fixed.

By The relationship between the past and the present is not one sided; it is a reciprocal relationship. The past directs the present, and is itself modified and altered by the present. When a new work of art is created, if it is really new and original, the whole literary tradition is modified, though ever so slightly. Meaning of Eliot’s remark that a poet is concerned not only with the ‘pastness’ of the past but with its presence.

The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the ‘pastness’ of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. 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. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity. 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.”

The work of a poet in the present must be compared and contrasted with the works of the past, but this judgment is not to determine good or bad. The comparison is made for the purposes of analysis and for forming a better understanding of the new. Moreover, this comparison is reciprocal; the past helps to understand the present and the present throws light on the past. It is by comparison alone that we can sift the traditional from individual elements in a given work of art.

The sense of tradition does not mean that the poet should try to know the past as a whole, without discrimination. The past must be critically examined and only the significant should be acquired. Neither should a poet be content merely to know the ages and poets he likes. To know the tradition, the poet must judge critically what the main trends are and what are not. The poet must not ignore the smaller poets as they could also be significant in developing main literary trends. The poet must possess the critical gift in ample measure and must understand that the great works of art never lose their significance; there may be refinement but no development. A sense of tradition in real sense means, “consciousness of the main current, which does not all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations.”

In brief the sense of tradition means:

·         Recognition of the continuity of literature

·         Critical judgment as to which writers of the past continue to be significant in the present

·         Knowledge of these writers through painstaking effort

 Tradition represents the accumulated wisdom and experience of ages and so its knowledge is essential for great and noble achievements.

T. S. Eliot’s Theory of ‘Impersonality of Poetry’

v Eliot’s Depersonalization theory

v  "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."

The poet must continually surrender himself to something which is more valuable than himself that is tradition. In the beginning, his self, his individuality may assert itself, but as his powers mature there will be a greater extinction of personality. His emotions and passions must be ‘depersonalized’, and he must be as objective as a scientist, and understand that his personality is merely a medium. He must forget personal joys and sorrows and devote himself completely in acquiring a sense of tradition. That is why, Eliot says that honest criticism is not directed at the poet but upon the poetry.

In the second part of the essay, Eliot develops the theory of ‘impersonality of poetry’. He compares the mind of the poet to a catalytic agent. The mind of the poet is the platinum. The emotions and feelings are the gases. The more perfect he is as a poet, the less his own personality is involved. As the Sulphur and Carbon dioxide form Sulphurous acid, and the platinum remains unchanged, so the poet remains separate from his creation, though his feelings and emotions form new sum whole.  It is necessary for combination of emotions and experiences to take place, but it itself does not undergo any change during the process. In case of a young and immature poet, his personal emotions and experiences may find some expression in his composition, ‘but the more perfect the poet, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.'

Eliot rejects romantic subjectivity. He compares the poet’s mind to a receptacle in which there are stored numberless emotions, feelings etc. which remain there in an unorganized and chaotic form till “all such particles unite to form a new compound together.” ‘Poetry is thus organization rather than inspiration.’ Moreover, he believes that the greatness of a poem does not depend upon the intensity of the emotions but upon the intensity of the process of poetic composition. Eliot says, ‘the more intense the poetic process, the greater the poem.’ He is of the view that there is always a difference between the artistic emotions and the personal emotions of the poet. For instance, famous ‘Ode to Nightingale’ of Keats is teeming with such emotions which have nothing to do with the nightingale. Being only ‘a medium’ of this poetic expression, poet is impersonal.

The emotion of poetry is different from personal emotions of the poet. His personal emotions may be simple or crude but the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined. Poet is free from finding new emotions as he may express only ordinary emotions, but he must impart to them a new significance and a new meaning. He further says that a poet may express emotions which he has never personally experienced.

Consequently, we are compelled to believe that "emotion recollected in tranquility" is an inexact formula. For according to Eliot, ‘in the process of poetic composition there is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor, tranquility.’ It is a concentration of several experiences, and a new thing resulting from the concentration. This process of poetic concentration is neither conscious nor deliberate. Indeed, 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.”  Whereas a mature art must be impersonal. Eliot does not tell when a poet should be conscious and when not.

Eliot Sums up: ‘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.’  But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things. So, Eliot does not negate emotions, he merely endeavours to depersonalize emotions. There should be an extinction of personality and it can be achieved through the complete surrender of the poet to his work.

An Ideal Critic: His Qualifications and Functions

In a number of critical essays like ‘The Perfect Critic’, ‘The Imperfect Critic’, ‘The Function of Criticism’ and ‘The Frontiers of Criticism’, Eliot has dealt with the qualifications and functions of a critic.

A good critic must have superior sensibility. He must have greater capacity of receiving impressions and sensations from the work of art he studies.

 He must also have wide erudition. This would increase his understanding. His mind would be stored with impressions which would be modified and refreshed by each successive impression he receives from the new works he contemplates. In this way would be built up a system of impressions which would enable him to make generalised statements of literary beauty. Such a universalizing or generalising power is essential for an ideal critic, and he can get it only through erudition.

A good critic must be entirely impersonal and objective. He must not be guided by the inner voice, but by some authority outside himself. Eliot instances two types of imperfect critics, represented by Arthur Symons and Arnold. Symons is too subjective and impressionistic, while Arnold is too dry, intellectual and abstract. Eliot regards Aristotle as an instance of a perfect critic, for he avoids both these defects. In his hands, criticism approaches the condition of science.

A good critic must not be emotional. He must be entirely objective. He must try to discipline his personal prejudices and whims. He must have a highly trained sensibility, and a sense of structural principles, and must not be satisfied with vague, emotional impressions. Critics who supply only vague, emotional impressions, opinions or fancy, as he puts it, are great corruptors of taste.

An ideal critic must have a highly developed sense of fact. By a sense of fact, Eliot does not mean biographical or sociological knowledge, but a knowledge of technical details of a poem, its genesis, setting, etc. It is a knowledge of such facts alone which can make criticism concrete as well as objective. It is these facts which a critic must use to bring about an appreciation of a work of art. However, he is against the ‘lemon-squeezer’ school of critics who try to squeeze every drop of meaning out of words and lines.

A critic must also have a highly developed sense of tradition. He must be learned not only in the literature of his own country, but in the literature of Europe down from Homer to his own day.

Practitioners of poetry make the best critics. The critic and the creative artist should frequently be the same person. Such poet-critics have a thorough knowledge and understanding of the process of poetic creation, and so they are in the best position to communicate their own understanding to their readers.

An ideal critic must have a thorough understanding of the language and structure of a poem. He must also have an idea of the music of poetry, for a poet communicates as much through the meaning of words as through their sound.

Comparison and analysis are the chief tools of a critic and so a perfect critic must be an expert in the use of these tools. His use of these tools must be subtle and skillful. He must know what and how to compare, and how to analyse. He must compare the writers of the present with those of the past not to pass judgment or determine good or bad, but to elucidate the qualities of the work under criticism. In other words, he must be a man of erudition, for only then can he use his tools effectively.

He must not try to judge the present by the standards of the past. The requirements of each age are different, and so the cannons of art must change from age to age. He must be liberal in his outlook, and must be prepared to correct and revise his views from time to time, in the light of new facts.

In short, an ideal critic must combine to a remarkable degree, “sensitiveness, erudition, sense of fact and sense of history, and generalising power.”

 The Critic: His Functions

The function of a critic is to elucidate works of art. This function he performs through, ‘comparison and analysis’. His function is not to interpret, for interpretation is something subjective and impressionistic. Critics like Coleridge or Goethe, who try to interpret works of art, are great corruptors of the public taste. They supply merely opinion or fancy which is often misleading. The critic should merely place the facts before the readers and thus help them to interpret for themselves. His function is analytical and elucidatory, and not interpretative. “Analysis and comparison, methodically with sensitiveness, intelligence, curiosity, intensity of passion, and infinite knowledge, all these are necessary to the great critic.”

The critic must also have correct taste. He must educate the taste of the people. In other words, he must enable them positively to judge what to read most profitably, and negatively what to avoid as worthless and of no significance. He must develop the insight and discrimination of his readers.

A critic must promote the enjoyment and understanding of works of art. He must develop both the aesthetic and the intellectual sensibilities of his readers.

It is the function of a critic to turn the attention from the poet to his poetry. The emotion of art is impersonal, distinct from the emotion of the poet. The poem is the thing in itself, and it must be judged objectively without any biographical, sociological or historical considerations. By placing before the readers the relevant facts about the poem, the critic emphasises its impersonal nature, and thus promotes correct understanding.

Criticism must serve as a handmaid to creation. Criticism is of great importance in the work of creation itself. The poet creates, but the critic in him sifts, combines, corrects and expunges, and thus imparts perfection and finish to what has been created. No great work of art is possible without critical labour.

 The function of a critic is to find common principles for the pursuit of criticism. To achieve this end, “the critic must control his own whims and prejudices, and co-operate with other critics in the common pursuit of true judgment.” He must co-operate with the critics both of the past and the present. He must also realise that all truths are tentative, and so must be ready to correct and modify his views as fresh facts come to light.

The function of a critic is not a judicial one. A critic is not to pass judgment or determine good or bad. His function is to place the simpler kinds of facts before the readers, and thus help them to form their own judgment. He does not supply statements or communicate feeling; he merely starts a process. A critic is a great irritant to thought; he tries to secure the active participation of the readers in the work of criticism.

A critic should try to answer two questions: “‘What is poetry?” and “Is this a good poem?” Criticism is both theoretical regarding the nature and function of poetry and the poetic process, and practical concerned with the evaluation of works of art. With this end in view, he should bring the lessons of the past to bear upon the present.

In short, Eliot’s conception of a critic and his functions is classical. He insists on a, “highly developed sense of fact”, on objective standards, on a sense of tradition, and rejects the subjectivism of the romantics. The concern for a poem as an objective thing is the special highlight of the classicism of Eliot.

 The Metaphysical Poets

In ‘The Metaphysical Poets’, Eliot critically examines ‘metaphysical poets’ and defines that ‘metaphysical poets’ are neither quaint nor fantastic, rather they are great and mature poets. This essay inspects the digression of this so called metaphysical school from the main current. He also tests their validity and importance in the modern age. Eliot also points out the characteristic fault of the metaphysical poets.

Eliot says that it is extremely difficult to define metaphysical poetry and to decide what poets practice it in which of their verses. The poetry of Donne is late Elizabethan. Its feeling is often very close to that of Chapman. The argument put forth by Eliot is that there is no precise use of metaphor, simile or other conceits common to the metaphysical poets. Moreover, there is no common style important enough to isolate these poets as a group. But Donne and Cowley employ a device which is sometimes considered characteristically ‘metaphysical’ : The elaboration of a figure of speech to the furthest stage. Cowley’s comparison of the world to a chess board (To Destiny), and Donne’s comparison of two lovers to a pair of compass. In these poets, instead of a mere explication of content of the comparison, “a development by rapid association of thought which requires considerable agility on the part of the reader”.  Donne’s most successful and characteristic effects are secured by brief words and sudden contrasts. Sometimes we find in them. Donne is more successful than Cowley because in developing comparisons, he uses brief words and sudden contrasts: “A bracelet of bright hair about the bone” where the most powerful effect is produced by the sudden contrast of the associations of “bright hair” and of “bone”. So it is to be maintained that metaphysical poetry is the elaboration of far-fetched images and communicated association of poet’s mental processes.

Dr. Johnson employed the term ‘metaphysical poets’ keeping in mind Donne, Cleveland and Cowley. He remarked that in them ‘the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.’ Eliot says that often the dissimilar ideas are yoked but not fused into a single whole and if we are to judge styles of poetry by their abuse, enough examples are found in Cleveland to justify Johnson’s condemnation. He quotes Lord Herbert’s Ode and says that nothing in the poem that fits Johnson’s general observation on the metaphysical poets. The fault which Dr. Johnson points out is not there, rather the unity of heterogeneous ideas is common to all.

According to Eliot, the language of these poets is as a rule simple and pure. Herbert’s verse has simplicity. Unlike the eighteenth century poems, the seventeenth century poems (metaphysical poems) like Marvell’s Coy Mistress and Crashaw’s Saint Teresa are dissimilar in the use of syllables. In the former, there are short syllables to produce an effect of great speed and in the latter, long syllables are used to effect an ecclesiastical solemnity.
In Eliot’s opinion, Johnson has failed to define metaphysical by its faults. One has to consider whether the metaphysical poetry has the virtue of permanent value or not. In fact, it does not have it. Johnson’s observation is that the attempts of these poets were always analytic. Eliot says that in the dramatic verse of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean poets, there is a development of sensibility. In Jonson, Chapman and Donne, there is a recreation of thought into feeling. That is, there is ‘unification of sensibility’.

Eliot makes a distinction between the Victorian poet (reflective poet) and the metaphysical poet (intellectual poet). Poets like Tennyson and Browning think but do not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose. ‘A thought to Donne was an experience. It modified his sensibility.’ The disparate experiences are amalgamated and they form new wholes.

The poets of the 17th century are the successors of the 16th century dramatists. They are simple, artificial, difficult, fantastic as their predecessors were. In the 17th century, a dissociation of sensibility set in and this was aggravated by the influence of the two most powerful poets of the century - Milton and Dryden. These poets performed certain poetic functions so magnificently well that the magnitude of effect concealed the absence of others. There was improvement in language. While the language became more refined, the feeling became more crude. In one or two passages of Shelley’s Triumph of Life, in the second Keats’s Hyperion. There are traces of a struggle toward unification of sensibility.

Now the question is that what the fate of ‘metaphysical’ would have been if the current of poetry descended in a direct line from them? They would not, certainly, be classified as metaphysical. Like other poets, the metaphysical poets have various faults. But they were trying to find the verbal equivalent for states of mind and feeling. Eliot concludes the essay by saying that Donne, Crashaw, Vaughan, Herbert, Cowley at his best are in the current of English poetry.