Eliot's Theory of Impersonality

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Eliot's Theory of Impersonality

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#T.S. Eliot’s #impersonal conception
of art and the fullest expression of
his classicist attitude towards art
and poetry are essentially given
by him in his essay Tradition and
the Individual Talent.
~~~~~~~
Eliot explains his theory of
impersonality by #examining first,
the relation of the poet to the past
and secondly, the relation of the
poem to its author. According to
his view the past is never dead, it
lives in the present. “No poet or
no artist has his complete meaning
alone.
~~~~`~
His #significance, his appreciation
is the appreciation of his relation
to the dead poets and artists.”
Above all, the artist or the poet
has to work in the long established
tradition of the literature to which
he belongs. We cannot value the
poet alone; we must set him for
comparison and contrast among
the dead poets of his language.
In the next part of the theory he
examines the #relation of the poet
to the poem. #According to him, the
poem has no relation to the poet.
The difference between the mind
of a mature poet and an immature
one is that, a mature poet has
more finely perfected medium.
Eliot thinks that the poet and the
poem are two separate things. The
feeling or emotion or vision
resulting from the poem is
something different from feeling,
emotion, and vision in the mind of
the poet. The art emotion is
different from personal emotion.
In other words the poet should be
#passive and #impersonal.
~~~~~~~
To explain the theory, Eliot has
brought the #analogy of #chemical
#reaction. When oxygen and
sulphur-di-oxide are mixed in the
presence of a filament of
platinum, they form sulphurus
acid. This combination takes place
only when platinum is presence.
Platinum is the catalyst that helps
to process of chemical reaction,
but it itself is apparently
unaffected. The mind of the poet is
the shred of platinum. Its presence
may be necessary for partly or
exclusively to operate for the
combination of the experience in
order to give birth to a piece of
poetry.
~~~~~~
Eliot #says that, the #business of the
poet is not to find new emotions,
but to use the ordinary ones and
in working them up in poetry, to
express feelings which are not
actual emotions at all.
The emotion of art is impersonal.
It has its life in the poem and not
in the history of poets. So, honest
criticism and sensitive
appreciation is directed not upon
the poet but upon the poetry. The
biography of the poet is not to be
studied; the structure of the poem
and its evocation powers are
important.