The Critic

T.S Eliot

T.S. Eliot: Life and Career (1888-1965)

The Invisible Poet

Thomas Stearns Eliot enjoyed a long life span of more than seventy-five years, and his period of
active literary production extended over a period of forty-five years. He has come to be regarded
as one of the greatest of English poets, and he has influenced the course of modern poetry more
than any other poet of the 20th century. “Yet opinion concerning the most influential man of
letters of the 20th century has not freed itself from a cloud of unknowing”, says Hugh Kenner
and therefore, the learned author proceeds to call him, the Invisible Poet. This ‘unknowing’ has
resulted partly from Mr. Eliot’s deliberate mystifications—he called himself old Possum and
tried to pretend that he was no poet at all—and partly from the difficult nature of his writings.

Birth and Parentage

However it may be, the facts of his life are clear and well-known. He was born on 20th
September, 1888, at St. Louis, Missouri, an industrial city in the centre of the U.S.A. His
ancestors on the father’s side had migrated to America in 1668 from East Coker (the name of
one of the Four Quartets) in Somersetshire, England, and had become flourishing merchants at
Boston, New England. It was the poet’s grandfather who left New England for St. Louis, and
established a Unitarian Church there. He was a man of academic interests and in course of time
became the founder of the Washington University at St. Louis and also left behind him a number
of religious writings. But the poet’s father, Henry Eliot, did not enter the Church. He took to the
brick-trade at St. Louis in which he was very successful. He married Charlotte Stearns who came
directly from Boston when they married. She was an enthusiastic social worker as well as a
writer of calibre. In her writings can be seen that keen interest in technical innovations which we
find in the poetry of our poet. Thus, it is clear that Eliot’s grandfather and his mother
contributed a lot to his development as a writer, specially as a religious poet. From his father he
inherited his business ability which led him to the bank, and later on made him such a
successful head of publishing firm. Mr. Eliot’s complex, many-sided personality was the
outcome of a number of inherited factors.

At School

The boy Eliot was first sent to school at St. Louis day school, where he studied till 1905, when he
went to Harvard University. At school, he was considered a brilliant student, and in 1900 won a
gold medal for Latin. He began writing at school and showed a marked technical proficiency and
sense of humour. In 1897, his father built a holiday resort at Eastern Point, near Cape Ann, in
New England, and here the poet passed his school vacations. It was here that the poet became
an expert Yachtsman, and, consequently, sailing images are frequent in his works. Near Eastern
Point there are three docks known as The Dry Salvages, and a part of the Four Quartets derives
its title from them.
At Harvard: Literary Interests

The poet was at Harvard from 1906-10 where he pursued a wide-ranging course of studies in
language and literature! the Classics, and German, French and English literatures. Particularly
keen was his interest in comparative literature. Two of his teachers, Irving Babitt and George
Santayana, influenced him profoundly, and he owed his sense of tradition largely to them.
Round the year 1908, he read Arthur Symon’s book the Symbolist Movement in Literature, and
this, stimulated his interest in the poetry of the French Symbolists, specially Laforgue.

European Tours

Eliot graduated from Harvard in 1910, and prompted by his interest in the French symbolists, he
went to France and spent a year at the Sorbonne University at Paris, studying widely in many
contemporary writers. In 1911, from Paris Eliot went to Bavaria, Germany, where he came into
contact with important German writers and read their works. He returned to Harvard later in
the year and studied philosophy, specially Indian and Sanskrit literature and philosophy. He
was by nature shy, ‘an introvert’, and in order to shake off his shyness he took boxing lessons. In
1913, he was elected the President of the Harvard Philosophical Club. However, the very next
year he undertook another trip to Germany to continue his philosophical studies there.

Settles in England: Marriage

With the outbreak of the First World War, Eliot had to leave Germany. He came to England and
continued his studies at Oxford till 1915. Financial difficulties compelled him to take up the job
of a school teacher. From England he submitted his thesis on the philosophy of Bradley for the
doctorate degree, but never returned to Harvard to take that degree. The outbreak of the First
World War, his meeting with Ezra Pound in London in 1914, and his introduction through him
to the lively literary circles of the London of the time, and finally his marriage to an English girl,
Vivienne Haigh, in July 1915, led to his settling in London, and making it his home. Thus though
born an American, Eliot came to be a naturalized citizen of England.

Takes to Journalism: Rise of the Poet

In 1917, Eliot gave up teaching, and entered the foreign department of Lloyds Bank, where he
worked till 1925, dealing with, “documentary bills, acceptances, and foreign exchange”. During
all this time he was also writing vigorously, and several times became ill with over-work. In
1918, he registered for the U.S. Navy, but was not taken into service owing to his poor health. He
worked as the assistant editor of The Egoist from 1917-19, contributed frequently to The
Athenaeum, and in 1923, became the editor of The Criterion which he continued to edit till the
out-break of the Second World War. In 1925, he joined the new publishing firm, Faber and
Faber, of which he soon became the director, and worked in that capacity till the end of his days.
During this time he had also been writing poetry, and his reputation as a poet was constantly
growing. The publication of The Waste Land (1922) attracted wide interest; its technique was
widely imitated, and it influenced even those who were not conscious imitators.

Joins Anglo-Catholic Church: The Christian Note

Eliot became a British citizen in 1927, and also joined the British Church that very year. The
event marks an epoch in his poetic career. The poems written after that as The Journey of the
Magi, Ash Wednesday are more religious in tone: they reflect the state of Eliot’s thinking and
feeling about the religion he has adopted and are a stage in his intention to communicate his
feelings. His reputation continued to grow and he paid a short visit to Harvard in 1933, to
lecture there as a visiting professor. At this time, Eliot was also developing a practical interest in
drama, with a view to reaching wider audiences. The result were the great masterpieces of poetic
drama—The Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, The Confidential Clerk, The Cocktail
Party, etc. His poetry, after 1935, continued to be religious, but not so obviously Christian as that
of the earlier period. His last major poetic work is The Four Quartets.

Fame and Prosperity: Death

Eliot’s success both as a poet and in a worldly sense was remarkable. He visited the U.S.A.
several times as a visiting professor, and continued to publish articles and essays upto the very
end of his days. World recognition of his genius came with the award of The Order of Merit and
the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. On the death, in 1947, of his first wife, who had been
ailing since 1930, he married his private secretary, Miss Valerie Fletcher, in 1957. This lady was
the companion of his last days and nursed him tenderly when he fell ill in 1964. He died on 4th
January, 1965, in London, leaving a void in the literary world which may never be filled. He was
cremated and his ashes were buried in the little village of East Coker in Somerset from where his
ancestor, Andrew Eliot, had migrated to America in the 17th century.

CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY

A Powerful, Complex Personality

Eliot, a great force in modern English literature, had a complex and many-sided personality. He
was a classicist and a traditionalist, a great innovator, a critic, a social thinker, a philosopher and
mystic, all combined in one. He was born in America, toured through Europe, and accepted
British citizenship early in life. His character and personality were thus the result of
cosmopolitan influences. As T.S. Pearce points out, “He presented himself in a British manner,
with umbrella, striped trousers, and bowler hat. He rejected many of the causes which make up
the American tradition, the cause of the emigration to America, of the War of Independence,
and of the Civil War. He never returned to America except as a visitor. He developed a perfectly
standard English accent. He appeared to possess a characteristic English reticence. He liked
English cheeses. Nevertheless, none of these things really disguised the fact that he was an
American and that in attitude and tradition he fits more easily into the American context than
into the British, especially when you remember that to live and work out of America has been
characteristic of American writers at all times. He wore his new nationality, and his English
characteristics, rather as a mask, covering, though not exactly hiding, a powerful individual
largely detached from such matters as nationality.” He was also European, and that is a title
almost as unrevealing as American. The powerful individual, rejecting any label or classification,
is revealed in his poetry. It has little in common with either his English or American
contemporaries, though it is closer, if anything, to the American writers, especially to Ezra
Pound.

Physical Appearance

The most striking impression which memories of him as a person give are of his appearance.
Whatever else his friends recall, nearly everyone comments on his dress, his precise, proper,
dark jacket and striped trousers, which might almost have been a deliberate disguise.
Occasionally, there are glimpses of him in a more flamboyant costume, and a hint that there was
a touch of the dandy in him, but these are rare. He is recalled as tall, pale, thoughtful, absorbed,
speaking in measured and solemn tones even when humorous, and in such a way that you could
not really tell whether he was being humorous or not.

His Sense of Humour

There are anecdotes which reveal a remote and melancholy humour with the potent implications
of profundity which made it disarming and slightly weird. One such anecdote is recorded by
Hugh Kenner:

After The Confidential Clerk was produced, a journalist, teased by implications he couldn’t pin
down, or perhaps simply assigned a turn of duty at poet-baiting, wanted to know what it meant.
‘It means what it says’, said Mr. Eliot patiently. ‘No more?’ ‘Certainly, no more’. ‘But supposing’,
the journalist pursued, ‘supposing you had meant something else, would you not have put some
other meaning more plainly?’ ‘No’, Eliot replied, ‘I should have put it just as obscurely.’

The anecdote reveals humorous attitude towards the situation, a humorous detachment from it,
and even from himself as part of it.

Character and Personal Habits

Herbert Read writes of his character as follows: “The man, I knew, in all his reserve, was the
man he wished to be: a serious but not necessarily a solemn man, a severe man never lacking in
kindness and sympathy, a profound man (profoundly learned, profoundly poetic, profoundly
spiritual) and yet to outward appearance a correct man, a conventional man, an infinitely polite
man—in brief, a gentleman. He not only was not capable of a mean deed; I would also say that
he never had a mean thought. He could mock folly and be severe with sin, and there were people
he simply did not wish to know. But his circle of friends, though never very large, was very
diverse, and he could relax with great charm in the presence of women. He had moods of gaiety
and moods of great depression—I have known occasions when I left him feeling that my spirit
had been utterly depleted. Often he was witty (in a somewhat solemn voice); his anecdotes were
related with great deliberation. He did not hesitate to discuss policies or personalities, but he
condemned idle gossip. In personal habits, he was scrupulously correct and clean, never a
Bohemian in thought or appearance; but he had a steak of hypochondria, and was addicted to
pills and points. He had good reason for taking care of himself, for he easily took a chill and
often suffered from a distressing cough. I never saw him indulge in any sport. One weekend he
spent with me early in our friendship (it was 1927 or 1928) he came clad in a most curious pair
of checkered breeches, neither riding-breeches nor ‘puls fours’, but some hybrid which was
certainly not from Savile Row. He had a fetish of umbrellas, as is perhaps well-known. He had
them specially made with enormous handles, with the excuse that no one would take away such
an umbrella from a cloakroom by mistake. He relished good food and beer and wine, but his
speciality was cheese of which he had tasted a great many varieties.”

The Works of T.S. Eliot

His Versatility

T.S. Eliot’s period of active literary production covers over forty-five years. During this long
period, he wrote poems, plays, literary and social essays, as well as worked as a journalist and
editor. He achieved distinction and wielded considerable influence in each of the fields he
worked. His writings may, therefore, be studied under three heads. Poetry, Drama and Prose,
the later including his literary and social criticism as well as his journalism.

(A) POETRY

Eliot’s career as a poet may conveniently be divided into five phases or periods:

1. The First Phase

Eliot’s Juvenilia 1905-9. Eliot began writing quite early in life while still a school boy at Smith’s
Academy, St. Louis. The poems of this period are immature, juvenile productions, mere school
boy exercises, yet showing signs of poetic talent. The poems were published in the various
college and school magazines, as the Smith Academy Record and the Harvard Advocate.

2. The Second Phase

Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917. The collection includes poems written during the second
phase of Eliot’s poetic activity, from 1909 to 1917. The poems were written in Boston, in Europe,
and during his first year in England, and show considerable influence of Eliot’s reading of
French writers, particularly Laforgue. “They are sophisticated observations of people, of social
behaviour, and of urban landscapes.” The poetry is of urban streets, and houses and people, not
of woods and fields and flowers. Eliot is frankly satirical of Boston society, and the love-theme,
when it appears, receives an ironic treatment. The rottenness, the corruption and decadence of
contemporary society, is exposed with a rare poignancy. The most important poems of this
collection are:

1. The Love-Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

2. Portrait of a Lady

3. The Preludes

4. Rhapsody on a Windy Night

5. The “Boston Evening Transcript”

6. Mr. Apollinax.

The poet has found himself.

3. The Third Phase (1918-1925)

The most significant poems of this phase are:

1. Gerontion

2. Burbank with a Baedekar

3. Sweeney Erect

4. A Cooking Egg

5. Sweeney Among the Nightingales

6. The Waste Land, 1922

7. The Hollow Man, 1925.

The poems are strictly urban in character. They reveal a deepening of the poet’s distress at the
corruption and decay of contemporary European civilisation. The range and scope of his poetry
is now much enlarged. Uptil now he had dealt with particular people and places, but now he,
“writes a poetry which belongs to what is called major or great poetry. It may be called epic
poetry—and The Waste Land is a kind of compressed epic—for it portrays the state of the
civilisation out of which it grows.” This is done in a limited way, but still The Waste Land stands
in the epic tradition. The poems reveal a considerable maturity of the poet’s powers. The
characteristic style and technique of Eliot are now effectively used. The Waste Land, specially, is
fragmented in effect, lacking in cohesion, thus symbolising the breakdown of beliefs and values
in the cultural life of the West.

The poems are bleak in tone, and have often been regarded as entirely pessimistic. Their gloom
is the resultant of the poet’s inner gloom consequent upon over-work, ill-health, the continued
mental-illness of his wife, and the harrowing, nerve-shattering impact of the world war on a
sensitive temperament.

We are also introduced to such generic characters in Eliot’s poetry as Sweeney, Burbank, etc.,
who are not individuals but symbolic figures typifying the grossness and decay of contemporary
society. Thus Sweeney is animal and unfeeling, who in his younger days might have been a
professional pugilist, but in his old age keeps a pub.

4. The Fourth Phase (1925-1935)

This is the period of Eliot’s Christian poetry. Eliot joined the Anglican Church of England in
1927, and this change in his faith is reflected in the poems of this phase. The poet searches for a
right way, a right solution to the human dilemma, and he does so through the traditional
material and imagery of Christianity. The tone is rather optimistic, and there are indications of
the solution which the poet is likely to reach. The more characteristic poems of this Christian
period are:

1. Ash Wednesday, 1930

2. Journey of the Magi

3. Animila
4. Marina

5. Choruses from “ The Rock”

6. Coriolan

7. Anumber of minor and unfinished poems.

5. The Fifth Phase (1935-43)

This is the period of The Four Quartets, which are published as follows:

1. Burnt Norton, 1936

2. East Coker, 1940

3. The Dry Salvages, 1941

4. Little Gidding, 1942.

This is the phase, of Eliot’s religious poetry as contrasted with the previous Christian poetry. In
both the phases Eliot is a religious poet—as he ever was—but in the previous period he used
Christian imagery and tradition, while now he examines the eternal problems of men without
reference to the Christian tradition. “The poems combine the drab and grim picture of modern
society which had been prominent before with an intricate contemplation of the problems of
space and time, life and death, past and future” (T.S. Pearce). The poet has cast his looks at the
worst, and yet looks at life with faith and hope.

(B) DRAMA

Eliot did much to bring about a revival of English poetic drama, both through his practice and
critical pronouncements.
His dramatic production includes:

1. The Rock, a Pageant Play, 1914

2. Murder in the Cathedral, 1935

3. The Family Reunion, 1939

4. The Cocktail Party, 1950

5. The Confidential Clerk, 1954

6. The Elder Stateman, 1959.

As a dramatist, his range is narrower than that of his poetry. He began by writing purely
Christian drama. The Rock is a pageant written in collaboration with E.M. Browne, and Murder
in the Cathedral, one of his most significant plays, deals with the martyrdom of Thomas Becket.
The dramatist tries to bring home to his audiences the real meaning and significance of
martyrdom. The setting is medieval. The later plays also have a religious theme, but the setting
is contemporary and social By the time of The Family Reunion, Eliot felt a need to appeal to
larger and larger audiences, and hence his use of the verse-form is not esoteric or subtle, only for
the learned few. These later plays are basically upper-class drawing-room comedies in the
tradition of the Comedy of Manners, with a strong melodramatic element. They can be enjoyed
as such by the unthinking, while for the more thoughtful there is the religious content—meaning
of martyrdom to the modern world and the place in it of the saint.

Eliot’s plays suffer from a tinge of artificiality which has limited their appeal. They have been
written according to a preconceived theory, and represent a reaction against the English
dramatic tradition. Successful drama in England, with few exceptions, has never been written to
rule; it has always been romantic, while Eliot tried to write according to rules and theories. He
might have produced successful plays in the classical style, but they have always seemed
artificial to English audiences.
(C) PROSE

Literary Criticism

Eliot stands in the long line of poet-critics beginning with Ben Jonson and including such names
as Dryden, Johnson, Coleridge and Matthew Arnold. Such critics know the mysteries of their
own art and so can speak with force and conviction.

Eliot’s critical pronouncements, first published largely in the form of articles and essays, in
numerous periodicals and journals of the day, have now been collected in the following books:

1. The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, 1933

2. The Idea of a Christian Society, 1939

3. Notes Towards a Definition of Culture, 1948

4. Selected Essays, Third Edition, 1951

5. On Poetry and Poets, 1957

6. To Criticise the Critic, 1965.

Tradition and Individual Talent, Poetry and Drama, the Function of Criticism, The English
Metaphysical Poets, The Frontiers of Criticism, etc., are among his more popular essays in
literary criticism.

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. He has been largely responsible
for the revival of interest in the Metaphysical poets of the 17th century. His rare gift of
crystallising his thought in striking, trenchant phrases, has gained for him, wide popularity and
appeal. Phrases like, Dissociation of sensibility, Objective correlative, Unified sensibility, have
gained wide currency.
Journalism

Eliot worked as editor of The Criterion from 1922-1939. This literary magazine stood for the
integrity of European culture. It had received contributions from all over Europe on a vide
variety of subjects, and its contents reflect the Catholicity of Eliot’s interests. Eliot himself closed
down the magazine when, with the outbreak of war, it became clear that the breakdown of
communication with Europe was inevitable.

The Literary and Social Background to T.S. Eliot

Eliot once said that, “a great poet in writing of himself writes his age”, and to none is this remark
more applicable than to Eliot himself. His Waste Land has been called the epic of the modern
age, presenting as it does a panorama of the futility and anarchy that is contemporary
civilisation. Eliot’s poetry cannot be understood without an understanding of his age. In this
chapter, we shall first consider the social milieu in which Eliot matured and created, and then
the main literary trends which influenced him and determined the tone of his poetry.

(A) THE SOCIAL BACKGROUND

Urbanisation and Its Evils

The year 1890 may be regarded as a landmark in the literary and social history of England. It
ushered in an era of rapid social change, and this change is to be noticed in every sphere of life.
By the last decade of the 19th century, there was a complete breakdown of the agrarian way of
life and economy. It meant the end of rural England, and the increasing urbanisation of the
country. Industrialisation and urbanisation brought in their wake their own problems. There
have risen problems like the problem of overcrowding, housing shortage, a significant increase
in vice and crime, fall in the standards of sexual morality, and a rapidly increasing ugliness. The
atmosphere has increasingly grown more and more smoky and noisy, and city slums raise their
ugly heads on all sides. There has been a loosening in sex taboos and an increase in sexual
promiscuity for public opinion does not operate as a check in a crowded city. Early 20th century
poetry vividly reflects all their evil effects of industrialization. Ennui and boredom of city life and
its agonising loneliness are all brought out by poems like the Waste Land. However, the change
has been beneficial in one respect at least: it has brought about a more healthy pattern in social
relations. The Victorian ethics of competition and money-relationship has given place to a new
concept of social responsibility and social morality. The new age has seen the emergence of the
concept of the welfare state: the society or the state is now held responsible for education, health
and well-being of the individual. “Divorce today carries no moral stigma comparable to that of
exploiting the poor, or of ill-treating a child.” The sphere of social morality, in terms of public
good, has expanded at the expense of private morality.
The Spirit of Questioning

The century ushered in an era of moral perplexity and uncertainty. The rise of the scientific
spirit and rationalism led to a questioning of accepted social beliefs, conventions and traditions.
In matters of religion, it gave rise to scepticism and agnosticism. No doubt there was much
questioning, much criticism of traditional beliefs in the Victorian era also, but the Victorian
writer was not critical of the very fundamentals, of the very basis of his social and moral order.
On the whole, his attitude was one of acceptance. Dickens and Thackeray are both critical
writers, but they criticise only a few evils inherent in their social system. Basically, they accept
their way of life, and are proud of it. By the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 20th
century, we find writers, like Shaw, Wells and Galsworthy, criticising the very basis of the
existing social, economic and normal system. As R.A. Scott-James puts it, “the 20th century has,
for its characteristic, to put everything, in every sphere of life, to the question and secondly, in
the light of this scepticism, to reform, reconstruct,—to accept the new age as new, and attempt to
mould it by conscious, purposeful effort.” The wholesale criticism of the existing order from
different angles and points of view, often opposite and contradictory, has increased the
perplexity of the common man. Baffled and at bay, he does not know what to accept and what to
reject.

Interest in the Sub-conscious

This atmosphere of perplexity, confusion and anxiety has been further accentuated by the long
strides forward that the study of psychology has taken since the times of Freud. Freud
emphasised the power of the unconscious to affect conduct. Intellectual convictions, he pointed
out, were rationalisations of emotional need. Human beings are not so rational as they are
supposed to be: their conduct is not guided and controlled by the conscious, rather it is at the
mercy of the forces lying buried deep within the unconscious. His followers, like Jung and
Bergsen, have carried Freud’s formulations to their logical conclusion. In this way, a new
dimension has been added to the assessment of human behaviour and more and more emphasis
is being laid on the study of the unconscious. The abnormal is no longer regarded as a sign of
degeneracy; it is now recognised that even the normal are abnormal and neurotic to some
extent. This has had a profound influence on 20th century moral attitudes, specially in matters
of sex. Thus Freud and his followers have shown conclusively that repressed sex instincts are at
the root of much neurosis and other signs of abnormality. His theory of “the Oedipus Complex”
has caused a sensation and it is being freely exploited by 20th century writers. The study of the
subconscious, even the unconscious, is a major theme of modern literature. Intellect is no longer
regarded as the means of true and real understanding, and emphasis is placed on feeling and
intuition. Rationalism, and along with it Humanism, is at a discount. T.S. Eliot, for example,
rejects rationalism and pins his faith on the superhuman as contrasted with the purely human.
Changing Pattern of Human Relationships

As a result of the teaching of modem psychology, man is no longer considered as self-

responsible or rational in his behaviour. The theory of the Oedipus Complex, mentioned above,
has had a profound impact on private and family relationships. Jealousies are recognised where
no such imputations would have been made previously. Hamlet has been interpreted by Eliot in
terms of the “Oedipus Complex”, it is the theme of one of D.H. Lawrence’s major novels, and
mothers are supposed to be jealous of their daughters-in-law. Sexual renunciation has ceased to
be a theme of literature, interest in sex-perversion has grown, and there is a free and frank
discussion of sex. Victorian taboos on sex are no longer operative. There is a break up of the old
authoritarian pattern in family relationships, the assessment of the relative roles of the sexes has
changed, woman has come to her own, and the notion of male superiority has suffered a serious
blow. “The war of the generations”, of the old and the young, has resulted in a re-orientation of
parent-child relationship. The greater mobility resulting from the automobile and the railway
train has also weakened the authority of the old over the young and increased the rootlessness of
man. This rootlessness has brought in its wake its own problems and frustrations. Eliot’s Waste
Land reveals a harrowing consciousness of this phenomenon of 20th century city life.

Revolt Against Authority: Note of Anxiety

The First World War further strained the authoritarian pattern of family relationships and
increased tensions and frustrations. The re-action of the post-war world has been to suspect all
manifestation of authority. It may be called an era of revolt against authority. Political and
religious scepticism, general disillusionment, cynicism, irony, etc., have become the order of the
day. The dictum “Power Corrupts” is a symbol of the revolt of the post-war generation. The
temper of the age is ‘anti-heroic’, and ‘action’ and ‘success’ in a worldly sense have become
questionable values. Interest has shifted from the “extrovert” to the “introvert”. ‘Neurosis’ and
spiritual gloom are widespread. Economic depression, unemployment, overpopulation, acute
shortage, etc., have increased the hardship of life, and caused stress and strains and nervous
breakdowns. The hero in the inter-war novel is a person, to whom things happen: he is an ‘anti-
hero’, a neurotic, a “cripple” emotionally, if not physically. There is an atmosphere of moral
unease and uncertainty, a collapse of faith in the accepted patterns of social relationships and a
search for new patterns.

Collapse of Old Values and Ideals

Though there has been an occasional revival of Christianity even in the orthodox forms, as in the
works of T.S. Eliot and Graham Greene, the 20th century under the impact of science and
rationalism has witnessed a gradual weakening of religious faith. Religious controversies no
longer exercise any significant influence on public issues. Moral and ethical values are no longer
regarded as absolute. Philosophy and metaphysics, instead of concerning themselves with the
nature of God, show a keen interest in the study of the nature of man. To Freud man is a
biological phenomenon, a creature of instincts and impulses, to the Marxist he is an outcome of
economic and social forces. The pessimism and despair of the age is seen in the picture of man,
“as but the outcome of chance collocation of atoms”. Gone are the days of the Victorian
optimism when man was regarded as essentially rational, acting in his best interest, which, his
reason was supposed to teach him, was identical with social good. The same perplexity and
uncertainly is to be seen in the field of political theory. Socialism and internationalism have
replaced the old Victorian notion of the supremacy of the whites. The entire gamut of imperial
relations has undergone a revolutionary change. Nationalism is no longer regarded as enough,
and imperialism has come in for a great deal of criticism. The relations between the nations of
the world must be based on equality and mutual respect and not on the old basis of political
subjection and imperial supremacy. The empire instead of remaining a matter of pride, as in the
days of Kipling and Tennyson, is looked down upon with a sense of guilt. Thus E.M. Forster in
his Passage to India advocates relationships between nations, as well as between individuals,
based on equality and the feeling heart. Eliot advocates that England’s literary insolation should
end and he views English literature as a part of European literary tradition extending from
Homer onwards. Cosmopolitanism is the order of the day, and emphasis is laid on the study of
comparative literature, comparative mythology, religion, etc. Nationalism is thus in conflict with
internationalism, and efforts to reconcile the two have so far met with little success.

Search for New Patterns

The disintegration of faith and traditional beliefs had led writers, like D.H. Lawrence to seek
refuge from uncertainty and perplexity, in some, “mystic religion of blood”, and W.B. Yeats to
build up a personal ‘System’ out of a strange fusion of magic and occultism. T.S. Eliot searches
for this pattern in the close similarity between myths of different peoples, and the European
literary tradition. Authoritarian systems have found favour on the continent, and Marxism with
its emphasis on class war has had a large following even in England. Marxism has provided
many with the vision of a New Society which will replace the present one in the not too distant
future. As Arthur Koestler emphasises, every period has its own dominant religion and hope,
and Marxist Socialism has become the hope of the early 20th century. Marxism has had a
profound impact on social organisation. The aristocracy, already degenerate and corrupt by the
end of the 19th century, has lost practically all power and prestige with the turn of the 20th
century. There has been an immense increase in social mobility, the profit-motive is
condemned, and prestige goes with merit and education, and not with birth. Attention has been
focused on social and economic problems, and planned development is favoured so that there
may be no extreme poverty side by side with great wealth. Thus the search for a ‘system’ or
‘pattern’ has resulted in the emergence of Marxism and the concept of economic planning.

Multiplication of Books: Decline in Quality

The modern age has witnessed a phenomenal rise in literacy. Cheap books, magazines, papers,
etc., have been pouring out in their tens of thousands with the result that the spread of
education has been almost universal. However, there has been a visible decline in quality. The
old culture of the people expressed in folk-song, dance, rustic craft, etc., has been destroyed. The
cinema, the radio, the popular literature, full of crime or love stories, have exploited the people
for commercial purposes. There has been an increase th vulgarity, brutality and coarseness.
Human relationships have been coarsened and cheapened: man has become incapable of finer
and subtle emotional responses. Further, the cinema, the television, and the cheap novel, have
fostered a kind of day-dreaming and a proportionately weakened grasp of reality. “Many people
live fantasy existences derived from the shadow lives of the screen.” This lowering of tastes has
had an adverse effect on art and literature. Bad art and cheap literature, ‘pot boilers’ have
become the bane of the new age. The exploitation of the youth for commercial (as well as
political) purposes has tended to assign to them a spurious importance, and hence the
antagonism of the old and the young has been accentuated. It has become a century of the revolt
of youth. Vigorous experiments are being made in the field of music and other fine arts, and
literature, but this is a symptom of the break-down of cultural continuity rather than of cultural
vigour.

Modern Literature: Its Representative Character

Generally speaking, the modern writer is intensely conscious of his social milieu and does not
fail to reflect it in his works. To what extent the new age is reflected in the

literature of the period would be examined in the following section.

(B) THE LITERARY BACKGROUND: TRENDS IN

MODERN LITERARY CRITICISM

Modern Criticism: Its Novelty and Variety

Twentieth century literary criticism in England offers a bewildering variety of critical theory and
practice. New discoveries in psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics, etc., have brought
about a revolution in critical methods with the result that modern criticism is quite different
from criticism in the 19th century. Critics like I.A. Richards, T.S. Eliot, F.R. Leavis, William
Empson, have provided entirely new interpretations of old writers, and presented them in an
entirely new light. The full significance of their achievement is yet to be realised.

Traditional Criticism: Arnold and Pater

However, at the turn of the century there were two traditions—the Matthew Arnold tradition of
intellectual, abstract or scientific criticism, and the Aesthetic, Impressionistic tradition of Walter
Pater—that held the day. While Arnold made ‘high seriousness’ and ‘criticism of life’ the tests of
poetry, Pater’s criticism was aesthetic or impressionistic: while Arnold made art subservient to
life. Pater advocated the theory of ‘art for art’s sake’. Arnold’s influence was an all-pervasive and
continuing one. That is why Eliot once remarked that we seem still to be living in the critical
tradition of Arnold. Pater, on the other hand, has been a source of inspiration for the
Bloomsbury group of critics, as EM. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and Clive Bell.
According to these critics, the enjoyment of art and the appreciation of beauty is the greatest
good of human life, and art, therefore, must be freed from the shackles of morality. Their
criticism is impressionistic, they assess a work of literature on the basis of the pleasure that it
affords them.

Academic Criticism: Lack of Originality

These two traditions continued into the 20th century, and were a constant source of inspiration.
But in the opening years of the century, we do not find any original critic, with a definite and
individual point of view. Literary criticism is largely academic, the work of distinguished
university professors. They are eminent scholars, they painstakingly collect facts, biographical,
historical and social, and evaluate a writer on the basis of these facts, but they lack a precise
point of view. Chief among these scholar-critics are George Saintsbury, Edward Dowden, A.C.
Bradley, Oliver Elton, W.B. Ker, W.J. Courthope, etc. There is another group of scholars who
devote their attention to textual emendation. Distinguished scholars, like Furness, Dover
Wilson, Gregg, Pollard, try to reach an authentic version of old texts.

T.E. Hulme: His Influence

The only original critic—one who has had considerable influence on T.S. Eliot, as also on the
whole course of criticism in the century—is T.E. Hulme. His point of view is religious, classical
and tragic. With the existentialists, he believes that tragedy is the central fact of human life. That
is, and has always been, the human predicament. Man has always suffered, and this suffering
arises from his own imperfections. Man is imperfect and finite, while God is perfect and infinite.
Two conclusions follow from man’s imperfection and finitude: since man is imperfect,
inspiration alone is not a safe guide, and since he is finite, he can never achieve the perfection
and the finitude which belongs to non-human or the supernal. In this way, he at once rejects
both the romantic concept of poetry as inspiration and the Victorian and Darwinian faith in
unlimited progress. Thus his point of view is anti-romantic and anti-humanistic. He advocates
the need of order and discipline, and thus becomes a champion of ‘classical revival’ in literature,
which Eliot also advocates. Eliot strengthened the reaction against romanticism and humanism
and did much to bring about the classical revival. Further, Hulme pointed out that poetry should
express the vague, fleeting impressions passing through the mind of the poet, and this can only
be done when the verse-form is made loose and flexible. He thus became a powerful advocate of
verse clibre or ‘free verse’. He also advocated that the poet should express his concepts through
the use of solid, concrete and clear images, and in this way, he became a source of inspiration to
Ezra Pound and other poets of the Imagist Schools.
Foreign Influences: Marx

After World War I, English insularity was broken and ideas and influences from Europe began
to flow in and affect the course of literary criticism in England. First, there was the influence of
Marx and his concept of class struggle. Writers were analysed and interpreted in terms of class-
conflict. For example, David Daiches in his book Society and Literature shows how economic
trends are reflected in literature; Cristopher Caudwell studies, Shakespeare, Milton,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and the other romantics, against the background of social and economic
changes. Aestheticism of Pater is thus rejected and literature is viewed as a social activity
reflecting the changing social and economic patterns.

Croce: Expressionism: Surrealism

Secondly, there was the potent influence of the Indian critic Benedetto Croce. According to his
theory, vivid pictures are constantly rising in the mind of the poet, and he must express them
spontaneously and fully as they arise in his mind, without any attempt at organisation. This is
known as Expressionism. Expressionistic writing is bound to be broken and fragmentary in
keeping with the fragmentary and chaotic nature of the vague sensations fleeting through the
consciousness of the poet. The teaching of Croce had a far-reaching impact on creative and
literary activity in England. Closely allied with Expressionism is the French theory of
Surrealism. Surrealism attributes artistic creation to dreams and the influence of spirits who
inspire the artist with his forms and images. Herbert Read in one of those critics whose works
reveal the influence of this creed.

The Psychologists: Their Influence

These influences were joined in and strengthened by the teachings of modern psychology,
specially those of Freud, Jung and Bergson. Freud believed that suppression of the sex-instinct
results in frustration and neurosis, and art is but a sublimated expression of this neurosis.
Psychological theories were used for an analysis and interpretation of past writers and their
works. Thus Hamlet has been interpreted in the light of Freud’s theory of the Oedipus Complex.
The motives and processes that lead to a particular work of art were studied and thus new
dimensions were added to literary criticism. Similarly, the impact of literature on the mind of
the readers is sought to be explained in Psychological terms. I. A. Richards is the most
outstanding of the critics of the psychological school. According to him, the pleasure of literature
arises from the fact that it brings about a healthy equilibrium between the instincts and
impulses of the readers.
The New Critics

As the century advanced, specially after the World War II, the most potent single influence was
that of the New Critics The term was first used by J.E. Spingarn, and though the New Criticism
had its origin in the writings of T.E. Hulme, it is now mainly an American movement. Its chief
exponents in America are Kenneth Burke, John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Richard Blackmur,
Cleanth Brooks, etc. In England its leading representatives are I.A. Richards, T.S. Eliot, F.R.
Leavis, William Empson, etc.

Their Methods

The New Critics are opposed to the biographical, historical, sociological and comparative
approach of conventional criticism. All such considerations are regarded as extrinsic and
irrelevant, and a work of art is judged solely on its own merits. A poem, a piece of literature, is
the thing in itself, with a definite entity of its own, separate both from the poet and the socio-
cultural milieu in which it is produced. The emphasis is laid on the study of the text, and its
word by word analysis and interpretation. The music of a poem, its imagery and versification, its
total structure, must be taken into account to arrive at its meaning. Words must be studied with
reference to their sound, and their emotional and symbolic significance. New criticism is
predominantly textual, and the new critics have rendered valuable service to literature by their
study and interpretation of literary classics. While Eliot has his affinity with the critics of the
New School, he is against too close a scrutiny of a work of art. The poem is the thing, and it must
be studied in itself, but he is against the “lemon-squeezer”, critics who press words too closely.

Conclusion

To conclude: English literary criticism in the 20th century is a mixed medley of the old and new:
much that is traditional persists along with what is new and experimental. Thus historical
criticism survives in the works of scholars and professors like David Cecil, CM. Bowra, I for
Evans, etc., and the moral concern of Arnold is to be seen in the critical creeds of D. H.
Lawrence and Middleton Murry. While it is too early to assess the worth and significance of the
New Critics, who today hold the field, there can be no denying that they have raised the
standards of literary discussion, and opened out promising vistas. T.S. Eliot takes his position in
the van of these critics.
Criticism at the Turn of the Century
T.S. Eliot’s emergence as a major original and revolutionary critical voice occurred at a time
when English literary scene was marked by conflicting assumptions and confusion of ideas that
were voiced from different directions. Towards the last leg of the nineteenth century there was
visible rise in new schools of thought consequent upon ground-breaking findings and
discoveries in science, history, philosophy and social sciences that posed serious challenges to
the established beliefs and assumptions, questioning and interrogating their basic foundations.
This is reflected in the uncertainties, skepticism and feelings of anxiety which we find in the
literary works of the period. It was a period of turmoil in ideas.

This was also an age of remarkable material progress with publishing industry registering
extraordinary advancement and expansion. Major events of socio-political significance were
taking place that also shook English society to its foundations. The age produced writers of great
stature, like Thackeray, Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Trollop, Tennyson, Browning, Arnold,
Swinburne and others; there was also a large number of lesser writers who were read widely for
entertainment and they became as much popular as the first-rate writers. The variety and
multifarious composition of the age is clearly reflected in the writings. In serious philosophical-
theoretical domains works of great thinkers illuminated the areas of controversy and sought to
discover truth, as we find in Thomas Carlyle, Edmund Burke, Cardinal Newman, Matthew
Arnold, John Ruskin, Harriet Monteau, John Stuart Mill, Adam Smith, etc.

As the century reached its closing years there arose literary figures who committed themselves
to serious theoretical questions, and endeavoured to formulate critical principles. Intellectual
world was undergoing momentous changes in the wake of radical ideas presented by Marx,
Freud, Jung, Darwin and other thinkers. The world was standing on the threshold of a bright
dawn unlike anything it had witnessed ever before. There were those who were filled with awe
and fright which made them cling to the old in an attempt to assert that the ground they were
standing on was yet solid and stable; and there were those who did not believe so. They felt that
the old institutions had far outlived their validity and bold adventurous spirit was needed to
revitalize the jeopardized systems of human society. It needed a painful intellectual overhauling
to show to all how out of date the contemporary literary writings had become and impress upon
them the urgency to evolve a new mode of thinking, feeling and expression.

Thus one can say that in many respects literary tendencies of the Victorian period were carried
forward in the twentieth century. The conflicting thought currents and conventions, the
mutually contrary habits and beliefs and the restive intellectual air that awaited the coming of a
new era of order and system, continued to agitate the early years of the new era too. People’s
attitudes were changing, so were their life-view and modes of enquiry into the complex realities
emerging. Standing on the threshold of the twentieth century English literature was poised for
revolutionary changes.

The new century opens with a deep sense of skepticism and uncertainty, two dominant moods
that we never became free from. As A.C. Ward observers:

“The old certainties were certainties no longer Everything was held to be open to question,
everything from the nature of the Deity to the Construction of verse forms”.

Not only were the old Victorian poets yawned over and the novelists mocked for various reasons,
but the very position of authority which many of the past intellectuals occupied were challenged,
it was a belligerent mood with which the new age dawns. J.B. Priestley draws a fine picture of
the scene in Literature and the Western Man when he takes up M. Georges Sorel’s writings to
find out what bewilders man on the threshold of the century, “first, a contemptuous rejection of
all the accepted values, creeds, institutions of the age. Secondly, raging behind all his arguments
and pronouncements, a lust to destroy, to bring the whole age to a violent end. Thirdly, after the
state and all traditional culture had vanished in smoke and dust, the desire to create……an era of
vast productiveness, of triumphant technicians and busy workers, untroubled and no longer
deceived by any idea, religious, philosophical, cultural, social that had clouded men’s mind with
past,” and then he goes on to say, “What was behind all this, throughout Europe if not in
America…..and soon, as our century advanced it was to be commoner still. Men felt themselves
to be living without purpose, in a society without meaning. What might be accepted consciously
was violently rejected unconsciously, in the depths no longer controlled by any symbols of a
larger significance containing life, a life in which the individual felt himself to be unique, a
complete and responsible person.”

While the older age acknowledged the word of the Expert, the Voice of Authority and the
majority of the people were content to follow the pronouncements of these voices, this kind of
willing submission to oracular voices was frowned upon by the post-Victorians.

The second important feature of the earlier period which was severely corroded in the following
one was the “impassioned belief in permanence of nineteenth century institutions”. They liked
to believe that their house was built on unshakable foundations and the illusion of its continuing
perpetually was a comfortable one. “Whatever they did was done as in the light of eternity”, as
one scholar said.

The twentieth century writers rebelled against both the single voice of authority and the idea of
fixity. “The change of outlook that came with the twentieth century was due to the growth of
restless desire to probe and question.” The whole gamut of old established idea, concepts and
assumptions was put under scrutiny.
The Edwardian and Georgian periods “have been years of social progress as well as of imperial
decline.” The scene was filled by strides being taken in the field of education, eliminating the
miserable condition of women, more equitable distribution of wealth and technological progress
affecting work, mobility and domestic comfort (Harry Blamires 4). Intellectuals were engaged in
spreading the ideals of socialism through Fabian Society (by G.B. Shaw) founded in 1884 which
vowed not to use violent methods for achieving their ends. The government was also open to
suggestions and many legislative acts such as Education Act of 1902, Old Age Pension Act of
1908 and Llyod Georges Insurance Act in 1911 sought to improve the conditions of life.

Nevertheless, parallel to these progressive measures then also were visible signs of social nerves,
dissatisfaction and unrest. World War I left many permanent sears on the face of modern life. It
was the first war fought on a world-wide scale and left the mankind badly shaken, young men
dying in trenches, many of whom were young writers like Isaac Rosenberg, Sigfried Sassoon,
Christopher Caudwell, added an element of anxiety and anger in public life. To quote A.C. Ward
once again, “The individual soldier found himself living in a rather worse world than he had
lived in June 1914; he naturally felt, therefore, that he had been ‘sold’, and that whatever
sacrifice he and the others had made was useless. There is no reason for wonder if, in his
disgust, he brooded upon the missing of his own narrow but intense existence.” The social
distress and privation mark the popular books of the years following the Great War. Erich Von
Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Richard Aldington’s Death of A Hero, R.C. Sherrif s
play Journey’s End, Edmund Blunden’s Undertones of War, Walter Greenwood’s Love on the
Dole, etc.

The mood is aptly suggested in these lines of Thomas Hardy,

We have lost somewhat, afar and near, Gentlemen,

The thinning of our ranks each year

Affords a hint we are nigh undone,

That we shall not be ever again

The marked of many, love of one, Gentlemen.

Intellectual’s mind was probing deeper and deeper into different aspects of individual and social
life and making disconcerting revelation. There was hardly a philosopher in the new century
who, matching in any way those of the previous one, could be called the guiding figure for all;
and yet the investigations went on, zealously grappling with all manner of problems! As J.B.
Priestley says “Just when men needed a contemporary world view, apparently there was not one
to be had. And what was to be had, so far as it could be understood, was not what most men felt,
they needed.”

A consequence of the general acceptance of the tradition of interrogation was the rise of anti-
rationalism, especially in America. The celebrated psychologists William James, C.S. Peirce,
John Dewey and several of their contemporaries and followers shared the active man’s
suspicions and distaste for ‘a block universe’, the creation once and for all of an immovable,
unwinking Absolute (Priestley: 307). His pragmatism propagated the validity of any idea which
works and helps men to live wisely and happily.

George Santayana’s five-volume Life of Reason may be considered as reply to the irrational
movements. The Spanish philosopher and novelist Miguel de Unamuno’s Del Sentimiento
tragico de la vida (The Tragic Sense of Life) treats man realistically as individual capable of
analytical, intellectual and critical reason, and not a being wishing for immortality and fighting
death all his life. Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West proclaimed that our civilization was
doomed, leaving an “uneasy feeling that the whole civilization of the west was more than merely
insecure”. Though he was widely condemned, his infectious pessimism spread quickly and was
contracted by other scholars.

Literary Criticism of the Period

Emerging from the shadow of the late Victorian critical schools, the early twentieth century
criticism gives a picture of groupings in different directions in the works of such critics and
essayists as Helaire Belloc, O.K. Chesterton, Arthur, Symons, Sir Walter Raleigh, George
Saintsbury, Henry James, Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group and others. The early years
of the century witnessed a phenomenal increase in book and periodical publication containing
critical essays and articles, but most of it was wayward and rambling.

Arthur Symons (1865-1945) has contributed considerably through his critical writing in
popularizing the poetry of Blake and D.G. Rossetti. He made detailed study of Romantic poets in
his 1910 publication The Romantic Movement in English Poetry. His other works are Baudelaire
(1920), Hardy (1927) and Walter Pater (1932). But perhaps his most significant work was
Symbolist Movement in Literature (1899) which opened before the English people the
fascinating world of the French Symbolists. Typically, Symons belongs to the Edwardian
tradition in being unnecessarily impressionistic, diffuse and unsystematic. His writings read like
poetry, a reason why Eliot considered him an imperfect critic.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1861-1922). A traditionalist to his finger tips, Raleigh was essentially a critic
in the Victorian mould. He does not put forward any theory, nor does he project a particular
type of criticism. Rather his strengths are clarity and lucidity with which he writes his
observation about Milton, Wordsworth and Shakespeare. His major books are English Novel
(1898), Milton (1900), Wordsworth (1903), Shakespeare (1907), and Six Essays on Johnson
(1910).

George Saintsbury (1845-1933). He left his mark as a profound scholar and a man of immense
learning leaving to us such immortal works as Elizabethan Literature (1887), History of English
Prose (1906-10), History of English Criticism (1911), History of European Criticism (1912), The
Peace of Augustans (1919), History of English Prose Rhythm and English Novel. In an age when
systematic and scientific criticism had not yet begun, Saintsbury’s critical writings exude a high
level of erudition and informativeness. It was David Daiches who compared him with T.S. Eliot
in observing strict and austere standards of interpretation. He used to lodge immense
confidence in his readers, a thing which Eliot never did. However, Saintsbury is still read for his
high critical standards and immeasurably profound scholarship. His authoritative voice often
reminds one of Arnold. In recent years some critics have tried to place him alongside Pater and
his Aestheticism rather than Arnold.

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1861-1944). A Professor of English literature at Cambridge in 1912, Sir
Quiller-Couch influenced a whole generation of reader’s taste by such of his notable works as
Studies in Literature (1918, 1922, 1929), Shakespeare’s Workmanship (1918) and On the Art of
Reading (1920).

A.C. Bradley (1851—1934) is known for his Shakespearean scholarship. It is his book
Shakespearean Tragedy (1904) that is still most widely read than any other book. He presented a
critical survey of the main tragedies of Shakespeare which appears to have evoked strong
reaction from several sources, including Professor L.C. Knights. His other famous work is
Oxford Lectures on Poetry (1909) that gives useful information on many poets.

This was the scene just before the emergence of T.S. Eliot, a very unorganized kind of scene,
when no dominant critical ideals or central theory held the critics together and presented a firm
system of norms whereby to function. It was the coming of Eliot on the scene that changed
everything, gave criticism a definite theoretical strength and direction and created both staunch
followers and dour opponents.

Henry James (1843-1916)

A significant name in modern literary criticism is Henry James whose position as a frontline
novelist of modern era remains unchallenged. He is the first critic to bring novel and fiction
under serious discussion and theorising. As one scholar says, “Upto this point there had been no
theorising about the novel as a genre to match the theorising that had accompanied the growth
of tragedy and epic.” Henry James in articles appearing in The Times Literary Supplement in
1914 resented the lack of professionalism with which the novel had been till then regarded.

In his famous essay “The Art of Fiction” written in 1884 he drew attention to the formlessness of
some of the notable works of Tolstoy (War and Peace) and Arnold Bennett (Old Wives Tale). He
discovers in their intense preoccupation with the content, a ‘Saturation in the actual’ to the
extent there is a crippling severance between matter and method. James evolved a theory of the
need for selectivity by the novelist which saves the novelist from falling into life’s ‘inclusion and
confusion’. “Life in a fluid, disorderly, aggregative experience in which relations never stop, and
it is the novelist’s duty, by discrimination and selection to create the illusion of wholeness or
roundedness. In this connection his prefaces for a certain edition of his novels between 1907 and
1909 turned out to be remarkable essays. They open to the readers the secret workings of the
mind of the novelist at work. So his prefaces to The Ambassadors, The Portrait of A Lady, The
Golden Bowl show us his brilliant formulation of his subtle theories of the fictional material
being nothing but a flow of impressions that form his consciousness of experience, and the
author’s detachment from his work being as much of importance as his involvement in it. “In the
preface to The Golden Bowl he speaks of his efforts to shake off the muffled majesty of
authorship, to get down into the arena and do his best to live and breathe and rub shoulders and
converse with his characters. The restraining hand performs its function by the manner in which
the whole thing remains subject to the register, ever so closely kept, of the consciousness of but
two of the characters.”

He particularly resented the so-called ‘realistic’ fiction’s proclivity for the solid, palpable
material with which it invests itself—ignoring the elements of technique and form. The great
debate between Henry James and H.G. Wells over what should receive the central critical
attention as the primary element, has now become common knowledge. While James deplored
his deep involvement with the external realities, Wells called James’s mind as totally devoid of
penetration. ‘He is the culmination of the Superficial’.

Over the years Henry James’s critical theories of fiction have come to be recognized as of
paramount importance. He inaugurated an era that took novel seriously, and paved the way for
later critics to propound advanced opinions on the topic. With time his place has only been
made more secure and firm, and to-day is beyond challenge or question.

The Modernist Movement

In the early part of the 20th century a great spurt of literary activities indicated the urge to
create something new and bold by rejecting the old and conventional. It challenged the
traditional techniques and subject-matter, and sought other areas of experience and techniques
producing new and innovative body of works. The new sense of experimentation came be
represented by the novels like Ulysses and The Lighthouse based on the Stream of consciousness
technique. “In poetry T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound showed the way by employing free verse,
deliberately appearing fragmentary and disjointed.” It was not in a strict sense a ‘movement’,
but refers to a general feeling to shun the worn-out paraphernalia of literary exercises and create
something new that would appropriately articulate the new experiences and responses.

A new generation of critics appeared on the scene to interpret the new writings such as Arthur
Symons whose The Symbolist Movement (1899) influenced W.B. Yeats and inspired him to
write ‘The Symbolism of Poetry’ (1900). These are the first critical attempts to interpret reality
in different light, calling for ‘a casting out of descriptions of nature for the sake of nature, of the
moral law for the sake of the moral law…..” Poetry was moving towards the condition of pure
art: “It is symbolism that makes poetry moving by the way emotions and ideas are embodied,
and the consequent evocations have a restorative effect on the human heart.

Yeats was indebted to Symons for his ideas on poetic creativity. In his essay ‘Ireland and the
Arts’ he discovers a parallel between the vocation to religion and the vocation to art. “There is
only one perfection and only one search for perfection, and it sometimes has the form of the
religious life, and sometimes of artistic life.” Art was taking on the sanctified look of religion.
Around this time the one single work that emerged as a major influence was T.E. Hulme’s
(1883-1917) Speculations which contained his scattered lectures and writings gathered by
Herbert Read. ‘Romanticism and Classicism’ pleaded for the revival of classicism, because
Romanticism is a ‘disease’, which denies progress and dynamism. At a time when critics like
Arthur Symons were busy elevating poetry to the role of religion Hulme’s support for the
classical tenets and adherence to traditional models and organization further strengthened the
emerging intellectual strength of critical theorizing. He set the trend which was extended by T.S.
Eliot later on and which disparaged in clear terms the Romantic poets and their reliance on non-
rational modes of apprehending realities. He decries “Sloppiness which does not consider that a
poem is a poem unless it is moaning or whining about something or other.” As one scholar said,
“Romanticism is a kind of drug; it produces ‘damp’ poetry, whereas the properly classical poem
is ‘all dry and hard’. It accepts accuracy of description; it does not drug the infinite in but
recognizes that ‘man is always man and never god.’ Romantic thinkers have, like Coleridge, tried
to deduce critical opinions from fixed metaphysical principles.”

Talking about the language used in prose and poetry, Hulme insists on the precise nature of
poetic language, imagining prose as a cracked pot through which meanings leak out and poetry
as an ever-renewing bowl of metaphors. Poetic or metaphorical language in his opinion is far
more accurate that prose language: “Indeed, plain speech is inaccurate; it is only new metaphors
that can make it precise.” Hulme’s concerns indicated the future concern of critics to perfect the
poetic form and technique, even for non-poetic writings, poetic ideals were considered suitable.

If T.E. Hulme launched a merciless assault on the romantic poetry, Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
brought the Victorian poetry under merciless scrutiny for being ‘blurry’, ‘messy’,
‘sentimentalistic’ and ‘mannerish’. Pound brought a new angle to the quest of modern poets and
thinkers for objectivity and treated poetic exercises closer to mathematical methods. He wrote
his opinions in The Poetry Review in 1913. In 1918 appeared A Retrospect with his further
elaboration of what he had earlier written.
“Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics which gives us equations, not for abstract figures,
triangles and spheres, and the like, but equations for the human emotions” (The Spirit of
Romance, 1910).

His collaboration with Richard Aldington (1892-1962) and Hilda Doolittle or ‘H.D.’ (1886-1961)
produced the famous ‘Imagist Movement’ which generally celebrated precision and directness in
expression. Two of its proclaimed tenets became the central guiding principles.

1. Direct treatment of the ‘thing’ whether subjective or objective.

2. To use absolutely no word that does not contribute to the presentation.

Pound emphasized discipline and precision in a way that frowned upon the prolixity, verbosity
and flaccidity of the earlier generation of poets. He felt that the craft and technique need to be
mastered by the younger poets. Poetry writing is a matter of life-time’s dedication. ‘Image’ for
Pound was “an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time” which gives us a “sense
of sudden liberation”. Ezra Pound’s poetic and critical work had tremendous effect on changing
the contemporary opinion, for there emerged a strong line of younger poets who followed him
and considered him their idol.

Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) is now regarded as an undeservedly neglected writer, both as a
novelist and critic. He was instrumental in launching D.H. Lawrence and Wyndham Lewis, and
his English Review launched in 1908 became a forum for discussing new critical ideas. He was a
prolific writer and produced massive novels like Parade’s End, considered to be next only to
Ulysses. He wrote regularly on various topics most of which appeared in his own and other
journals of the period. The Critical Attitude appeared in 1911, Henry James A Critical Study in
1913, Joseph Conrad: A Personal Remembrance in 1924 followed in 1938 by the memorable The
March of Literature from Confucius to Modern Times. Graham Greene discovered tremendous
vitality and energy in Ford, “It is the vitality and vividness of Ford’s critical writing that is
irresistible.” He met may writers personally like Arnold Bennett and Joseph Conrad. With
Conrad he wrote the novels The Inheritors (1901) and Romance (1903). They were deeply
influenced by Maupassant and Flaubert for their innovative use of technique and after Conrad’s
death urged the younger writers to forge a new fictional technique that would make the novel
have the kind of effect on the readers that life has “And life does not report to you in organized
narration.” In his opinion “the object of the novelist is to keep the reader entirely oblivious of the
fact that the author exists—even of the fact that he is reading a book.” He wanted to bring
literature closer to life so that it “lets you into the secrets of the characters of the men with whom
it deals.” He invented the device of slipping into the narrative innocuous-looking
“Conversational throwaways”—the casual observations that may ring the bell in the mind of an
attentive reader. His ‘time-shift’ idea was fashioned to avoid the conventional chronological
presentation.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) In the genre of fiction while Ford was working out experiemental
possibilities in his own way, Virginia Woolf organized some renowned personalities from
different fields to form a radical-looking ‘Bloomsbury Group’, famous among them being the
economist Maynard Keynes, Dorothy Richardson and Lytton Strachey. This was an avant-garde
group that looked beyond the conventional and was bold enough to venture into the new and
unknown. Virginia Woolf’s husband Leonard Woolf gathered her critical opinions in Collected
Essays (1966-67). One of these essays is ‘Modern Fiction’ which has become a milestone work, in
which she discusses what she later practiced in some of her novels, namely, the technique of
presenting human experience. Dorothy Richardson was not very effective in her use of
impressionistic stream-of-consciousness method; but it was Virginia Woolf who succeeded
brilliantly in pioneering the fiction employing it completely. She is able to take us right into the
center of her heroine’s consciousness which is her real world and sail through the flickering
impressions that continually flow and form her life, “what Virginia Woolf, and for that matter
Dorothy Richardson, were rebelling against was represented by the novelists Arnold Bennett,
H.G. Wells and John Galsworthy.”

In her opinion they were ‘materialistic giving too much undue importance to the external things.
“They write of unimportant things and they spend immense skill and immense industry making
the trivial and the transitory appear the true and the enduring” (‘Modem Fiction’). She insisted
that the ‘essential thing’ is life—the inner spirit or consciousness and the novelists need to catch
that “they fail to register the myriad, multifarious impressions that shower upon the ordinary
mind on an ordinary day. She then goes on to praise the achievement of James Joyce in Portrait
of the Artist as a Young Man, where we see “the flickering of that innermost flame which flashes
its message through the brain.”

Virginia Woolf used rich metaphorical language in presenting her critical ideas, and thus sounds
more like a novelist that she was than a critic. She praises George Moore for his power in
portraying life as it is without condemning or justifying it; and deplored writers like Arnold
Bennett and H.G. Wells for their practice of ‘heaping facts’ that concentrated on the
‘inessentials’ of life. In a similar vein Woolf attacked the poets of 1930s Auden, Spender, Mac
Neice, Isherwood and Day Lewis in a paper entitled ‘The Leaning Tower’. Virginia Woolf is very
harsh on these poets and “Words like ‘bleat’ and ‘whimper’ flow scathingly from her pen in
describing their attitudes. No doubt it was the resurgence in their work of moral pontification
from the radical political stand point which rubbed her up the wrong way.”

There were a few other writers around this time who were basically creative men but had turned
their attention to the basic critical issues in a way that indicated a radical approach which came
to mark most of the important critical works. E.M. Forster (1879-1970) as a critic is best known
today for his publication Aspects of the Novel (1927), a collection of lectures delivered at
Cambridge. The book has become a household name today and every where students of
literature are expected to have read it. Written in a simple yet attractive language, the author
discusses many relevant points about novel, propounding in the process some concepts. For
example, his concept of ‘round’ and ‘flat’ characters is perhaps the best way to understand at the
rudimentary level the simple division between two types of characters. While the flat characters
present just one aspect to the readers, making it easy for them to explain their personality in one
sentence, ‘round’ characters, on the other hand “are highly organized”, complex and “seem
capable of an extended life beyond the bounds of the book in which they appear. They show
growth in their inner life, in a way in which it is not seen in the ‘flat’ characters. But there are
serious weaknesses about this kind of classification. Not all great characters can be so neatly put
into either one or the other class, the best example being provided by Jane Austen. However,
E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel remains a classic of its kind, seeking to discuss the basic
components of novel in a chatty and easy-flowing style. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) also wrote a
few critical works that bear the mark of his personality as an aggressive moralizer that often
characterize his novels and other fictional works. Some of his essays are ‘The Novel’, ‘Morality
and the Novel’ both published in 1925 and ‘Why the Novel Matters’, not published till 1936, As
in his fiction, so here too in these essays Lawrence is preoccupied with man’s relation with the
world. As one critic says, “Lawrence harangues the reader. Art is concerned with the relation
between man and his world ... All life consists in achieving relationships between man and what
lies about him, human or natural. Where religion, philosophy and science try to nail us down
with propositions and prohibitions, the novel represents the highest example of subtle
interrelatedness that man has discovered. The superior morality of the novel lies in its
acceptance that everything is true in its own time, place, circumstance, and false outside.” He is
centrally occupied with the idea of the life of soul being the true life and takes little time in
denigrating the novels that highlight the materialistic life. In this he is closer to Virginia Woolf
for whom also ‘nothing is important but life’. He sees the whole of life and does not believe in
dividing into different worlds of specialized experiences as philosophers, sages, scientists do.
One cannot apprehend or understand life by isolating experiences like that. The superiority of
the novelist consists in dealing with the whole. From this position Lawrence goes on to condemn
such wide-ranging novelists like Tolstoy, Conrad, Joyce and Jane Austen.

It is against this scenario that we must see the rise of T.S. Eliot as the most influential critic of
our era. The various critics that we have just examined represent the scattered nature of the
critical opinions that came to be articulated, showing a serious break away from the
unproductive tradition of the past. But these independent views were too scattered, the age yet
lacked a single guiding force in the critical domain. Such a dominant spirit was emerging in the
shape of T.S. Eliot who combined the cultural forces, the social imperatives and the moral tenets
into his literary works in a way that immediately offered a broad range to the reader’s
experiences and vision. He pleaded for a wholistic approach and was averse to dissociating
feelings from thought. His vision arose from his view of the fragmented, confined and
degenerated world of our times.
T.S. Eliot: Select Critical Concepts

Eliot: His Gift of Phrasing

T.S. Eliot is one of the greatest English critics of the 20th century. His criticism marks a
complete break from the 19th century tradition and gives a new direction to literary criticism.
His critical concepts are scattered all over his five hundred and odd essays and reviews.

Clive Bell rightly praised Eliot for his gift of phrasing, and this gift is displayed as much in his
prose as in his poetry. He has coined a number of memorable phrases, which bite in and strike
deep, and hence have gained wide currency. Whatever may be the ultimate value of his
criticism—and it is too early as yet to make any final assessment—there can be no denying the
fact that he is a great irritant to thought. In order to understand Eliot’s criticism, it is essential to
examine some of his critical concepts in some detail.

Objective Co-relative

The phrase, Objective-co-relative, was first used by Eliot in his essay on Hamlet. The phrase has
gained such wide popularity that Wimsatt and Brooks write, “the phrase objective co-relative
has gained a currency probably far beyond anything that the other could have expected or
intended’. In the opinion of T.S. Eliot, emotion can best be expressed in poetry through the use
of some suitable objective co-relative. He himself defines ‘objective co-relative’ as, “a set of
objects, a situation, a chain of events, which shall be the formula” for the poet’s emotion so that,
“when the external facts are given the emotion is at once evoked.” 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 description, 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. The external situation is adequate to convey the emotions, the agony of Lady
Macbeth. Instead of communicating the emotions directly to the reader, the dramatist has
embodied them in a situation or a chain of events, which suitably communicate the emotions to
the reader. Similarly, the dramatist could devise in Othello a situation which is a suitable,
‘objective co-relative’, for the emotion of the hero. In the Agamemnon of the Greek dramatist,
Aeschylus, the situation presented is the exact ‘objective co-relative’ for the emotions which will
be aroused in one who actually witnesses a murder. Hamlet is an artistic failure for here the
external situation does not suitably embody the effect of a mother’s guilt on her son. The disgust
of Hamlet is in excess of the facts as presented in the drama.

The phrase “objective co-relative” has been discussed threadbare by a number of critics, and
most divergent views have been expressed. Thus for Cleanth Brooks the phrase means, “organic
Metaphor”, for Elises Vevas it is a, “vehicle of expression for the poet’s emotion” and for Austin,
‘It is the poetic content to be conveyed by verbal expression.” What Eliot exactly meant by the
phrase is hard to determine. We can only say that it is a way of conveying emotion, without
direct verbal expression, by presenting certain situations and events which arouse a similar
emotion in the readers. It is the way through which a poet, like Eliot, de-personalises his
emotions.

“Dissociation of Sensibility”: “Unification of Sensibility”

Another of the popular cliches of Eliot is the phrase, Dissociation of sensibility and its opposite,
Unification of sensibility. The phrase was first used by Eliot in his essay on the Metaphysical
Poets of the early 17th century. By unification of sensibility, T.S. Eliot means, “a fusion of
thought and feeling’, “a recreation of thought into feeling’, “a direct sensuous apprehension of
thought’. Such fusion of thought and feeling is essential for good poetry. Bad poetry results
when there is, “dissociation of sensibility”, i.e. the poet is unable to feel his thoughts. Eliot finds
such unification of sensibility in the Metaphysical poets, and regrets that a dissociation of
sensibility set in the late 17th century; there was a split between thought and feeling, and we
have not yet recovered from this dissociation. The influence of Dryden and Milton has been
particularly harmful in this respect.

Fusion of Thought and Feeling

In his essay on The Metaphysical Poets T.S. Eliot explains how this fusion of thought and feeling
takes place: “Tennyson and Browning are poets; and they think, but they do not feel their
thought as immediately as the odour of a rose. A thought to Donne was an experience; it
modified his sensibility. 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. The latter falls in love, or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to
do with each other, or with the noise of the typewriter or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the
poet these experiences are always forming new wholes.”

Eliot does not regard Browning to be a great poet, for, no doubt, he has ideas, but he fails to
transmute his ideas into emotions and sensations. Merely dry thoughts or logic do not make a
great poet. A mature poet can experience or feel his thought as he does the odour of a rose; a bad
poet cannot do so.
Fusion of Creative and Critical Faculties

Another aspect of this unification of sensibility, is the harmonious working of the creative and
critical faculties of a poet. A poet creates in heat, in a moment of inspiration, but he corrects at
leisure. The poet must create, but he must also bring the critical faculty to work upon what he
has created. He must revise and polish, and thus lick his creation into shape. A great poet must
of necessity be a great critic as well, for he must constantly analyse, reject and select.

Eliot’s concept of “Dissociation of sensibility” has been of far-reaching influence in modern

criticism.

The Romantic and the Classic

T.S. Eliot was a, “classicist in literature”, and not a romantic, and one of his important
contributions to literary criticism is that he strengthened the reaction against romanticism and
paved the way for the rise of neo-classicism. The anti-romantic and anti-humanist reaction
began in the early 20th century, and its most powerful exponent in England was T.S. Hulme.
T.S. Eliot completed the work which he began. The romantics placed an exaggerated importance
on the human personality. They believed in inspiration and refused to recognise any authority
outside themselves. It was this lack of artistic discipline, this failure to accept an outside
authority, which resulted in the vagueness and immaturity of romantic art. Inspiration can
result at the most in momentary excellence; romantic art is bound to be fitful and of unequal
merit. Eliot, therefore, emphasised the value of tradition, the need and importance of an outside
authority for the poet. Allegiance to the, “inner voice”, simply means doing what one likes. The
poet must owe allegiance to some authority outside himself; he must learn and practise artistic
self-control. He must revise and re-revise what he writes. Mature art is possible only in this way.
T.S. Eliot values classical art for its clarity and for its formal perfection. He writes that the
difference between the romantic and the classic art is, “that between the complete and the
fragmentary, the adult and the immature, the orderly and the chaotic”

Similarly, T.S. Eliot was opposed to romantic subjectivity. It was the uncontrolled expression of
emotion which led the romantics into vulgar excess of all sorts. Emotion in poetry must be
depersonalised. Artistic self-effacement is essential for great art. The romantics lacked such self-
restraint, while restraint is the distinguishing feature of classical poetry.

Eliot’s classical bias appears both in his critical and poetical works. He is against the romantic
critics, like Coleridge, who judge a poet on the basis of their personal impressions and feelings.
Such impressionism can never be a safe guide. Rather, a poet in the present must be judged with
reference to the poets of the past. Comparison and analysis are important tools in the hands of a
critic. Further, a work of art must be judged with reference to some principles. For example, a
critic must determine if a particular poet has succeeded in de-personalising his emotions, and
whether his poetry shows a fusion of thought and feeling or not. Thus ‘objective co-relative’,
‘unification of sensibility’, and adherence to tradition, are the touchstones to measure the
greatness of a work of art. Eliot’s plea is for objective standards to judge the greatness of a work
of art.

Eliot is a classical critic, but in one important respect he is different from the classical critics of
the past, like Dryden, Dr. Johnson, etc. These classical critics were concerned entirely with the
analysis of particular works. They did not care to examine the process of creation or formulate a
theory of literature. Eliot, on the other hand, has his own theories of poetry and the poetic
process, which have been elaborated in essays like, Tradition and Individual Talent. The
Function of Criticism, The Frontiers of Criticism, and in a number of other essays.

Tradition

In his essay On Tradition published in After Strange Gods, T.S. Eliot writes, “Tradition is not
solely, or even primarily, the maintenance of certain dogmatic beliefs; these beliefs have come to
take their living form in the course of the formation of a tradition. What I mean by tradition
involves all those habitual actions, habits, and customs from the most significant religious rite to
our conventional way of greeting a stranger, which represent the blood kinship of, “the same
people living in the same place”. It involves a good deal which can be called taboo: that this word
in used in our time in exclusively, derogatory sense is to me a curiosity of some significance. We
become conscious of these items, or conscious of their importance, usually only after they have
begun to fall into desuetude, as we are aware of the leaves of a tree when the autumn wind
begins to blow them off—when they have separately ceased to be vital. Energy may be wasted at
that point in a frantic endeavour to collect the leaves as they fall and gum them into the
branches, but the sound tree will put forth new leaves and the dry tree should be put to the axe.
We are always in danger, in clinging to an old tradition, or attempting to re-establish one, of
confusing the vital and the unessential, the real and the sentimental. Our second danger is to
associate tradition with the immovable, to think of it as something hostile to all changes, to aim
to return to some previous condition which we imagine as having been capable of preservation
in perpetuity, instead of aiming to stimulate the life which produced that condition in its time.

It is not of advantage to us to indulge in a sentimental attitude towards the past. For one thing,
in even the very best living tradition there is always a mixture of good and bad, and of much that
deserves criticism, and for another, tradition is not a matter of feeling alone. Nor can we safely,
without a very critical examination, dig ourselves in stubbornly to a few dogmatic notions, for
what is healthy belief at one time may, unless it is one of the few fundamental things, be a
pernicious prejudice at another. Nor should we cling to tradition as a way of asserting our
superiority over less favoured peoples. What we can do is to use our minds, remembering that a
tradition without intelligence is not worth having, to discover what is the best life for us not as a
political abstraction, but as a particular people in a particular place, what in the past is worth
preserving and what should be rejected; and what conditions, within our power to bring about,
would foster the society that we desire.
These remarks make it clear that Eliot’s conception of tradition is an enlightened and dynamic
one. A sense of tradition is essential, for it makes us realise our kinship with, “the same people
living in the same place”. But we must remember that the conditions of life which produced
some particular tradition have changed, and so the tradition, too, must change. Tradition is not
something immovable, it is something constantly growing and becoming different from what it
previously was. Thirdly, we must learn to distinguish between the essential and unessential, the
good and the bad, in a particular tradition, and only the good and the essential must be followed
and revived. Fourthly, while we should justly be proud of our own tradition, this should not
make us look down on other peoples who are not so lucky in this respect. In short, tradition
must be used intelligently, changes in the conditions of life must be taken into consideration,
and only the best should be preserved and fostered.

In his essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent, Eliot regards the whole of European literature
from Homer down to his own day as forming a single literary tradition. This tradition is not a
dead one; it continues and lives in the present. When a really great work of art is produced, this
tradition is modified to some extent, however little. A great poem or a great work of art can be
possible only when the poet or the artist has a sense of this literary tradition. Great artists
modify the existing tradition and pass it on to the future.

The Critic and Criticism

Eliot’s views on the nature and function of criticism, and the qualifications of a critic, have been
elaborated in such essays as, The Perfect Critic, The Imperfect Critic, The Function of Criticism,
The Frontiers of Criticism etc. From a study of these essays the following significant views
emerge:

1. The function of criticism is the elucidation of works of art and the correction of taste. A critic
must place the facts of a work of art before his readers, point out the good in it, and thus
promote enjoyment and understanding of literature.

2. To discover the nature of poetry and the process of poetic creation.

3. To preserve the living literary traditions and reveal the good in them.

4. To judge works of art by sound literary principles whose value has been tried and established.

5. To turn the attention of the reader from the poet to his poetry.
6. Comparison and analysis are the chief tools which the critic uses to perform his function. He
must, therefore, know what to analyse and compare; sound scholarship is necessary for a critic.

7. A good critic must have a sense of fact, for opinion and fancy corrupt, but facts cannot
corrupt. The critic must know all the facts about a work of art,—and not merely about the
artist,—and place them before the readers. He must not judge on the basis of his personal
feelings or emotions but on the basis of solid facts revealed by a close study of the work
concerned.

8. In his essay on The Frontiers of Criticism, Eliot points out certain limits which, a critic must
not cross. No doubt, a critic must have a knowledge of other subjects like history, sociology,
philosophy and others, but he must take care that his criticism does not become a mere
commentary on these subjects. Secondly, criticism must not be merely impressionistic; it must
be based on sound facts. But this knowledge of facts, too, must not be carried too far.
Exaggerated importance attached to scholarship vitiates criticism, as it does in the case of J.L.
Lowes’ book The Road to Xanadu. Both Arnold and Coleridge are imperfect critics. The one is
too impressionistic, and the other is too dry and intellectual. Eliot holds out Aristotle as an
outstanding example of a perfect critic.

9. According to Eliot, the right type of criticism is, the workshop criticism, i.e. the criticism of a
poet of his own poetry and that of others. But even this criticism has its own limitations and
Eliot is fully conscious of them.

10. While Eliot stresses the close study of a poem for the purpose of elucidation and
interpretation, he is against the, “lemon-squeezer school of criticism”, those who analyse a poem
stanza by stanza and line by line, and extract, squeeze, tease,’ and press every drop of meaning
out of it. A good critic must avoid extremes of this kind

11. According to Eliot, the qualifications of a perfect critic are: “Sensitiveness, erudition, sense of
fact, sense of history and generalising power.”
Eliot’s Practical Criticism: His Critical Method

Eliot’s Practical Criticism

Eliot’s critical essays may broadly be divided into two categories: (1) essays dealing with the
nature and function of criticism, poetry and drama, i.e. his theoretical criticism, and (2) essays
dealing with a number of important authors and their works. Such essays constitute his practical
criticism, and throw valuable light on his critical methods. Eliot has told us in his essay on the
Function of Criticism that the chief purpose of criticism is the elucidation of a work of art and
the correction of taste, and that comparison and analysis are the chief tools which the critic uses.
We would first quote significant passages from Eliot’s practical criticism, and then examine his
critical method in the light of these passages.

Dante

Here is an extract from Eliot’s essay on Dante: “The first lesson of Dante is that of the very few
poets of similar stature. There is none, not even Virgil, who has been a more attentive student of
the art of poetry, or a more scrupulous, painstaking and conscious practitioner of the craft.
Certainly no English poet can be compared with him in this respect, for the more conscious
craftsmen—and I am thinking primarily of Milton—have been much more limited poets and,
therefore, more limited in their craft also. To realize more and more what this means through
the years of one’s life, is itself a moral lesson, but I draw a further lesson from it which is a moral
lesson too. The whole study and practice of Dante seems to me to teach that the poet should be
the servant of his language, rather than the master of it. This sense of responsibility is one of the
marks of the classical poet, in the sense of “classical” which I have tried to define elsewhere, in
speaking of Virgil. Of some great poets and of some great English poets, specially, one can say
that they were privileged by their genius to abuse the English language, to develop an idiom so
peculiar and even eccentric, that it could be of no use to later poets. Dante seems to me to have a
place in Italian literature which, in this respect, only Shakespeare has in ours, that is, they give
body to the soul of the language, conforming themselves, the one more and the other less
consciously, to what they believed to be its possibilities. And Shakespeare himself takes liberties
which only his genius justifies, liberties, which Dante, with an equal genius, does not take. To
pass on to posterity one’s own language, more highly developed, more refined, and more precise
than it was before one wrote it, that is the highest possible achievement of the poet as poet. Of
course, a really supreme poet makes poetry also more difficult for his successors, but the simple
fact of his supremacy, and the price literature must pay, for having a Dante or a Shakespeare, is
that it can have only one. Later poets must find something else to do, and be content, if the
things left to—do are lesser things. But I am not speaking of what a supreme poet, one of those
few without whom the current speech of a people with a great language would not be what it is,
does for later poets or of what he prevents them from doing, but of what he does for everybody
after him who speaks that language, whose mother tongue it is, whether they are poets,
philosophers, statesmen, or railway porters.

That is one lesson: that the great master of a language should be great servant of it. The second
lesson of Dante—and it is one which no other poet, in any language known to me, can teach—is
the lesson of width of emotional range. Perhaps it could be best expressed under the figure of
the spectrum, or the gamut. Employing this figure, I may say that the great poet should not only
perceive and distinguish more clearly than other men, the colours and sounds within the range
of ordinary vision or hearing, he should perceive vibrations beyond the range of ordinary men,
and be able to make men see and hear more at each end than they could ever see or hear without
his help. We have for instance in English literature great religious poets, but they are, by
comparison with Dante, specialists. That is all they can do. And Dante, because he could do
everything else, is for that reason the greatest ‘religious poet’ though to call him a ‘religious poet’
would be to abate his universality. The Divine Comedy expresses everything in the way of
emotion, between depravity, despair and the beautific vision, that man is capable of
experiencing. It is, therefore, a constant reminder to the poet, of the obligation to explore, to
find words for the inarticulate, to capture those feelings which people can hardly even feel,
because they have no words for them, and at the same time, a reminder that the explorer,
beyond the frontiers of ordinary consciousness, will only be able to return and report to his
fellow-citizens, if he had all the time a firm grasp upon the realities with which they are already
acquainted.”

The essay On Dante is of great significance, for it was followed not only by considerable general
interest in Dante, but also by a revival of interest in the later Middle Ages. Eliot’s essays on
Dante, says M.C. Bradbrook, “was one of the first signs of the new movement, (the
medievalisation movement) in England”. Eliot admires Dante, first, for the clarity and lucidity of
his style, and secondly, for his wide emotional sensibility. He regards Dante as the, ‘universal
poet’. Elsewhere, he compares Dante with Donne, and says that Dante’s sensibility was more
highly developed than that of Donne. Both were religious poets, but Dante was universal and
Donne only a specialist. Thus Eliot uses the tool of comparison to elucidate Dante’s art, but the
comparison is unfortunate, for Dante and Donne were poets of an entirely different order, and
such comparisons must be avoided. The essay also reveals Eliot’s twin interns in structure and
language.

Destructive Criticism: “Hamlet”

Eliot’s essay on “Hamlet” is the finest example of his destructive or iconoclastic criticism:

“The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an objective correlative, in
other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain events which shall be the formula of that
particular emotion, such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory
experience, are given, emotion is immediately evoked. If you examine any of Shakespeare’s more
successful tragedies, you will find this exact equivalence, you will find that the state of mind of
Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep has been communicated to you by a skilful accumulation of
imagined sensory impressions, the words of Macbeth on hearing of his wife’s death strike us as
if, given the sequence of events, these words were automatically released by the last event in the
series. The artistic ‘inevitability’ lies in this complete adequacy of the external to the emotion,
and this is precisely what is deficient in Hamlet. Hamlet (the man) is dominated by an emotion
which is inexpressible, because it is in excess of the facts as they appear. And the supposed
identity of Hamlet with his author is genuine to this point that Hamlet’s bafflement at the
absence of objective equivalent to his feelings is a prolongation of the bafflement of his creator
in the face of his artistic problem. Hamlet is up against the difficulty that his disgust is
occasioned by his mother, but that his mother is not an adequate equivalent for it, his disgust
envelopes and exceeds her. It is thus a feeling which he cannot understand, he cannot objectify
it, and it, therefore, remains to poison life and obstruct action. None of the possible actions can
satisfy it and nothing that Shakespeare can do with the plot can express Hamlet for him. And it
must be noticed that the very nature of the donnees of the problem precludes objective
equivalence. To have heightened the criminality of Gertrude would have been to provide the
formula for a totally different emotion in Hamlet; it is just because her character is so negative
and significant that she arouses in Hamlet the feeling which she is incapable of representing.”

Hamlet has been universally admired as a great work of art and has been a source of pleasure to
countless generations of theatre-goers, but Eliot regards it as an artistic failure. He compares the
play with the other tragedies of the dramatist and find it lacking in, “Objective co-relative”. The
disgust of Hamlet is in excess to the guilt of his mother. However, the play has reasserted its
immortality, despite Eliot’s disparagement. The extract reveals Eliot as a master of the language,
as well as his powerful ‘gift of phrasing’. It is here that he has, for the first time, used the phrase,
“Objective co-relative”, a phrase which has since attained wide popularity.

Milton

Another fine instance of destructive criticism is Eliot’s essay, “On Milton.”

“Many people will agree that a man may be a great artist and yet have a bad influence. There is
more of Milton’s influence in the badness of the bad verse of the eighteenth century than of
anybody else’s; he certainly did more harm than Dryden and Pope, and perhaps a good deal of
the oblique which has fallen on those two poets, specially the latter, because of their influence,
ought to be transferred to Milton. But to put the matter simply in terms of ‘bad influence’ if not
necessarily to bring a serious charge: because a good deal of the responsibility, when we state
the problem in these terms, may devolve on the eighteenth-century poets themselves for being
such bad poets that they were incapable of being influenced except for ill. There is a good deal
more to the charge against Milton than this; and it appears a good deal more serious, if we
affirm that Milton’s poetry could only be an influence for the worse, upon any poet whatever. It
is more serious also, if we affirm that Milton’s bad influence may be traced much farther than
the eighteenth century, and much farther than upon bad poets: if we say that it was an influence
against which we still have to struggle.”
Eliot regards Milton as a bad influence for a number of reasons. First, he lacked visual
imagination, secondly, he wrote English like a dead language, thirdly, his syntax is involved and
rhetorical, fourthly, he employs long lists of proper names to describe space, and lastly, his style,
“is not a classical style in that it is not the elevation of a common style.” Eliot could appreciate
the artistic merits of Milton; his purpose in stressing his faults was to liberate English poets and
poetry from the harmful influence of Milton. It may be said to his credit that, though much has
since been written in praise of Milton, the specific charges that he has brought against the
Puritan poet have not been refuted so far. However, Eliot is perverse when he compares Milton
with Joyce, for there can be no comparison at all between writers so widely different from each
other. One cannot help feeling that most of his dislike of Milton results from personal
prejudices—religious and political.

The Metaphysical Poets

Eliot’s essay on The Metaphysical Poets—Donne, Marvell, Crashaw, etc.—is a remarkable piece
of criticism, for it did much to bring about a revival of interest in these poets of the early 17th
century:

“Tennyson and Browning are poets, and they think; but they do not feel their thought as
immediately as the odour of a rose. A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his
sensibility. When a poet’s mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating
disparate experience; the ordinary man’s experience is chaotic, irregular and fragmentary. The
latter falls in love, or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to do with each
other, or with the noise of the typewriter or smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these
experiences are always forming new wholes.

We may express the difference by the following theory: The poets of the seventeenth century, the
successors of the dramatists of the sixteenth, possessed a mechanism of sensibility which could
devour any kind of experience. They are simple or artificial, difficult or fantastic, as their
predecessors were; no less nor more than Dante, Guido Cavalcanti, Guinicelli, or Cino. In the
seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered; and
this dissociation, as is natural, was aggravated by the influence of the two most powerful poets of
the century, Milton and Dryden. Each of these men performed certain poetic functions as
magnificently well that the magnitude of the effect concealed the absence of others. The
language went on and in some respects improved; the best verse of Collins, Gray, Johnson, and
even Goldsmith satisfies some of our fastidious demands better than that of Donne or Marvell or
King. But while the language became more refined, the feeling became more crude. The feeling,
the sensibility, expressed in The Country Churchyard (to say nothing of Tennyson and
Browning) is cruder than that in The Coy Mistress.

The second effect of the influence of Milton and Dryden followed from the first, and was,
therefore, slow in manifestation. The sentimental age began early in the eighteenth century, and
continued. The poets revolted against the ratiocinative, the descriptive; they thought and felt by
fits, unbalanced they reflected. In one or two passages of Shelley’s Triumph of Life, in the second
Hyperion, there are traces of a struggle towards unification of sensibility. But Keats and Shelley
died, and Tennyson and Browning ruminated.

After this brief exposition of a theory—too brief, perhaps, to carry conviction—we may ask, what
would have been the fate of the ‘Metaphysicals’ had the current of poetry descended in a direct
line from them, as it descended in a direct line to them? They would not, certainly, be classified
as Metaphysical. The possible interests of a poet are unlimited; the more intelligent he is the
better; the more intelligent he is the more likely that he will have wide interests: our only
condition is that he turn them into poetry, and not merely meditate on them poetically. A
philosophical theory which has entered into poetry is established, for its truth or falsity in one
sense ceases to matter, and its truth in another sense is proved. The poets in question have, like
other poets, various faults. But they were, at best, engaged in the task of trying to find the verbal
equivalent for states of mind and feeling. And this means both that they are more mature, and
that they were better than later poets of certainly not less literary ability.”

It is in this essay, that Eliot has for the first time used the phrase Dissociation of sensibility, a
cliche which ever since has had considerable influence on the course of English literature. Eliot’s
power of phrasing is displayed at its best in the use of such memorable expressions as, “They do
not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose.” We also get an exposition of his
theory of the poetic process. The act of creation is not an expression of the poet’s emotion, it is
rather an act of organisation of different and disparate experiences into a single whole. Donne
and the other Metaphysical poets are compared with Tennyson, Browning, Dryden, Johnson
and a host of other English poets. But the purpose of this comparison is not to determine good
or bad, but to elucidate and interpret certain distinctive features of their work. Similar is his use
of quotations. The essay represents the triumph of Eliot as a critic. It is a classic both of English
prose and English criticism.

Eighteenth Century Poetry

His essay on Eighteenth Century Poetry is equally illuminating. “The eighteenth century in
English verse is not, after Pope, Swift, Prior, and Gray, an age of courtly verse. It seems more
like an age of retired country clergymen and schoolmasters. It is cursed with a Pastoral
convention—Collin’s Eclogues are bad enough, and those of Shenstone consummately dull—and
a ruminative mind. And it is intolerably poetic. Instead of working out the proper form for its
matter, when it has any, and informing verse with prose virtues, it merely applies the
magniloquence of Milton or the neatness of Pope to matter which is wholly unprepared for it; so
that what the writers have to say always appears surprised at the way in which they choose to
say it.

In this rural, pastoral, meditative age, Johnson is the most alien figure. Goldsmith is more a
poet of his time, with his melting sentiment just saved by the precision of his language. But
Johnson remains a townsman, if certainly not a courtier; a student of mankind not of natural
history; a great prose writer; with no tolerance of swains and milkmaids. He has more in
common in spirit with Crabbe than with any of his contemporaries; at the same time he is the
last Augustan. He is in no way an imitator of Dryden or Pope; very close to them in idiom, he
gives his verse a wholly personal stamp.

In one way, Johnson goes back to an earlier tradition; however inferior as satires Marston’s or
even Hall’s may be to Johnson’s, they are surely much nearer to the spirit of Juvenal than are
those of Dryden or Pope. Dryden is, in the modern sense, humorous and witty; Pope is, in the
modern sense, witty though not humorous; Johnson, neither humorous nor witty in this sense,
has yet “the proper wit of poetry”, as the seventeenth century and the Augustan age had it also. I
can better expose this by a few quotations than by a definition:

There mark what ills the scholar’s life assail,

Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.

Condemned a needy supplicant to wait,

While ladies interpose, and slaves debate.

Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart,

Than when a blockhead’s insult point the dart.

The precision of such verse gives, I think, an immense satisfaction to the reader; he has said
what he wanted to say, with that urbanity which contemporary verse would do well to study; and
the satisfaction. I get from such lines is what I call the minimal quality of poetry. There is much
greater poetry than Johnson’s but after all, how little, how very little, good poetry there is
anyway. And the kind of satisfaction these lines give me is something that I must have, at least,
from any poetry in order to like it.”

The essay, too, shows Eliot’s gift of phrasing at its happiest. He has the courage to stand up
against established opinion that the 18th century was an age of prose and reason, and express
the contrary opinion that the age was too poetic. His remarks on Dryden and Johnson reveal his
penetrating intellect and his power of analysis. He is not carried away by the popular wind, but
judges for himself on the basis of the facts that are before him.
Matthew Arnold

Eliot did not agree with Arnold as a critic—he regarded his (Arnold’s) criticism as too dry,
abstract, intellectual and devoid of emotion. However, he has great admiration for Arnold, the
poet: “I have elsewhere tried to point out some of Arnold’s weaknesses when he ventured into
departments of thought for which his mind was unsuited and ill-equipped. In philosophy and
theology he was undergraduate, in religion a philistine. It is a pleasanter task to define a man’s
limitations within the field in which he is qualified, for there, the definition of limitation may be
at the same time a precision of the writer’s excellences. Arnold’s poetry was little technical
interest. It is academic poetry in the best sense, the best fruit which can issue from the promise
shown by the prize-poem. When he is not simply being himself, he is most at ease in a master’s
gown: Empedocles on Etna is one of the finest academic poems ever written. He tried other
robes which became to him less well, I cannot but think of Tristram and Iseult and The Forsaken
Merman as charades. Sohrab and Rustum is fine piece, less fine than Gebir, and in the classical
line, Landor, with a finer ear, can best Arnold every time. But Arnold is a poet to whom one
readily returns. It is a pleasure, certainly after associating with the riff raff of the early part of the
century, to be in the company of a man qui sait se conduire, but Arnold is something more than
an agreeable Professor of Poetry. With all his fastidiousness and superciliousness and officiality,
Arnold is more intimate with us than Browning, more intimate than Tennyson ever is except at
moments, as in the passionate flights in In Memoriam. He is the poet and critic of a period of a
false stability. All his writing in the kind of Literature and Dogma seems to me a valiant attempt
to dodge the issue, to mediate between Newman and Huxley, but his poetry, the best of it, is too
honest to employ any but his genuine feelings of unrest, loneliness and dissatisfaction. Some of
his limitations are manifest enough. In his essay on The Study of Poetry he has several
paragraphs on Burns, and for an Englishman and Englishman of his time, Arnold understands
Burns very well. Perhaps I have partiality for small, oppressed nationalities like the Scots that
makes Arnold’s patronizing manner irritate me, and certainly I suspect Arnold of helping to fix
the wholly mistaken notion of Burns as a singular, untutored English dialect poet, instead of as a
decadent representative of a great alien tradition. But he says (taking occasion to rebuke the
country in which Burns lived) that, ‘no one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet to deal with
a beautiful world’, and this remark strikes me as betraying a limitation. It is an advantage to
mankind in general to live in a beautiful world, that no one can doubt. But for the poet is it so
important? We mean all sorts of things, I know, by Beauty. But the essential advantage for a
poet is not to have a beautiful world with which to deal: it is to be able to see beneath both
beauty and ugliness, to see the boredom and the horror, and the glory.”

Here Arnold compared to Tennyson, Browning, and a number of other poets, his limitations are
pin-pointed, but his merit also is recognised. He alone is the poet to whom one readily returns,
for his poetry gives pleasure, the pleasure arising from the intimacy between the poet and his
reader. Though in this essay, the tone is one of frank admiration, in another essay in which Eliot
deals with Arnold the critic his views are coloured by extraneous considerations. Eliot stoops to
personal invective, and reveals his personal prejudice when he calls Arnold, ‘a propagandist of
literature’, and an ‘overworked school Inspector’.
Eliot’s Critical Methods

In the light of the practical criticism examined above, Eliot’s critical methods may be summed
up as follows:

1. Eliot’s style forms an important aspect of his critical method. As M.C. Bradbrook points out,
his style is a neutral style “expository rather than forensic”. It works through negative, and
definition by exclusion. It is devoid of emotional phrase and metaphor, and underneath it runs a
delightful current of humour and irony. He was not state or describe anything in detail, he works
by reserves and implications. Much more is implied than what is directly asserted. In this way,
he is able to secure the lively co-operation of his readers. His strength lies in the fact that he
does not make a statement or communicate feeling; rather he starts off a process and the
readers criticise for themselves. They are active participants, and not mere passive receivers of
the critic. His style is reserved and restricted, and his prose is marked by precision and
exactitude.

2. Another aspect of Eliot’s style is his use of quotations. “The quotations are made to do the
critics work, and the reader is made to work on them”—(Bradbrook). They are exactly chosen to
make the point at which Eliot aims, and he succeeds in his purpose, because the reader is
compelled to work on the quotations, and respond actively to them. The quotations stamp
themselves on the mind of the reader and easily pass into general circulation. They have a
peculiar, generative force. They are thought-provoking. They make the reader think, and in this
way his active co-operation is secured.

3. As a critic, Eliot tries to be as exact and precise as possible. In order to convey his meanings
accurately, he makes frequent use of conditional and qualifying phrases. In this way, he says
exactly and accurately what he has to say. Again, it is in the interest of accuracy that he avoids all
superfluity. He is compact, sharp and to the point. Attention is focused throughout on the key-
points and a few significant phrases in a writer’s work, and all that is unessential is excluded.

4. Irony, and a devasting wit, are potent instruments in the hands of Eliot. Sometimes he does
not counter an argument but treats it with mocking irony.

5. He does not pass any judgments of worse and better. He simply elucidates and leaves the
readers to form their own judgments. He simply analyses and places the facts before his readers,
without commenting on those facts. However, the arguments are so arranged that the judgment
of the readers is conditioned. His style is persuasive and he is able to carry the readers with him.

6. Comparison is an important aspect of Eliot’s critical method. But the purpose of his
comparison is to elucidate and analyse, never to determine good and bad. He compares only to
elucidate and not to interpret the facts.

7. Eliot avoids all digressions, biographical, historical, or sociological. No doubt, much

extraneous prejudice, colours and spoils his destructive criticism. This is particularly so in the
case of his criticism of Milton and Arnold. However, with few exceptions, he can appreciate even
writers who are uncongenial to him, and his sincerity and integrity are above doubt.

Conclusion: Eliot’s Achievement as a Practical Critic

Eliot’s achievement as a practical critic has been of far-reaching importance. He has brought
about a revolution in taste. As a result of his criticism, there has been a revaluation of poets like
Marlowe, Jonson, Donne, and many others. The Metaphysicals were appreciated merely by a
few scholars, but thanks to Eliot, they are now appreciated even by the young under-graduate.
The credit for the Metaphysical revival in the early 20th century must go to T.S. Eliot. Similarly,
the renewed interest in Ben Jonson and Dryden is a sort of personal triumph for Mr. Eliot. His
essay on Dante has been followed not only by a considerable general interest in the Italian poet,
but also by an enthusiasm for the later Middle Ages.

Above all, as a practical critic, Eliot has set a standard and displayed a method. His criticism,
therefore, is of permanent value, and all attempts to run down his critical achievement have so
far remained futile.

Eliot: Impersonal Theory of Poetry

Eliot, a Poet Critic

Eliot is one of the long line of poet-critics which stretches right from Ben Jonson to our day, and
includes such names as Dryden, Dr. Johnson, Coleridge and Arnold. Though he did not
formulate any comprehensive theory of poetry, he was a conscious poet who had thought long
and deep about the mysteries of his own art. His critical essays, reviews and editorial
contributions and commentaries throw a flood of light on his view of poetry. An understanding
of his poetic creed is interesting and desirable, for he is the only critic after Wordsworth who has
much to say about poetry and the poetic process. His criticism comes from his “poetic
workshop”, and hence its special significance.
Need of Complexity: Reasons for It

The Georgian and Edwardian poetry of England of the first quarter of the 20th century was in
the thinned out romantic-pre-raphaelite tradition. It was simple, it was easy, and so it was
popular, but it was not great or good. It was Eliot’s reaction to romanticism, “that led to his
formulating the literary theories from which all his poetry since has derived”—(Maxwell). For
example, the decadent poetry of his age dispensed with all subtlety, metrical, linguistic,
intellectual, or emotional. Eliot’s own esotericism—complexity and difficulty—is in part a
reaction or revolt to the exotericism (lack of subtlety) of this poetry. Reacting against the
popular appeal of the poetry of the day, he voluntarily cultivated subtlety and complexity in the
hope of finding or creating an audience which, though small, would at least appreciate and
understand. In his essay on The Metaphysical Poets, he writes: “Poets in our civilisation must be
difficult. Our civilisation comprehends great variety and complexity, and this variety and
complexity, playing upon a refined sensibility, most produce various and complex results. The
poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to
force, to dislocate, if necessary, language into his meaning.” The poet must create new devices,
cultivate all the possibilities of words, in order to express entirely new conditions. His own
poetry is a new kind of poetry, his technique is new, and this very novelty creates difficulties.

Rejection of Subjectivism: Stress on Objectivity

Eliot’s theory of poetry marks a complete break from the 19th century tradition. He rejected the
romantic theory that all art is basically an expression of the artist’s personality, and that the
artist should create according to the dictates of his own “inner voice”, without owing allegiance
to any outside authority. In his essay on The Function of Criticism he tells us that writing,
according to the “inner voice”, means writing as one wishes. He rejects romantic subjectivism,
and emphasises the value of objective standards. Reacting against subjectivism of the romantics,
Eliot advocated his famous theory of the impersonality of poetry. He recognised the dangers of
unrestricted liberty, and felt that granted such licence, there would be only, “fitful and transient
bursts of literary brilliance. Inspiration alone is not a safe guide. It often results in eccentricity
and chaos.” Moreover, the doctrine of human perfectibility and the faith in “inner voice”
received a rude shock as a result of the world war. It was realised that man is not perfect, and
hence perfect art cannot result from merely the artist’s following his inner voice. Some sort of
guidance, some discipline, some outside authority was necessary to save art from incoherence
and emptiness. Thus Eliot condemned the Inner Light as, “the most untrustworthy and deceitful
guide that ever offered itself to wandering humanity,” and pointed out that the function of the
critic is to find out some common principles, objective standards, by which art may be judged
and guided. Eliot rejected the romantic fallacy, says Maxwell, for it, “has resulted in destruction
of belief in central authority to which all men might owe allegiance, in objective standards by
which men might agree to judge art, and in any inspiration other than the shifting of personality
through which adult, orderly art might be created.”
Passion for Form: Unification of Sensibility

Thus Eliot demands an objective authority for art, and in this way his theory of poetry
approximates to that of the classics. Rejecting the romantic theory and the romantic tradition,
he emphasises that the classics achieved, an elegance and dignity absent from the popular and
pretentious verse of the romantic poets. In The Function of Criticism he writes that the
difference between the two schools is that, “between the complete and the fragmentary, lie adult
and the immature, the orderly and the chaotic.” This shows Eliot’s appreciation of the order and
completeness of classical poetry, qualities which he tried to achieve in his own practice as a poet.
The classics could achieve this form and balance, this order and completeness, only because they
owed allegiance to an objective authority which was provided to them by past tradition—”stores
of tradition”. Another sign of maturity, according to Eliot, is the unification of sensibility—of
thought and feeling, of the critical and the creative faculties. Such unification Eliot found in the
Metaphysicals, and hence his admiration for them.

Sense of Tradition: The Poetic Process

Since the romantic tradition had exhausted itself out and had lost its value and significance, it
was necessary to search for some other tradition which may give a correct orientation to
contemporary poetry. In his well-known easy, Tradition and Individual Talent, he advocates the
acceptance of the European literary tradition as such an objective authority. Eliot views the
literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day as a single whole and pleads that English
literature must be viewed as a part of that European literary tradition. According to Eliot, two
kinds of constituents go into the making of a poem: (a) the personal elements, i.e. the feelings
and emotions of the poet, and (b) the impersonal elements, i.e. the ‘tradition’, the accumulated
knowledge and wisdom of the past, which are acquired by the poet. These two elements interact
and fuse together to form a new thing, which we call a poem. The impersonal element, the
‘erudition’, ‘the sense of tradition’, or the ‘historic sense’, must be acquired by the poet. He must,
“develop or procure the consciousness of the past, and that he must develop the consciousness
of the past throughout his career”. Some will acquire it more easily, while others have to sweat
for it. But all must acquire it, for great art is not possible without this sense of tradition. Thus
Eliot emphasises painstaking effort through which the poet must equip himself for his task.
Inspiration is not enough; perspiration too is necessary. That Eliot regards poetry as a craft, the
result of painstaking effort on the part of the poet, is also borne out by his definition of poetry:
“Poetry is excellent words in excellent arrangement and excellent metre.” A great part of the
poet’s labour is the labour of analysing, selecting and rejecting.

Dynamic Conception of Tradition

Though like the classics Eliot insists that the individual poet must work within the frame of
tradition, his view of tradition is not passive, static or unchanging. In this respect, he differs
from the classics who believed in a blind adherence to a fixed, and unchanging tradition.
According to Eliot, the literary tradition constantly grows, changes, and becomes different:
“When a really great work of art is created, the whole existing order is altered. In this way, the
past is altered by the present and the present is directed by the past.” The historic sense or the
sense of tradition implied that the poet is conscious, “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 down to the
present day, and within it the whole of literature of his own country has a simultaneous
existence and composes a simultaneous order.”

Impersonality of Poetry

Reacting against Wordsworth’s theory that poetry is, “spontaneous overflow of powerful
feeling,” or that poetry has its origin in “emotions recollected in tranquillity”, Eliot advances his
theory of impersonality of poetry. He observes, “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion but an
escape from emotion, it is not an expression of personality but an escape from personality.’“ The
greatest art is objective: “the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be
the man who suffers and the mind which creates”. As a matter of fact, the poet has no
personality, he is merely a receptacle, a shred of platinum, a medium which fuses and combines
feelings and impressions in a variety of ways.

Intensity: The Themes of Poetry

Thus poetry is not concerned with personal emotion. Even imagined experiences will do. The
poet’s imagination can work as well upon what he has experienced as on what he had read.
Further, Eliot points out that it is wrong to suppose that poetry is concerned merely with beauty.
The subject of poetry is life with all its horror, its boredom and its glory. It is the poet’s
consciousness of the situation—the human predicament, which has been the same in all ages—
which should inspire poetic creation. If the poet’s sense of his own age is intense enough, he will
be able to pierce beneath the superficial differences between one age and another, and realise
the fundamental sameness of human life in all ages. Then he will realise the horror, the ugliness
as well the glory of life, and communicate it to his readers. It is the intensify of the poetic
process, and not the romantic spontaneity, which is the important thing.

Objective Co-relative: Depersonalization of Emotion

Further, Eliot points out that the poet can achieve impersonality and objectivity by finding some
‘objective co-relative’ for his emotions. He defines, objective co-relative as a “set of objects, a
situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula”, for some particular emotion of the poet.
Thus Milton could find a perfect objective co-relative for the release of his personal emotions in
the story of Samson. Eliot himself uses European literature ancient myths and legends, as
objective co-relatives in his poetry. Such depersonalization of emotion is the test of great poetry.
Function of Poetry

As regards the function of poetry, Eliot suggests that the poet is an artist whose primary function
is to maintain the pattern of tradition as well as to redesign it by his own creation. No doubt,
poetry is a “superior amusement”, but primarily the purpose of poetry is neither to please nor to
instruct. The poet is “involved with the past and the future”: with the future because he is
assuring the continuance of tradition, and, therefore, of art; with the past because he must
explore and study the tradition, as well as modify it, and in this way transmit it to the future.
“His search is to discover again what has been found before, and to adapt it to contemporary
needs.” Eliot does not totally reject the cultural function of poetry, but in this connection his
views have a religious bias.

“Eliot’s impersonal theory of poetry is the greatest theory on the nature of poetic process after
Wordsworth’s romantic conception of poetry.”

—(A.G. George)

An Ideal Critic: His Qualifications and Functions

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. His views in this respect may be summed up as follows:

An Ideal Critic: His Qualifications

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

2. 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.
3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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 skilful. 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.
10. 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

1. 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.”

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

Conclusion: Eliot’s Classicism

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.

Eliot as a Classical
on Facts: Objectivity

It was in 1928, that Eliot made his famous declaration that he was, “a classicist in literature, a
royalist in politics, and an Anglo-Catholic in religion.” Thus in his own trenchant way, Eliot
emphasised the value of order and discipline, of authority and tradition, and of organisation and
pattern.
The cardinal point of his classicism is his insistence on fact. A poem must be judged on the
basis of facts and it is the critic’s duty to place these facts before the readers. He rejects
impressionistic criticism as worthless, and insists that a work must be judged by certain
accepted principles and standards. He believed that the true basis of poetry lies in the
organised labour of intellect, rather than in the accidents of inspiration and intuition. Says
Maxwell, “In this intellectual bias, in the belief that authority rather than liberty is the guide
to truth, and in his regard for formal details, is Eliot’s kinship with Augustan classicism.”
Rejection of Subjectivism: Advocacy of Order and Discipline

Eliot’s classicism arose in part, at least, out of his reaction to the exhausted and thinned out
romantic tradition. The romantics believed in inspiration and intuition. They believed in the
poet’s following his own “inner voice”. But inspiration is fitful, a matter of chance and accident,
and unrestrained liberty in the hands of lesser men is likely to degenerate into chaos and licence.
The evil consequences of such romantic fallacies were well-illustrated by contemporary English
poetry which was degenerate and which indulged in trivialities. Reacting sharply against this
state of affairs, Eliot emphasised that the classical school achieved, “an elegance and a dignity
absent from the popular and pretentious verse of the romantic poets.” In the essay on The
Function of Criticism, he points out that the difference between the two schools is that between
“the complete and the fragmentary, the adult and the immature, the orderly and the chaotic.”
This shows that Eliot appreciated the completeness and formal perfection of classical poetry,
and the classics could achieve this order and balance, only because they followed some
discipline, some authority outside themselves. Perfection results only when the ultimate guide
for the artist is not his own self, but some objective authority. Thus he makes fun of Middleton
Murry’s reliance on the inner voice, and says that following the inner voice merely means doing
what one likes. He calls it whiggery.

Poetry as Organisation

Poetry is not merely inspiration, it is also organisation. The maturity of the artist is seen in his
ability to organise ‘disparate experiences’ into a single whole. In mature art there is ‘unification
of sensibility’, of the intellectual and the emotional, the creative and the critical. This can be
achieved only by an exercise of the powers of the intellect. The poet, in order to achieve
perfection, must be painstaking: ‘‘‘The larger part of the labour of an author is critical, the
labour of sifting, combining, constructing, expunging, correcting, and testing.” Eliot
recommends the ideal of Horace and Virgil, that the poet should create in heat, but correct at
leisure, and lick his poems into shape. In his own practice, Eliot followed this ideal. He revised
and re-revised till his work acquired the finish of classical poetry. He was a conscious,
painstaking artist in the noblest tradition of classical art.

Conformity with Tradition

Eliot emphasised the importance of tradition, which represents the accumulated wisdom and
experience of the ages. The traditional elements in a work of art are of greater significance than
the so called individual and original. In his essay Tradition and Individual Talent, he views
European literature from Homer down to his own day as a single whole, and pleads that English
literature must be viewed as a part of this literary tradition. The poet must accept it as the
outside authority, and only such acceptance can save English poetry from disorder and chaos.
New works of art must conform to this tradition. In his own practice, Eliot accepts this literary
tradition as his poetic background. It is this background of literary tradition which provides,
“the objective corelative” in Eliot’s poetry. He goes to this very tradition for comparison and
elucidation of individual poets and their works. His use of literary tradition may be more
involved and complex than that of the Augustans, but it is basically the same.

Economy and Precision: Wit and Irony

Classical art is concise, and precise, while romantic art suffers from diffusiveness and blurring of
outline. Eliot also advocated this preciseness of classicism. His critical prose has the
epigrammatic terseness and economy of classical art. He has the same gift of phrasing. Another
important feature of classicism in its satiric wit, and a vein of mockery and irony runs through
all critical writings of Eliot also. Often he does not answer argument by argument, but dismisses
it with devastating irony. Eliot’s wit is the result of his classical predilections, for wit requires,
brevity, careful phrasing, and clarity of thought and expression—all qualities of classical art. It
also indicates a view of life similar to that of the Augustans, i.e. a moralist’s concern for human
frailties, and an ironical treatment of them.

Classical Ideal of Phrasing

Like the classics, Eliot aspired for formal perfection and achieved it painstakingly. He was a
conscious artist, and his prose, as well as his poetry has a marked intellectual tone. He achieved
verbal precision and felicity of phrasing through constant sifting, selecting and ordering of
material. He polished and re-polished what he wrote and his revisions show his predilection for
economy and precision in expression. His classical ideal of phrasing is described in Little
Gidding:

The Common word exact without vulgarity,

The formal word precise but not pedantic,

The complete consort dancing together.

The emphasis is on exactness and precision. It is the same ideal as that of Pope:

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learned to dance.

Only Eliot envisages a wider field of choice, he admits “the common word”. He constantly
revised, and his revisions and excisions show an, “intellectual rather than an instinctive,
emotional approach”. Form and content are refined by the shaping power of the intellect, till his
meaning is conveyed clearly and precisely.

Conclusion

Such is Eliot’s classicism. There is a close similarity between his theory and practice and that of
the Augustans. Each accepts an existing framework of tradition, the rules of an objective
authority, and makes conscious effort to work within that framework. Satirical wit plays an
important part in both, and with it goes a concern for the necessity of cultivating precision of
form and word. This requires an intellectual rather than an emotional, instinctive approach to
the task of selecting words, of relating them to each other, and to the whole.

Eliot’s classicism is seen in his impersonal theory of poetry, in his insistence on artistic self-
restraint and depersonalization of emotion and adherence to some outside authority, in his
emphasis on ‘facts’, and in his advocacy of the classical ideals of art. However, he differs from
the classicists in one important respect. He did not enunciate any theory of poetry, while he has
much to say on the nature of poetry and the poetic process.

Eliot’s Dramatic Criticism

Eliot’s Genius: Essentially Dramatic

Eliot’s genius was essentially dramatic and there is a strong element of drama even in his poetry.
With the passing of time, the dramatic bent of his genius led him to concentrate all his attention
on poetic drama. The greatness of Eliot as a dramatist may be questioned, but there can be no
denying the significance and value of his dramatic criticism. His dramatic criticism is contained
largely in essays like, The Four Elizabethan Dramatists, A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry,
Rhetoric and Poetic Drama and Poetry and Drama. In order to understand his attitude towards
Poetic Drama, it is essential to examine critically the views expressed by him in these essays.

1. A DIALOGUE ON DRAMATIC POETRY

Its Tentative Nature

A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry was written in 1928, when Eliot was still feeling his way. So the
views expressed are only tentative; nothing is asserted with any finality. In his later essays, Eliot
is more sure of himself and views are expressed with greater self-confidence.
The Problem of Poetic Drama: Its Discussion from Various Angles

The Dialogue was written as a Preface to Dryden’s discussion of the subject in his Essay on
Dramatic Poetry, and its form was suggested by Dryden’s Essay. It is in the nature of a
discussion between six persons from A to G, E being Eliot himself. The form of the dialogue
enables Eliot to discuss the problem of poetic drama from different angles. Different points of
view are given, discussed, and ultimately some sort of consensus is arrival at.

The Complexity of the Problem

First, it is agreed that in the modem age the problems connected with drama have become very
complex and so it is not possible today to frame and discuss laws of drama, as it could be done
by Aristotle and Dryden. In their age, the problems were not so complex and varied. They had
not to consider the relation of drama to politics, and to religion and ethics. But in the modern
age they must examine such relationships.

Moral Attitude Necessary

Secondly, after much discussion it is agreed that the aim of drama is not merely to provide
amusement. Different dramatists may have different aims, but no dramatist can do without a
moral attitude.

The Need of Form

Next, the problem of form in drama comes in for discussion. If there is to be a future for Poetic
drama, some suitable form must be evolved. The case of a Russian ballet is cited. The ballet
imposes order and pattern on the movements of the dancer. The ballet has a permanent form,
and this form arises out of a system of physical training, and highly skilled movements. In other
words, it is a kind of liturgy. The drama had its origin in the liturgy of the church. The Mass is a
small drama, having all the unities, and a Mass well-performed gives great dramatic satisfaction.
The drama had its origin in the Mass, and it cannot afford to cut itself from the ritual and liturgy
of the church. It can gain strength and vitality by a return to its source. No drama can be a
substitute for religion, but its religious origin indicates the supreme importance of the moral or
religious aim of the drama, and of a suitable form.
The Use of Verse Justified

The form of modern drama can be either prose or verse. It is generally supposed that verse is
artificial, and that the emotional range and realistic truth are circumscribed by verse. Such
notions are wrong. The human soul at moments of intense emotion expresses itself in verse.
Prose drama merely emphasises the ephemeral and the superficial; if we want the permanent
and the universal we must express ourselves in verse. Hence arises the need of poetic drama.

The Identity of Poetry and Drama

This leads to a discussion of the relation of poetry and drama. William Archer in his book on the
Elizabethan dramatists separated poetry and drama. He condemned the Elizabethan and
Jacobean dramatists for mixing poetry and drama. This is wrong. Verse and drama are not two
separate things. Verse is not something added to drama: “All poetry tends towards drama and
all drama towards poetry”. In a really creative work, poetry and drama are fused together. In
moments of dramatic tension, poetry becomes dramatic. The poetic pattern and the dramatic
pattern are indistinguishable. The greatest drama is poetic drama, and dramatic defects can be
compensated for by poetic excellence. Poetry is not mere embellishment of drama; poetry and
drama are the two aspects of one and the same creative activity. Shakespeare’s play represent
the complete fusion of the two. His finest poetry is to be met with in his most dramatic scenes.

Difficulties in the Way of Poetic Drama: Lack of Convention

The real defect of the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists is the absence of suitable dramatic
conventions, and it is also the absence of artistic convention that comes in the way of poetic
drama in the modern age. The modern world is chaotic and its lack of moral, social, and artistic
convention make the revival of poetic-drama difficult. Another difficulty is the common belief
that a nation cannot have two great periods of drama. The Elizabethan age was the great period
of English drama, and so to expect greatness in the modern age is futile. However, Eliot does not
agree with such fatalistic views. The craving for poetic drama is permanent in human nature,
and so its revival is possible in the modern age. The attempts made so far to revive poetic drama
have failed either because the plays were written by poets who had no knowledge of the stage, or
by those who knew the stage, but were not poets.

The Need of a Suitable Verse Form

Poetic drama is possible; but it can be revived only when suitable dramatic conventions are
evolved. First, they must find a new form of verse which will be as suitable for them as blank
verse was for the Elizabethans. The dramatic convention of the three unities is highly desirable
for it makes for concentration and intensity. The unities do make for intensity, as does verse
rhythm.
Poetic Drama Possible

Thus in The Dialogue, the poet rejects the view that verse drama is artificial, and that it limits
the free expression of emotion. Rather, it expresses the permanent and the universal. Poetic
drama is possible in the modern age only if we evolve suitable artistic conventions.

2. RHETORIC AND POETIC DRAMA

Rhetoric: Its Exact Meaning

In this short essay, written in 1919, Eliot examines the nature of ‘Rhetoric’ and its place in poetic
drama.

In the modern age, rhetoric is out of fashion. It is used as synonymous with bad writing. The
Elizabethan and Jacobean plays are condemned as rhetorical. This is a mistake. We should first
try to understand the exact meaning of the word rhetoric. The assumption that rhetoric is only a
fault of manner, a kind of mannerism, should be avoided. As a matter of fact, there is rhetoric of
substance as well, and such rhetoric is not bad.

True and False Rhetoric

True rhetoric arises when there is an adaptation of our manner to the infinite variety of our
thoughts and feelings on a variety of subjects. We find such an adaptation in Shakespeare, and
hence we can say that he used rhetorical expression in the right way. On the other hand, Kyd
and Marlowe are merely bombastic and dull, for they lack the ability to make such adaptation.
The really fine rhetoric occurs in situations in which a character in the play sees himself in a
dramatic light, or when some character in the play sees another character in a dramatic light.
False rhetoric arises when a character in a play makes a direct appeal to us. A speech in a play
must never appear to be intended to move us, the spectators. We should preserve our position as
spectators, and observe always from outside, though with complete understanding.

The Conversational Style: Its Artificiality

In the modern age there is a marked preference for the ‘conversational’ style, for the style of
direct speech, as opposed to the rhetorical style. But even this conversation style does often
become rhetorical, and is as remote from conversational style or direct to the infinite emotions
and feelings he has to express, otherwise even the so-called conversational style becomes
rhetorical. Such dramatic sense is rare in modern drama.
Dramatic Use of Language

To write a successful poetic drama, it is necessary that the dramatist should take only the typical
and universal human emotions, and give them artistic form. Poetic sense and dramatic
perception must be fused, and the language varied according to emotion and feeling. In poetic
drama, rhetoric is any inflation or adornment of speech which is not done for a particular effect
but for general impressiveness. Rhetoric has a significant place in poetic drama, but it must be
used artistically and dramatically.

Thus Eliot opposes excessive emphasis on realism in language. He favours a dramatic use of
language.

3. FOUR ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS

The Essay: Its Significance

The essay Four Elizabethan Dramatists was written in 1924, to form the Preface to a projected
book on the four Elizabethan dramatists, Webster, Tourneur, Middleton and Chapman.
However, the book was never written. But the essay is significant, for in it we find the main
tendencies of Eliot’s dramatic criticism.

The Separation of Poetry and Drama Unfortunate

Eliot points out that in Charles Lamb’s dramatic criticism we have the origin of the deplorable
separation of drama from poetry or literature. Lamb praised the poetic qualities of Elizabethan
plays, but criticised them for their failure on the stage. Thus arose the opinion that drama and
poetry are two separate things, while in reality they are the two aspects of one and the same
thing. As he tells us elsewhere, at its highest moments all drama tends to be poetic and all poetry
dramatic.

Drama, a Branch of Literature

Similarly, William Archer and Swinburne have given currency to the view that drama and
literature are two separate things. In the opinion of Eliot, the dramatic element and the literary
element are integral to a play and cannot be separated.
The Need of Suitable Conventions

William Archer further points out that the great fault of Elizabethan drama is its lack of realism.
In this respect, modern drama is far superior to the Elizabethan. Eliot does not agree with this
view. In his opinion, the one great fault of Elizabethan drama is its lack of suitable artistic
conventions. This is also the fault of modern drama.

It is essential that there should be suitable dramatic conventions, and the playwrights should
work within those conventions. The Greek drama had such conventions and hence its
superiority. The great weakness of Elizabethan drama, “is not its lack of realism, but its attempt
at realism; not its conventions, but its lack of conventions”. The Elizabethans had no firm idea of
what they aimed at. They had certain unrealistic conventions as, for example, the soliloquy, the
aside and the ghost. Such conventions are neither ridiculous nor bad in themselves; they
become bad, when, working within those conventions, the dramatist aims at realism.

Eliot’s Artistic Ideals

It is this attempt at realism which spoils many a good Elizabethan play. As a matter of fact, there
has been too much of realism in the English drama. There is no doubt that for a work of art, on
the one hand, “actual life is the material, and on the other hand, an abstraction from actual life
is a necessary condition to the creation of a work of art”. There can be no photographic realism
in a play, no complete and faithful mirroring of life. A great work of art arises only when the
artist consciously sets a limit to realism. Art imposes form and pattern upon reality, and this
means withdrawal from life. Art has its own laws and limitations of art. Only poetic drama can
be artistic; realistic prose drama is bad art. In other words, Eliot is opposed to realism in drama.
Drama must take its themes from life, but they must be artistically treated. There should be an
artistic ordering and selecting of material. Thus the essay gives a full and clear exposition of
Eliot’s artistic principles.

4. THE POSSIBILITY OF POETIC DRAMA

The Failure of Poetic Drama in the Modern Age: Eliot’s View

There is no poetic drama in the modern age. Even when poetic plays are written, they are not
successful on the stage. They can be read, but they cannot be acted. They are insipid and
academic. When people are asked the reason for the failure of poetic drama in the modern age, it
is pointed out that conditions are not favourable for the flourishing of poetic drama. Conditions
of life have changed, and there are other forms of literature to divert the attention of the people.
But T.S. Eliot does not agree with these views. In his opinion, poetic drama is possible in the
modern age.

Drama, a Form of Poetry

Charles Lamb separated drama from poetry, and pointed out that the poetic plays of
Shakespeare cannot be staged. Such separation of poetry and drama is wrong and unhealthy in
its influence. In Eliot’s opinion, there can be no separation of poetry and drama, for drama is
only one among several forms of poetry. Drama is simply a form of poetry and not a separate
genre. It is the most permanent form of poetry. It is capable of greater variety than any other
poetic kind.

Dramatic Verse: Echo of Shakespeare Must be Avoided

It was entirely because of the immense expressive powers of dramatic poetry, that the
Elizabethans could express such varied and novel thoughts and images. “Consequently, the
blank verse of their plays accomplished a subtlety and consciousness, even an intellectual power,
that no blank verse since has developed or repeated.” Attempts were made by Wordsworth and
Browning to hammer out new forms for themselves, but they were not successful. Shakespeare
developed the blank verse to the maximum possible extent, and so, to be successful, a modern
dramatist must avoid echoing Shakespeare in his dramatic verse.

Suitable Themes of Poetic Drama

Permanent literature, according to Eliot, is always a presentation, either a presentation of

thought, or a presentation of feeling, through events, actions, and objects of the external world.
In the greatest literature, as in The Dialogues of Plato, there is a representation both of thought
and feeling. But such fusion is very difficult. That is why, Eliot points out, modern poetic drama
must avoid the propagation of any philosophy; it must concentrate on feeling. It may deal with
contemporary problems, but this should be done in an unobtrusive manner.

The Real Aim of Poetic Drama: Entertainment

Drama is primarily an entertainment, and the poetic drama can become popular only if it aims
at entertaining the people. Until now the majority of attempts at poetic drama have begun at the
wrong end. The dramatists have aimed at the small audience which wants poetry. Poetic drama
can be possible in the modern age, only if the dramatists take it as a form of entertainment, and
subject it to the process which would leave it a form of art. If the drama really entertains, the
audience will stand a lot of poetry. That may have been put in it.

5. POETRY AND DRAMA

A Complete Exposition of Eliot’s Theory

Poetry and Drama is a lecture delivered by the poet in 1950, at Harvard University. Not only is it
a complete statement of Eliot’s Theory of Poetic Drama, it also throws valuable light on his own
dramatic practice. He has constantly talked and written about drama and dramatists, and in this
lecture he reviews, expounds and analyses his earlier opinions.

Functional Use of Poetry

Eliot always advocated a revival of poetic drama in the modern age, for he was convinced that
poetic drama can offer much more to the play-goers than prose drama. Poetry should not be
used as a mere decoration to the drama; it should justify itself dramatically. No play should be
written in verse for which prose is dramatically adequate; it should not merely be fine poetry
shaped into a dramatic form. Poetry which merely gives pleasure to a cultured few a superfluous
and is to be avoided.

The Use of Verse: Its Justification

It is generally objected that the use of verse in drama is artificial. But prose used on the stage is
equally artificial. The prose which the characters on the stage speak is as remote in vocabulary,
syntax, and rhythm, from ordinary speech as verse is. Eliot distinguishes between prose, verse,
and ordinary speech, and points out that daily speech is much below the level of either verse or
prose. Dramatic prose is as artificial as verse, and, conversely, verse can be as natural as prose.

The Medium of Communication: Mixture of Prose and Verse Undesirable

The audience, when it hears prose spoken on the stage, does not regard it as different from
ordinary speech; on the contrary, when verse is used, it approaches the play with a
consciousness of such difference. In other words, it is prepared to enjoy the play and the
language of the play as two separate things. This is deplorable, for the effect and enjoyment of
dramatic speech should be unconscious. It is for this reason that the mixture of prose and verse
in the same play must be avoided. “The transition makes the auditor aware, with a jolt, of the
medium.” Such a mixture might have been acceptable in the Elizabethan age, but it must be
avoided in the modern age. Today, there is a prejudice against poetic drama, and so prose
should be used very sparingly. Verse should be made sufficiently elastic to express every
situation and every scene, “and if there prove to be scenes which cannot be put in verse, we must
either develop our verse, or avoid having to introduce such senses.” Prose should be avoided so
that the audience may grow accustomed to verse, and cease to be conscious of it. Verse which is
sufficiently elastic will not be poetry all the time. “It will be poetry only when the dramatic
situation has reached such a point of intensity that poetry becomes the natural utterance,
because then it is the only language in which the emotions can be expressed at all.”

The Right Use of Verse: Its Advantages

There is another reason also why prose should not be used in the modern poetic drama. Verse
should be used throughout, so that the verse-rhythm should have its effect upon the hearers,
without their being conscious of it. The opening scene of Hamlet is the perfect example of the
use of verse in drama. Nothing is superfluous, and there is no line of poetry which is not justified
by its dramatic value. The use of verse here has dramatic inevitability. Moreover, the audience is
not conscious throughout the scene of the medium—whether it is listening to prose or verse.
Thirdly, the verse is transparent; the audience is consciously attending, “not to the poetry, but to
the meaning of the poetry”. It is great poetry, it is dramatic, and it also has a musical design
which intensifies the emotional effect of the scene.

The use of verse in drama is not a mere decoration; it intensifies drama. The effect of such verse
is unconscious and it effects even those who do not like poetry.

Poetic Play in Prose

Eliot then refers to plays which are in reality poetic, even though they are written in prose. The
plays of Synge and Maeterlinck are such plays. But the scope of poetic plays in prose is a limited
one. “The poetic drama in prose is more limited by poetic convention or by our conventions as to
what subject matter is poetic, than is the poetic drama in verse.” A really dramatic verse can be
employed to say the most matter-of-fact things.

Eliot’s Practice of Poetic Drama: “Murder in the Cathedral”

In the second part of the lecture, Eliot examines his own practice of poetic drama. When he took
to writing plays, he realised that the experience he had gained in writing poetry will not be of
much help to him. The problem of communication is not so urgent in poetry as it is in poetic
drama. The dramatist writes with the immediate object of influencing an unknown and
unprepared audience, and what he writes would be interpreted by unknown actors guided by
known producers. Therefore, the artist has to practice great self-control and always keep in
mind the law of dramatic effectiveness. Murder in the Cathedral was his first play, and in this he
had the advantage of having a subject from a remote period of history. This remoteness in time,
and picturesque costumes of another age, make verse easily acceptable. Moreover, it was a
religious play, and to a religious play only those selected few come who can put up with verse.
The play was a success, but in writing this play he did not solve any general problem. For
example, he had not solved the problem of language. The vocabulary and style could not be
modern, for he was writing of a remote period. Neither could he afford to be archaic, for he
wanted to emphasise the contemporary significance of his theme. So he used a neutral style,
neither of the present nor of the past. As for versification, his one great care was to avoid any
echo of Shakespeare, for, after being used for non-dramatic purpose over, a long period of time,
the blank verse of Shakespeare had lost its flexibility and so had become unfit for dramatic
dialogue. The 19th century dramatists failed only because they tried to imitate Shakespeare.
Therefore, he kept in mind the versification of Everyman. “An avoidance of too much Iambic,
some use of alliteration, and an occasional, unexpected rhyme, helped to distinguish the
versification from that of the 19th century.”

Thus in his versification he succeeded in avoiding the echo of Shakespeare, but he could not
develop a verse which could be of general use. Then in this play he had made extensive use of
chorus, for choral verse is easy to write, and in this way he could hide the faults of his dramatic
technique. Moreover, he used prose for the sermons of the Archbishop as well as for the
speeches of the knights. In a way, by choosing a mythological subject, by using the chorus, and
by avoiding traditional blank verse; he had avoided competition with the realistic play. But, if
the poetic drama is to reconquer its place, it must, in my opinion, enter into overt competition
with prose drama. Therefore, for his next play he decided to choose his theme and characters
from the contemporary world, and not to transport his audience to an unreal, artificial world.

“The Family Reunion”: A play in Contemporary Setting

The Family Reunion is a play of modern life. For this play, he worked out a versification close to
the rhythm of modern life, and this very versification he has continued to use ever since. It is a
line of varying length with varying number of syllables, with a caesura and three stresses. Thus
he developed a suitable versification, but it was done at the cost of plot and character. He had
dispensed with the chorus, but he had used four minor characters collectively as chorus, and this
was a device unfit for general use. The speeches of these characters were not related to the
action, while in drama the poetry should not interrupt action, but should be related in some
mysterious way both to character and action. Shakespeare had such skill. True dramatic poetry
is that which, “does not interrupt but intensifies the dramatic situation”. The Family Reunion is
defective because it has poetic passages which are not justified dramatically and secondly, there
is no proper adjustment between the Greek story and the modern situation. The appearance of
the Furies is ridiculous and unfortunate.
“The Cocktail Party”: Its Significance

In his third play, The Cocktail Party, he sought to avoid these faults. There is no chorus, and no
ghost, and the Greek origin of the story is so well concealed that nobody could identify it until
the dramatist himself pointed it out. Besides this, he practised full artistic self-restraint, and
avoided using poetry which was not dramatically justified with such success that it has been
doubted whether there is any poetry at all. He used in it the dramatic device of suspense: it is the
unexpected which frequently happens. He had already worked out a proper idiom and a proper
versification which could serve all purposes without recourse to prose. He had subjected himself
to a long period of self-education, and in this play he put his poetry on a very thin diet in order
to adapt it to all needs of the stage.

Poetic Drama: An Unattainable Ideal: Themes Proper to It

His own practice as a verse dramatist has convinced him that good poetic plays come from poets
learning to write plays, rather than from prose-dramatists learning to write poetry. In the
modern age, verse drama will become acceptable only when it comes from the pen of those who
have already acquired a reputation as poets. Poetic drama is an ideal, an ideal which is
unattainable. Constant exploration and experimentation is necessary for closer and closer
approximation to this ideal. There is a fringe of indefinite feelings, feelings which cannot be
expressed by a prose dramatist. These feelings can be expressed only in poetic drama, at its
moments of greatest intensity. At such moments, dramatic poetry approximates to music, it
imposes order on human actions and feelings, and this design or order is both of poetry and
music. Poetic drama, “brings us to a condition of serenity, stillness, and reconciliation”, by
imposing order upon reality in such a way that we are aware of an order in reality.

6. A CRITICAL REVIEW OF ELIOT’S VIEWS ON

POETIC DRAMA

Eliot’s Dramatic Criticism: Negative and Positive Aspects

Since the very beginning of his literary career, Eliot evinced a keen interest in the problems that
face a verse dramatist and the need and possibility of poetic drama in the modern age. His
dramatic criticism has both a negative and a positive aspect. Negatively, he seeks to demolish
the concept of the superiority of naturalistic prose drama which held the day, and positively he
asserts the need and the possibility of poetic drama in the modern age.
The Use of Verse in Drama: Its Value and Significance

In his view the real opposition or antithesis is not between poetic drama and prose drama, for
there can be poetic drama written in prose. The real antithesis is between poetic drama and
realistic drama. It is erroneous to separate poetry and drama, as has been done by Charles Lamb
in his criticism of the Elizabethan dramatists. As a matter of fact poetry and drama are
inseparable. Poetry is the natural language of men in moments of highest emotional excitement,
and, therefore, at its highest moments drama would grow poetic. It does so in the hands of
skilled dramatists like Shakespeare. The poetry used in drama must be dramatically inevitable.
It must seem to flow out of character and action, and should intensify both character and action.
No poetry should be introduced which is not dramatically justified. Verse should not be a mere
embellishment, a mere superfluity. Such fusion of poetry and drama must be the ideal which the
verse dramatist should constantly keep before him.

Superiority of Verse Over Prose

It has been said that prose is the natural medium of expression, and poetry is artificial and
unnatural. But the use of prose for dramatic dialogue is also artificial; it is as much removed
from the language of daily use as verse. Moreover, the use of a colloquial style and idiom is likely
to grow monotonous, for it can never express the variety of emotions and situations which a
dramatist has to depict. Rhetoric for these reasons has its place in poetic drama. Moreover, the
naturalistic prose deals with the superficial and the ephemeral in situation and emotion; verse
drama, on the other hand, expresses the permanent and the universal. It is also wrong to say
that verse tends to limit the range of emotions. As a matter of fact, the emotional range is
increased by the use of verse.

Eliot’s Artistic Ideals

Just as Eliot opposes realism in the language and diction of drama, so also he opposes realism in
its theme. He lays down the sound artistic principle that though, “on the one hand, actual life is
always the material, on the other hand, an abstraction from actual life is a necessary condition to
the creation of a work of art.” The artist must order and select his material; he must impose
from and order upon reality to make apparent its hidden meaning and significance. There can
be no photographic realism in art; the drama which seeks to portray the problems of real life
cannot be regarded as a great work of art. Poetic drama may use contemporary material, but in
so doing it must order and sift its material. It should deal with those vague and indefinite
feelings which cannot be expressed by prose drama, but which are real and actual all the same.
The Need of Suitable Conventions and Objectives

Eliot asserts that poetic drama is possible in the modern age, but the age is complex, and the
verse-dramatist will have to face complex problems before he can succeed. The one crucial
problem is that of a suitable dramatic convention. The real defect of the Elizabethan dramatists
is not that they lacked realism, but that there was too much realism. Their conventions were
poetic and unreal; the ghost, the soliloquy, the aside, etc. But they had by definite conventions
regarding the aims of drama. Their fault was that working within their poetic conventions, they
aimed at realism, and the result was fantastic and absurd. So, in the modern age suitable
conventions must be developed. The verse dramatists must be clear about their aims. It must be
remembered that drama had its origin in church liturgy. The Mass is the most perfect kind of
drama. This should never be forgotten; the aims of poetic drama can never be purely secular.
They must be ethical and religious as well. Eliot commands the artistic convention of the three
unities, for they impose form and order, and result in greater intensity. Similarly, the use of
verse imparts intensity, as well as imposes form and order on chaotic reality.

The Need of a Suitable Diction and Versification

Besides developing suitable artistic and religious and ethical conventions, the dramatist must
also develop a suitable verse-form. The problem of a suitable medium of communication is a
difficult one, for the dramatist has to communicate to one unknown audience and is interpreted
by an unknown actor. The use of the traditional blank verse should be avoided as it has grown
rigid after its long use for non-dramatic purposes. A more flexible verse-form, capable of
expressing a wide range of emotions, must be developed. Themes and characters must be
contemporary, and colloquial idiom and style, the language of daily life, with proper selection
and modifications, must be used. It is a wrong notion that only mythological subjects and a
remote, archaic style are suited to poetic drama. The style must preserve an illusion of natural
speech, but in fact it should be heightened and remote. There is a fringe of vague, indefinite
feelings which cannot be expressed by the prose-dramatists, but which are real and actual. They
are expressed by the verse dramatists, at moments of highest dramatic intensity. As the
contemporary audiences have been conditioned to prose drama, poetic drama would become
acceptable only when it comes from the pen of those who have already made their mark as
poets.

Poetic Drama, an Unattainable Ideal

Poetic drama imposes form and order on human action and feelings, and makes us conscious of
an order in reality. In other words, at moments of highest intensity it makes us see into the heart
of things, and so results in serenity and spiritual calm. Poetic drama is an ideal and an
unattainable ideal. But greater and greater approximation to this ideal is possible, and with this
end in view the dramatist must carry on constant experimentation and exploration.
Assessment of Eliot’s Theory

Thus Eliot has a well-reasoned theory regarding the nature, function, and possibility of poetic
drama in the modern age. His own effort as a dramatist was to put his theory into practice and
thus to bring about a revival of poetic drama. He may not be a great dramatist, but his dramatic
theory and practice corrected many a wrong notion about poetic drama, exercised a wide
influence, and did much to stimulate interest in poetic drama.

The Revival of Poetic Drama in the Modern Age—Eliot’s

Contribution

19th Century Failure of Poetic Drama: Its Causes

The 19th century in England, says G.S. Frazer, although rich in other kinds of literature, is weak
in drama. Between Sheridan’s School for Scandal and the early Comedies of Oscar Wilde and
Bernard Shaw in the 1890s, no drama of any significance was produced.
The Elizabethan age was a great age of poetic drama, and all through the 19th century
practically all the great poets, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Browning, Arnold, Tennyson, tried
their hands at poetic drama, but failed to bring about a revival of this literary genre. As Eliot
puts it, at the opening of the century, there were plays written by poets who had no
knowledge of the stage, or by men who knew the stage but were no poets at all. The 19th
century verse drama failed because it was not a ‘whole’, it was a hotch-potch of farce,
rhetoric, and melodrama. Besides this, the shadow of Shakespeare was always there. All
verse-dramatists tried to use the traditional blank verse. That is why Galsworthy says, “the
shadow of the man Shakespeare was across the path of all who should attempt verse drama in
those days.” Further, there was a tradition of Shakespearean scholarship, but the emphasis
was laid on the study of individual scenes and passages, rather than on the plays as dramatic
wholes.

Failure of Prose Drama: The Rise of Poetic Drama

English poetic drama in the present century arose as a reaction to the naturalistic prose drama
of Ibsen, Shaw and Galsworthy. By the second decade of the century, this prose drama had
reached a dead end. On the whole, this prose drama, in a decadent stage after the best work of
Shaw, had failed to grasp the depth, tension and complexity of contemporary life. It was a mere
entertainment and did not maintain any high levels. It concerned itself entirely with social and
economic problems to the entire exclusion of deeper and more fundamental issues. It aimed at
photographic realism, avoided the romantic and the poetic, and had grown too intellectual and
sophisticated. It appealed to the mind rather than to the heart. The result was that a number of
writers, who had made their first reputation as poets, and not as dramatists, tried to revive the
tradition of verse play for the “Little Theatre”, i.e. theatre for specialised audiences. Herod, the
first poetic-play of Stephen Phillips, appeared in 1901, and this marks the beginning of the
revival of poetic drama in the 20th century. Irish dramatists, like W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, Sean
O’Casey, also played a significant part in the moment for the revival of verse play. Other great
names in the revival movement are John Masefield, Cristopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden,
Stephen Spender, and Cristopher Fry. However, it is T.S. Eliot who, both through his theory and
practice of poetic drama, has achieved considerable success in establishing tradition of poetic
plays in the 20th century.

Eliot: Creation of Suitable Atmosphere

Eliot took to writing plays comparatively late in his career; he came to theatre as a mature critic
and poet. He had a full understanding of the nature of poetic drama, the difference between
verse drama and prose drama, the causes of the failure of 19th century verse dramatists, the
problem, technical and otherwise, which face a writer of verse plays in the modern age. Through
his critical writings, he tried to demolish many of the misconceptions about verse drama,
emphasised its superiority over prose drama, and in this way created a favourable atmosphere,
“a current of fresh ideas”, as Matthew Arnold would put it, for the flourishing of poetic drama.
Through his own practice, he showed that verse drama is possible in the modern age.

Solved the Thematic Problem

Eliot emphasised that there are certain conditions which must be fulfilled before success can be
achieved in this field. First, it must be realised that the difference between prose drama and
verse drama is not merely one of medium. The themes of the two are, and must be different.
Poetic drama has been thought fit only for such themes as cannot be appropriately dealt with by
the naturalistic prose drama T.S. Eliot writes, “…..no play should be written in verse for which
prose is dramatically adequate”. The dramatic adequacy then demands a poignant theme,
involving symbolic characters with imaginative atmosphere; this means a fall back on the
elemental, emotional realities of life in contradistinction to the socio-economic issues which
constitute the realm of the naturalistic prose drama. Through his practice, Eliot solved the
thematic problem. His verse-plays are not concerned with socio-economic problems; they are
concerned not with the outer, but with the inner emotional and psychic realities. Thus the core
of his first play, Murder in the Cathedral, is the psychic struggle of the hero with the temptations
offered to him, and that of The Family Reunion the psychological guilt-complex of Harry, the
hero of the play; The Cocktail Party is a study in the awareness of personal inadequacies of
married life in the modern context. In these plays, he has also demonstrated the relevance of
religion to all human activity. They are all Christian plays, the purpose of the dramatist being,
“to train people to be able to think in Christian categories.” In this way, “Eliot has been
contributing to the creation of the kind of wholeness of outlook without which poetic drama
cannot be accepted as the normal mode of drama.”

—(D.E. Jones)
Evolved Suitable Medium of Communication

The second pre-condition for the success of a poetic play is the availability of a form of verse, the
rhythms of which are closer to those of the spoken language, and which is flexible enough to be
organised into the word-order of dialogue. Blank verse was such a verse with the Elizabethan
dramatists. But its continued use or non-dramatic purposes had exhausted its potentialities, so
that by the time the renaissance of poetic drama started, it had become a handicap. T.S. Eliot
achieved success after a lot of experimentation. Murder in the Cathedral marks the first
conspicuous success of his experimentation: with its neutral style and avoidance of the echoes of
Shakespearean blank verse, it had only a negative value in that, “it succeeded in avoiding what
had to be avoided, but it arrived at no positive novelty.” With The Family Reunion he succeeded
in evolving a rhythm-pattern closer to the contemporary spoken language with, “a line of
varying length and varying number of syllables, with a caesura and three stresses. The caesura
and the stresses may come at different places, almost anywhere in the line; the stresses may be
close together or well-separated by light syllables; the only rule being that there must be one
stress on one side of the caesura and two on the other.” In The Cocktail Party he put his verse on
a very thin diet, and used contemporary idiom and rhythm.

Emphasised the Functional Value of Poetry

The third important condition is that poetry must not be used as a mere decoration. Poetry is
not an embellishment to look at, but a medium to be looked through. Eliot distinguishes
between false and true rhetoric and says that the employment of false rhetorical utterances is
incompatible with the concept of poetry as a medium. The presence of false rhetoric not only
brings to consciousness the remoteness of the rhetorical dialogue from the spoken language, but
also exploits the sentiments of the auditors, and in this way destroys the dramatic detachment of
the audience. The contention that poetry should become a medium, and not a decoration,
implies that it should serve the following purposes: first through poetic images as the objective
correlatives of the states of mind, poetry should help in the revelation of the personality—
pattern of the characters; secondly, through poetic symbolism it should work out the
implications of the theme; thirdly, the scenic setting of the play should be revealed through
poetic manipulations of references.

Poetic Plays on Contemporary Themes; Conditioned the Response of the Audience

The fourth and the last condition for the successful revival of poetic drama, according to Eliot, is
the re-orientation of the attitude of the audience. The Elizabethan audience accepted with,
“willing suspension of disbelief, the convention of making the high personages speak in verse
and the low in prose. No such frame of mind exist today, with the result that the attention of
audience is distracted from the play to poetry, the moment any character starts speaking in
verse. The situation is worsened by mixture of poetry and prose in the same play, because the
transition from the one to the other mode of speaking makes the audience much more conscious
of the difference between the two; in juxtaposition with the prose, the poetic mode of speaking
looks all the more artificial. Thus a dramatist should avoid any mixture of the two. “As I have
said”, writes T.S. Eliot, “people are prepared to put up with verse from the lips of personages
dressed in the fashion of some distant age; they should be made to hear it from people dressed
like ourselves, living in houses and apartments like ours, and using telephones and motor cars
and radio sets what we have to do is to bring poetry into the world in which the audience lives
and to which it returns when it leaves the theatre; not to transport the audience into some
imaginary world totally unlike its own, an unreal world in which poetry is tolerated……”. It was
in keeping with this theory that after The Murder in the Cathedral, he wrote four plays in
contemporary setting with remarkable success. In this way says T.S. Pearce, “in choosing to
write poetic dramas about common, everyday experiences, Eliot was undertaking the most
startling experiment of all his works. At no period, had any previous writer attempted to do
anything like this.”

Demolished Popular Fallacies

Fifthly, Eliot, through his critical writings, demolished the fallacy that in the history of a nation
there can be only one great age of poetic drama. The age of Elizabeth in England, the 5th century
in Greece, and the 17th century in France, were great ages of poetic drama, and there had not
been another greater age of verse plays in any of these countries. Eliot rejected such fatalistic
philosophies, as he called them, and emphasised that verse is the natural language of men at
moments of intense, emotional excitement. A poetic dramatist makes articulate the deeper
passions of men. Besides, he emphasized, “the craving for poetic drama is permanent in human
nature.” Poetic drama, he said, is possible in the 20th century, but, “it cannot be the work of one
man or of one generation working together, but has to evolve by the small contributions of a
number of people in succession, each contributing a little.” Poetic drama in the modern age
must be a social creation. He placed a high ideal of verse drama before his age, an ideal which he
said was unattainable. But constant experimentation and exploration were necessary for greater
and greater approximation to the ideal. Every age has its own requirements and its own tools.
Verse dramatists in the modern age must avoid looking like Shakespeare. They should work
within the framework of naturalism, and transform it by constant effort. He could achieve such
success only because his approach to the problem was a practical one.

Another popular fallacy was the belief that verse is artificial, and the use of prose is natural and
realistic. He pointed out that prose as used for dramatic dialogue is as different from
conversational speech as verse. The drama itself is an illusion; it is something artificial. Verse is
equally suitable for drama, only the playright should use the contemporary idiom, and try to
make his verse flexible enough to suit all situations and all characters. This flexibility can be
acquired only through long and painstaking efforts. In his own practice, he demonstrated that a
verse can be achieved which allows the dramatist, “to modulate deftly from passages of light and
rapid conversation, in the key of comedy, to passages expressing grave disquiet or, as at the end
of Elder Statesman, grave serenity.”

—(G.S. Frazer)
Demonstrated the Wide Range of Poetic Drama

Further, Eliot emphasised that instead of limiting the emotional range, the use of verse enlarges
the appeal and influence of the play. Verse drama can appeal to the most varied audience:

“For the simplest auditors there is the plot, for the more literary the words and phrasing, for
more musically sensitive the rhythm, and for auditors of greater sensitiveness and
understanding a meaning which reveals itself gradually.”

His own dramas bear out this increased range and capability of poetic drama. On the surface,
they have many of the characteristics of contemporary farces, comedies of manner, and
melodramas. Beneath the surface, there is an underpattern for the more sensitive and conscious
among the audience. There is thus a doubleness of action, as if it took place on two planes at
once. This sense of a higher pattern is conveyed through phrase and imagery; it cannot be
conveyed through the use of prose.

Enlarged the Scope and Solved Its Problems

Eliot took a considerable step forward towards establishing a tradition of poetic drama in the
20th century. He demonstrated that contemporary setting and themes can be the subjects of
poetic drama, and in this way enlarged the scope of the verse-play. He solved the medium of
communication. He succeeded in developing a verse-form which has grown from contemporary
idiom, which suggests the contemporary environment, which approaches prose very closely—yet
remains sufficiently far from it so as not jar on the ears when a more heightened verse is used—
and which can be spoken to an ordinary audience by an ordinary actor. He could invent plots
which entertain, but which also put across a Christian vision of the world without becoming
didactic or sentimental. He could succeed in dramatising complex states of our spiritual and
moral being. He could do all this, and it is a creditable achievement. A long step forward has
been taken. But, as he himself emphasised, the creation of a poetic drama is a social function.
Eliot’s work must be taken up and carried on by his successors, before his dream of a powerful
tradition of verse drama in the modern age can be realised.
Tradition and The Individual Talent - CRITICAL SUMMARY
A Manifesto of Eliot’s Critical Creed

The essay Tradition and Individual Talent was first published in 1919, in the Times Literary
Supplement, as a critical article. The essay may be regarded as an unofficial manifesto of Eliot’s
critical creed, for it contains all those critical principles from which his criticism has been
derived ever since. The seeds which have been sown here come to fruition in his subsequent
essays. It is a declaration of Eliot’s critical creed, and these principles are the basis of all his
subsequent criticism.

Its Three Parts

The essay is divided into three parts. The first part gives us Eliot’s concept of tradition, and in
the second part is developed his theory of the impersonality of poetry. The short, third part is in
the nature of a conclusion, or summing up of the whole discussion.

Traditional Elements: Their Significance

Eliot begins the essay by pointing out that the word ‘tradition’ is generally regarded as a word of
censure. It is a word disagreeable to the English ears. When the English praise a poet, they
praise him for those-aspects of his work which are ‘individual’ and original. It is supposed that
his chief merit lies in such parts. This undue stress on individuality shows that the English have
an uncritical turn of mind. They praise the poet for the wrong thing. If they examine the matter
critically with an unprejudiced mind, they will realise 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. To quote
his own words: “Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice, we shall often find that
not only the best, but the most individual part of his work may be those in which the dead poets,
his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.’
The Literary Tradition: Ways in Which It Can Be Acquired

This brings Eliot to a consideration of the value and significance of tradition. Tradition does not
mean a blind adherence to the ways of the previous generation or generations. This would be
mere slavish imitation, a mere repetition of what has already been achieved, and “novelty is
better than repetition.” Tradition in the sense of passive repetition is to be discouraged. 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 the labour of knowing
the past writers. It is the critical labour of sifting the good from the bad, and of knowing what is
good and useful. Tradition can be obtained only by those who have the historical sense. The
historical sense involves a perception, “not only of the pastness of the past, but also of its
presence: One who has the historic sense feels that the whole of the literature of Europe from
Homer down to his own day, including the literature of his own country, forms one continuous
literary tradition” He realises that the past exists in the present, and that the past and the
present form one simultaneous order. This historical sense is the sense of the timeless and the
temporal, as well as of the timeless and the temporal together. It is this historic sense which
makes a writer traditional. 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. In brief, the sense of tradition implies (a) a recognition of the continuity
of literature, (b) a critical judgment as to which of the writers of the past continue to be
significant in the present, and (c) a knowledge of these significant writers obtained through
painstaking effort. Tradition represents the accumulated wisdom and experience of ages, and so
its knowledge is essential for really great and noble achievements.

Dynamic Conception of Tradition: Its Value

Emphasising further the value of tradition, Eliot points out that no writer has his value and
significance in isolation. To judge the work of a poet or an artist, we must compare and contrast
his work with the works of poets and artist in the past. Such comparison and contrast is
essential for forming an idea of the real worth and significance of a new writer and his work.
Eliot’s conception of tradition is a dynamic one. According to his view, tradition is not anything
fixed and static; it is constantly changing, growing, and becoming different from what it is. A
writer in the present must seek guidance from the past, he must conform to the literary
tradition. But just as the past directs and guides the present, so the present alters and modifies
the past. 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. 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. To quote the words of Eliot himself: “The existing
monuments form and ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of
the new (really 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.” Every great poet like Virgil, Dante, or Shakespeare, adds
somebiing to the literary tradition out of which the future poetry will be written.
The Function of Tradition

The work of a poet in the present is to be compared and contrasted with works of the past, and
judged by the standards of the past. But this judgment does not mean determining good or bad.
It does not mean deciding whether the present work is better or worse than works of the past.
An author in the present is certainly not to be judged by the principles and the standards of the
past. The comparison is to be made for knowing the facts, all the facts, about the new work of
art. 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 us to
understand the present, and the present throws light on the past. It is in this way alone that we
can form an idea of what is really individual and new. It is by comparison alone that we can sift
the traditional from the individual elements in a given work of art.

Sense of Tradition: Its Real Meaning

Eliot now explains further what he means by a sense of tradition. The sense of tradition does not
mean that the poet should try to know the past as a whole, take it to be a lump or mass without
any discrimination. Such a course is impossible as well as undesirable. The past must be
examined critically and only the significant in it should be acquired. The sense of tradition does
not also mean that the poet should know only a few poets whom he admires. This is a sign of
immaturity and inexperience. Neither should a poet be content merely to know some particular
age or period which he likes. This may be pleasant and delightful, but it will not constitute a
sense of tradition. A sense of tradition in the real sense means a consciousness, “of the main
current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations”. In
other words, to know the tradition, the poet must judge critically what are the main trends and
what are not. He must confine himself to the main trends to the exclusion of all that is incidental
or topical. The poet must possess the critical gift in ample measure. He must also realise that the
main literary trends are not determined by the great poets alone. Smaller poets also are
significant. They are not to be ignored.

Works of Art: Their Permanence

The poet must also realise that art never improves, though its material is never the same. The
mind of Europe may change, but this change does not mean that great writers like Shakespeare
and Homer have grown outdated and lost their significance. The great works of art never lose
their significance, for there is no qualitative improvement in art. There may be refinement, there
may be development, but from the point of view of the artist there is no improvement. (For
example, it will not be correct to say that the art of Shakespeare is better and higher than that of
Eliot. Their works are of different kinds, for the material on which they worked was different.)
Awareness of the Past: The Poet’s Duty to Acquire It

T.S. Eliot is conscious of the criticism that will be made of his theory of tradition. His view of
tradition requires, it will be said, a ridiculous amount of erudition. It will be pointed out that
there have been great poets who were not learned, and further that too much learning kills
sensibility. However, knowledge does not merely mean bookish knowledge, and the capacity for
acquiring knowledge differs from person to person. Some can absorb knowledge easily, while
others must sweat for it. Shakespeare, for example, could know more of Roman history from
Plutarch than most men can from the British Museum. It is the duty of every poet to acquire, to
the best of his ability, this knowledge of the past, and he must continue to acquire this
consciousness throughout his career. Such awareness of tradition, sharpens poetic creation.

Impersonality of Poetry: Extinction of Personality

The artist must continually surrender himself to something which is more valuable than himself,
i.e. the literary tradition. He must allow his poetic sensibility to be shaped and modified by the
past. He must continue to acquire the sense of tradition throughout his career. In the beginning,
his self, his individuality, may assert itself, but as his powers mature there must be greater and
greater extinction of personality. He must acquire greater and greater objectivity. His emotions
and passions must be depersonalised; he must be as impersonal and objective as a scientist. The
personality of the artist is not important; the important thing is his sense of tradition. A good
poem is a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written. He must forget his personal
joys and sorrows, and he absorbed in acquiring a sense of tradition and expressing it in his
poetry. Thus, the poet’s personality is merely a medium, having the same significance as a
catalytic agent, or a receptacle in which chemical reactions take place. That is why Eliot holds
that, “Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon
thepoetry.”

The Poetic Process: The Analogy of the Catalyst

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. Just as chemical reactions take place in the presence of a catalyst alone,
so also the poet’s mind is the catalytic agent for combining different emotions into something
new. 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 new combinations of emotions and experiences to take
place, but it itself does not undergo any change during the process of poetic combination. The
mind of the poet is constantly forming emotions and experiences into new wholes, but the new
combination does not contain even a trace of the poet’s mind, just as the newly formed
sulphurous acid does not contain any trace of platinum. In the case of a young and immature
poet, his mind, his personal emotions and experiences, may find some expression in his
composition, but, says Eliot, “the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him
“will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.” The test of the maturity of an artist is
the completeness with which his men digests and transmutes the passions which form the
substance of his poetry. The man suffers, i.e. has experiences, but it is his mind which
transforms his experiences into something new and different. The personality of the poet does
not find expression in his poetry; it acts like a catalytic agent in the process of poetic
composition.

Emotions and Feelings

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 only or out of feelings only, or
out of both. T.S. Eliot here distinguishes between emotions and feelings, but he does not state
what this difference is, “Nowhere else in his writings”, says A.G. George, “is this distinction
maintained’, neither does he adequately distinguish between the meaning of the two words”.
The distinction should, therefore, be ignored, more so as it has no bearing on his impersonal
theory of poetry.

Poetry as Organisation: Intensity of the Poetic Process

Eliot next compares the poet’s mind to a jar or receptacle in which are stored numberless
feelings, emotions, etc., which remain there in an unorganised and chaotic form till, “all the
particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together.” Thus poetry is
organisation rather than inspiration. And the greatness of a poem does not depend upon the
greatness or even the intensity of the emotions, which are the components of the poem, but
upon the intensity of the process of poetic composition. Just as a chemical reaction takes place
under pressure, so also intensity is needed for the fusion of emotions. The more intense the
poetic process, the greater the poem. There is always a difference between the artistic emotion
and the personal emotions of the poet. For example, the famous Ode to Nightingale of Keats
contains a number of emotions which have nothing to do with the Nightingale. “The difference
between art and the event is always absolute.” The poet has no personality to express, he is
merely a medium in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected
ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may find no place in his
poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may have no significance for the man.
Eliot thus rejects romantic subjectivism.
Artistic Emotion: The Value of Concentration

The emotion of poetry is different from the personal emotions of the poet. His personal
emotions may be simple or crude, but the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined. It
is the mistaken notion that the poet must express new emotions that results in much eccentricity
in poetry. It is not the business of the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary
emotions, but he must impart to them a new significance and a new meaning. And it is not
necessary that they should be his personal emotions. Even emotions which he has never
personally experienced can serve the purpose of poetry. (For example, emotions which result
from the reading of books can serve his turn.) Eliot rejects Wordsworth’s theory of poetry
having, “its origin in emotions recollected in tranquillity”, and points out that in the process of
poetic composition there is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor tranquillity. In the poetic
process, there is only concentration of a number of experiences, and a new thing results from
this concentration. And this process of concentration is neither conscious nor deliberate; it is a
passive one. There is, no doubt, that there are elements in the poetic process which are
conscious and deliberate. The difference between a good and a bad poet is that a bad poet is
conscious where he should be unconscious and unconscious where he should be conscious. It is
this consciousness of the wrong kind which makes a poem personal, whereas mature art must be
impersonal. But Eliot does not tell us when a poet should be conscious, and when not. The point
has been left vague and indeterminate.

Poetry, an Escape from Personality and Personal Emotions

The poet concludes: “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.” Thus Eliot does not deny
personality or emotion to the poet. Only, he must depersonalise his emotions. There should be
an extinction of his personality. This impersonality can be achieved only when poet surrenders
himself completely to the work that is to be done. And the poet can know what is to be done,
only if he acquires a sense of tradition, the historic sense, which makes him conscious, not only
of the present, but also of the present moment of the past, not only of what is dead, but of what
is already living.

THE METAPHYSICAL POETS: DISSOCIATION - CRITICAL

SUMMARY

The Essay: Its Significance

Eliot’s essay on The Metaphysical Poets was first published as a review of J.C. Grierson’s edition
of Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the 17th Century. But the essay is much more than a mere
review. It is a critical document of much value and significance. It is an important landmark in
the history of English literary criticism, it has brought about a revaluation and reassessment of
Donne and other Metaphysical poets, and has caused a revival of interest in these poets who had
been neglected for a considerable time. It is in this essay that Eliot has used, for the first time,
the phrases Dissociation of Sensibility and Unification of Sensibility, phrases which have
acquired worldwide currency and which, ever since, have had a far reaching impact on literary
criticism.

Eliot’s Purpose

Eliot begins the essay by praising Grierson’s scholarly edition of metaphysical lyrics and poems
of the 17th century. This book is an admirable piece of criticism in itself, as well as a provocation
to criticism. It is a great irritant to thought. It sets Eliot himself thinking, and he proposes to
consider the significance of the label ‘Metaphysical’ which has generally been used as a term of
abuse to indicate the quaint tastes of these poets, and also to examine whether the so-called
‘metaphysical’ poets constituted a school or movement in themselves, or were they merely a
continuation of some older tradition.

Difficulties in the Way

Eliot is quite conscious of the difficulties of the task he has undertaken. First, it is difficult to
define the term, “metaphysical” and explain the characteristics which differentiate metaphysical
poetry from other kinds of poetry. Secondly, it is difficult to decide which poets practised it and
which did not, and which of their verses have such characteristics. In the beginning of the 17th
century, there are noticeable three different schools of poetry: First, there is Donne, a late
Elizabethan, and Marvell and Bishop King who are very close to him. Secondly, there is Ben
Jonson and his, courtly school, of poetry, a kind of poetry which expired in the next century in
the verses of Prior. Thirdly, there is the religious poetry of Herbert, Vaughan and Crashaw. It is
difficult to find characteristics which are common to all those poets, and which are dominant
enough to mark out these poets as constituting a separate, distinct group.

Metaphysical Poetry: Its Characteristics

Eliot then proceeds to examine one by one with suitable illustrations the characteristics which
are generally considered ‘metaphysical’. First, there is the elaboration of a simile to the farthest
possible extent to be met with frequently in the poetry of Donne and Cowley. The most striking
instance of such elaboration is the famous conceit of a pair of compasses in Donne’s A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. Secondly, there is the device of the development of an image
by rapid association of thought requiring considerable agility on the part of the reader. For
example, in Donne’s A Valediction: of Weeping, we got three separate images: the picture of the
geographer’s globe, the tears of the poet’s beloved, and the picture of the Great Flood. Though
these three pictures are entirely separate, the poet has unified them by stressing the likeness
between his lady’s tears and the globe, and further that they are capable of overflowing the
earth. Thirdly, on other occasions Donne produces his effects by sudden contrasts. Thus in the
line, “A bracelet of bright hair about the bone”, the most powerful effect is produced by sudden
contrast of the associations of ‘bright hair’ and ‘bone’. But such telescoping of images and
contrast of associations are not a characteristic of the poetry of Donne alone. It also
characterises Elizabethan dramatists like Shakespeare, Webster, Tourneur and Middleton. This
suggests that Donne, Cowley and others belong to the Elizabethan tradition and not to any new
school. The dominant characteristics of Donne’s poetry are also the characteristics of the great
Elizabethans.

Dr. Johnson’s Definition

Eliot then takes up Dr. Johnson’s famous definition of metaphysical poetry, in which the great
doctor has tried to define this poetry by its faults. Dr. Johnson in his Life of Cowley points out
that in Metaphysical poetry “the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked violence together”. They
bringing together of heterogeneous ideas and compelling them into unity by the operation of the
poet’s mind is universal in poetry. Countless instances of such fusion of opposite and dissimilar
concepts can be cited at random from all poets. Such unity is present even in the poetry of
Johnson himself. The force of Dr. Johnson’s remark lies in the fact that in his view the
Metaphysical poetry could only Yoke by violence dissimilar ideas. They could unite them or fuse
them into a single whole. But this is not a fact. A number of poets of this school have eminently
succeeded in uniting heterogeneous ideas. Eliot quotes from Herbert Cowley, Bishop King and
other poets in support of his contention. Therefore, he concludes that Metaphysical poetry
cannot be differentiated from other poetry by Dr. Johnson’s definition. The fault which the
learned doctor points out is not there, and the unity of heterogeneous ideas is common to all
poetry.

The Special Virtue of the Metaphysicals

As a matter of fact, it is futile to try to define metaphysical poetry by its faults. Even such a
shrewd and sensitive critic as Dr. Johnson failed to do so. Eliot, therefore, purposes to use the
opposite method, the positive approach, and point out the characteristic virtue of this school of
poetry. He would show that Donne and the other poets of the 17th century, “were the direct and
normal development of the precedent age”, and that their characteristic virtue was something
valuable which subsequently disappeared. Dr. Johnson has rightly pointed out that these poets
were ‘analytic’; they were given too much analysis and direction of particular emotional
situations. But he has failed to see that they could also unite into new wholes the concepts they
had analysed. Eliot would show that their special virtue was the fusion of heterogeneous
material into a new unity after its dissociation. In other words, he would show that metaphysical
poetry is distinguished from other poetry by unification of sensibility, and that subsequently,
dissociation of sensibility, overtook English poetry, and this was unfortunate.
Unification of Sensibility

The great Elizabethans and early Jacobians had a developed unified sensibility which is
expressed in their poetry. By ‘sensibility’ Eliot does not merely mean feeling or the capacity to
receive sense impressions. He means much more than that. By ‘sensibility’ he means a synthetic
faculty which can amalgamate and unite thought and feeling, which can fuse into a single whole
the varied and disparate, often opposite and contradictory experiences. The Elizabethans had
such a sensibility. They were widely read, they thought on what they read, and their thinking
and learning modified their mode of feeling. Thus in the poetry of Chapman and others there is,
“a sensuous apprehension of thought”—a unification of thought and feeling—and a recreation of
thought into feeling. Their reading and thinking alters theirs feeling, this modified feeling is
expressed in their poetry, and hence their unification or synthesis of thought and feeling. Eliot
gives concrete illustrations to show that such unification of sensibility, such fusion of thought
and feeling, is to be found in the poetry of Donne as well as in much of modern poetry, but it is
lacking in the poetry of Tennyson.

Dissociation of Sensibility

The fact is that after Donne and Herbert a change came over the mind of England. The poets lost
the capacity of uniting thought and feeling. The ‘unification of sensibility’ was lost, and
‘dissociation of sensibility’ set in. After that the poets can either think or they can feel; there are
either intellectual poets who can only think, or there are poets, who can only feel. The poets of
the 18th century were intellectuals, they thought but did not feel; the romantics of the 19th
century felt but did not think. Tennyson and Browning can merely reflect or ruminate, i.e.
mediate poetically on their experience, but cannot express it poetically. Eliot expresses this view
in words which have become famous, which are frequently quoted, and which clearly bring out
his capacity for ‘trenchant phasing’, his originality and critical insight. He writes: “Tennyson and
Browning are poets and they think; but they do not fell their thought as immediately as the
odour of a rose. A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility. When a poet’s
mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experience; the
ordinary man’s experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. The latter falls in love, or reads
Spinoza and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of the
typewriter or the smell of cooking, in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming
new wholes.”

Metaphysical Sensibility

In other words, the metaphysical poets had a mechanism of sensibility—a unified sensibility—
which enabled them to assimilate and fuse into new wholes most disparate and heterogeneous
experiences. They could feel their thoughts as intensely as the odour of a rose, that is to say they
could express their thoughts through sensuous imagery. In his poems, Donne express his
thoughts and ideas by embodying them in sensuous imagery and it is mainly through the
imagery that the unification of sensibility finds its appropriate expression. The operation of the
unified sensibility in Donne may be illustrated by the following lines from Dante’s Paradise:
Within its depths I saw ingathered, bound by love in one mass, the scattered leaves of the
universe: substance and accidents and their relations, as though together fused, so that what I
speak of is in one simple flame. In the above lines the spiritual experience, which is so very
different from the ordinary experience, has been expressed by Dante concretely by a masterly
use of the imagery of light. Dante has given expression to his spiritual experience in sensuous
terms, in a visual image, the simple flame. This is also frequently the method of Donne.

Milton and Dryden: Their Influence

In this respect, the poets of the 17th century were the successors of the Elizabethan dramatists.
Like them, the Metaphysicals, too, could be simple, artificial, difficult or fantastic. Then came
Milton and Dryden, and their influence was most unhealthy, because as a result of their
influence there set in a ‘dissociation of sensibility’ from which English poetry has recovered only
in one modern age. Both Milton and Dryden were great poets and they rendered important
service to the cause, of poetry. Under their influence, the English language became more pure
and refined. But at the same time, the feeling became more crude. It is for this reason that the
feeling expressed in Gray’s Country Churchyard is cruder and less satisfying than the feeling
expressed in Marvell’s Coy Mistress.

There was another effect of the influence of Milton and Dryden, an effect which was indirect and
which manifested itself at a later date. Early in the 18th century there was a reaction against the
intellectual and ratiocinative (given to reasoning and argumentation) poetry of the pseudo-
classics. The pendulum swung to the other extreme, and the poets thought and felt by fits and
starts. They lacked balance and they reflected. By ‘reflection’ Eliot means that they ‘ruminated’,
they ‘mused’, they ‘mediated poetically’, they enjoyed the luxury of dwelling upon some feeling,
but could not express that feeling poetically. In some passages of Shelley’s Triumph of Life and
in Keats’ second Hyperion, we find a struggle toward a unification of sensibility. But Shelley and
Keats died young, and their successors, Tennyson and Browning, could only reflect. They
mediated upon their experiences poetically, but failed to turn them into poetry. The
Metaphysical poets certainly had their faults. But they had one great virtue. They tried, and
often succeeded in expressing their states of mind and feeling in appropriate words and
imagery. They had ‘unified sensibility’ and they could find verbal equivalents for it. They were,
therefore, more mature and better than later poets.

The Modern Age: Its Metaphysical Temper

Eliot then proceeds to examine the close similarity between the age of Donne and the modern
age, and the consequent similarity between the sensibility of the Metaphysicals and the modern
poets. The Metaphysicals are difficult and the poet in the modern age is also bound to be
difficult. As he puts it, “Our Civilization comprehends great variety and complexity, and this
variety and complexity, playing upon a refined sensibility, must produce various and complex
results. The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in
order to force, to dislocate, if necessary, language into his meaning.” Hence the modern poet
also uses concepts and methods very much similar to those of the Metaphysicals who also lived
in complex and rapidly changing times. Like them the modern poet also transmutes into
sensations, and transforms feelings into thought or states of mind.

In other words, Donne and the other Metaphysicals are in the direct current of English poetry,
and the modern poets are their direct descendants. This current flows direct from the
Elizabethan age right upto the modern age. Only, and unfortunately, this continuity was broken
for some time under the influence of Milton and Dryden who are great masters of language, but
not of the soul. The poet must look not only into their hearts and write, but also they must look
in to “the cerebral cortex, the nervous system and the digestive tracts.’“ The poet has different
faculties and sensibilities, must achieve a unification of his sensibilities, and must express this
unified sensibility into his poetry. Only such a poetry would be complete; but it would be
complex and difficult. The Metaphysicals, as well as the moderns, have this complexity, and also
this completeness and maturity.

The Essay: Its Significance

Eliot’s essay on The Metaphysical Poets is one of the most significant critical documents of the
modern age. Eliot has thrown new light on the metaphysical poets, and shown that they are
neither quaint nor fantastic, but great and mature poets. They do not represent a digression
from the mainstream of English poetry, but rather a continuation of it. His theory of the
‘dissociation of sensibility’, has caused much critical re-valuation and rethinking. In the words of
Frank Kermode, the poets henceforth began, “to charge their thinking with passion, to restore to
poetry a truth independent of the presumptuous intellect.”

What is a Classic by T.S. Eliot - CRITICAL SUMMARY

Introduction and Appreciation

‘What is a classic?’ is the Presidential address delivered by Eliot to the Virgil Society in 1944. It
was first published in his volume of essays entitled On Poets and Poetry in 1957. It is a thought-
provoking essay in which Eliot expresses his views on the distinguishing features of classic art
and literature.

The question “What is a classic?” has always been asked since times immemorial, and most
varied answers have been given. The word classic has been used merely to mean a “standard
author”. It has been used for either Greek and Latin literatures in toto or the greatest authors of
these languages. The term “Classic” has also been used as an antithesis to the term “Romantic”.
The word would continue to have most varied meanings in varied contexts. But in the present
chapter, Eliot is concerned with one particular meaning of the word in one context, his purpose
being to show that Virgil alone is a ‘classic’ in the true sense of the word.

As a result of the classic-romantic controversy, the word ‘classic’ sometimes implies highest
praise, and at other times the greatest abuse according to the party to which one belongs. It
implies certain merits or certain faults. Those of the classical school praise classical art of its
perfection of form; those of the romantic school criticise it for its absolute lack of passion.
Classical literature has certain qualities, but that does not mean that all great literatures, or
great authors should have all those qualities. All those qualities, may be found in Virgil but that
does not mean that he is the greatest of all poets, or that Latin literature is greater than all other
literatures. Or if no author or period in any literature is completely classical, as is the case with
English, it does not mean that it is defective or inferior in quality. Literatures, like English, in
which the classical qualities are scattered between different authors and periods, may be the
richer for this very reason. The conditions of a language, and the history of the people may be
such that a completely classical period or author may be out of the question. Rome was lucky in
as much as its history was such, and such is he character of the Latin language that at a
particular moment a uniquely classical poet could be possible in it. But it required a life-time of
labour for that poet (Virgil) to acquire the classical qualities. But Virgil himself never knew that
he was acquiring classical qualities. It is only in historical perspective that a classic can be
known as such.

The outstanding quality of a classic is maturity. A classic can only occur when a civilization is
mature; when a language and a literature are mature; and it must be the work of a mature mind.
To define and explain the word mature is difficult. But if a person is mature and educated he can
easily recognise his quality of maturity in an author or a literature. For example, every reader of
Shakespeare can easily realise the gradual maturing of Shakespeare’s art, the rapid maturing of
Elizabethan drama and a decline in its maturity in the next age. Similarly, a comparison between
Marlowe’s play and Shakespeare’s early plays clearly brings out that Marlowe matured more
rapidly than Shakespeare. A writer who individually has a more mature mind, may belong to a
less mature period than another, so that in that respect his work will be less mature. The
maturity of literature is the reflection of that of the society in which it is produced: an individual
author—notably Shakespeare and Virgil—can do much to develop his language: but he cannot
bring that language to maturity unless the work of his predecessors has prepared it for his final
touch. A mature literature, therefore, has a history behind it; a history, that is not merely a
chronicle, an accumulation of manuscripts and writings of this kind and that, but an ordered,
though unconscious, progress of a language to realize its own potentialities within its own
limitations.

There is no single period of English literature or any single author which may be said to be fully
mature. Shakespeare shows greater maturity than any other English writer, and he did much to
make the English language more mature, so that it could’ express finer shades of meaning and
more subtle thoughts. But Congreve’s Way of the World is more mature than any play of
Shakespeare because it reflects a more mature society. It reflects a greater maturity of manners.
In other words, in addition to the maturity of mind and language maturity of manners is also
essential to produce a true classic. Shakespeare is not a complete ‘classic because the society in
which he produced lacked maturity. Maturity of manners was lacking in the Elizabethan age.
The maturity of language can be more easily recognised in the development of prose, than in
that of poetry. This maturity is seen in the gradual evolution of a common standard, a common
vocabulary and a common sentence structure. When prose departs from such a common
standard and becomes individual in the extreme, it is likely to be called “poetic prose”. (Many of
us would not agree with the view that poetic prose is merely a departure from a common style,
and not a highly wrought work of art. There is much poetic prose in The Bible, as it is a model of
what good prose should be. In the opinion of Eliot, “the development of a classic prose is the
development towards a common style”. Individual differences remain, but as the common style
evolves the differences become more subtle and refined. In a period of classic prose there is a
community of tastes, and this makes the evolution of a common prose style possible. In the age
which precedes the classic age of prose there is much eccentricity and monotony in prose
writing, and in the following age also there is much eccentricity, and monotony, because the
resources of the language have been exhausted, and because there is a search for originality and
correctness is sacrificed to it. But the age in which we find a common style will be an age when
society has achieved a moment of order and stability, of equilibrium and harmony; as the age
which manifests the greatest extremes of individual style will be an age of immaturity or an age
of senility.

Maturity of language which distinguishes classic prose accompanies maturity of mind and
manners. Maturity of mind implies that the poet is aware of the literary tradition, respects his
literary ancestors as he would respect his parents and grandparents, and this literary tradition
should be such as leaves scope for further achievements. If the possibilities and resources of the
language have already been exhausted then the literary tradition has the same chilling effect on
the new generation of writers as the fame of an able parent or grandparent has on the younger
people in the family. Poets in a late age must not have a feeling that they cannot compete with
their ancestors of the preceding age. Such a feeling either kills creativeness or a search for
originality leads to eccentricity which is an effort to renounce the past—The persistence of
literary creativeness in any people, accordingly, consists in the maintenance of an unconscious
balance between tradition in the larger sense—the collective personality, so to speak, realized in
the literature of the past—and the originality of the living generation.

The Elizabethan literature, though great, is not wholly mature and so cannot be called classical.
Latin literature is more mature because it had Greek literature behind it, and Elizabethan
literature has the semblance of maturity because it had both Latin and Greek behind it. We
approach nearer to real maturity with Milton. He was in a better position to have a critical sense
of the past English literature than his predecessors. Yet the style of Milton is not a classic style; it
is a style of a language still in formation, the style of a writer whose masters were not English,
but Latin and to a less degree Greek. But Milton did much to develop the language. One of the
signs of approach towards a classic style is a development towards greater complexity of
sentence and period structure. But complexity for its own sake is not a proper goal: its purpose
must be, first, the precise expression of finer shades of feeling and thought: second the
introduction of greater refinement and variety of muse. When an author appears, in his love of
the elaborate structure, to have lost the ability to say anything simply, the process of complexity
ceases to be quite healthy, and the writer is losing touch with spoken language. Nevertheless, as
verse develops, in the hands of one poet after another, it tends from monotony to variety, from
simplicity to complexity; as it declines, it tends towards monotony again, though it may
perpetuate the formal structure to which genius gave life and meaning. We see this secondary
monotony in the eighteenth-century imitators of Milton—who himself is never monotonous.

It is generally supposed that the qualities of a classic—maturity of mind, maturity of manners,

maturity of language and perfection of a common style—are most fully realised in the poetry of
Pope. But, in reality, this is not so. The fact is that in English there is no classic age, and no
classic poet. This is not a reason for regret at all. No doubt, we must, always keep the classical
ideal before our eyes, and certainly, we cannot afford to reject the age of Pope as worthless, but
it must also be clearly understood that only certain classical qualities are exemplified in the
poetry of Pope. The realisation of these qualities was obtained at a high price, and some greater
potentialities of English verse were sacrificed. Some sacrificed is always necessary for a great
achievement, but in the English poetry of the 18th century too much has been sacrificed. English
mind in the 18th century was mature, but it was a narrow one. It was a provincial age lacking in
that amplitude and catholicity which are present in all great poets, even though they cannot be
regarded as classics. In the age of Pope, the range of sensibility was limited. Its religious
sensibility was restricted, and this produces a kind of sensibility which indicates the decay of
Christendom and the decay of common belief and a common culture. The 18th century despite
its classical achievement lacked certain conditions which make the creation of true classic
possible. What these conditions are, can best be understood with reference to the works of
Virgil.

First Virgil had maturity of mind and this maturity of mind is shown in his awareness of history,
not only the history of Rome, but also the history of Greece whose civilisation and culture is
closely related to Roman culture and civilisation. The Romans were conscious of Greek culture,
of its relatedness—to their own, and Virgil did much to develop this consciousness. He
constantly adapted the traditions and inventions of Greek poetry, as all those of his own country.
Such use of a foreign literature marks an important stage in the development of a civilisation. It
is this development of one literature or one civilization, in relation to another, which gives a
peculiar significance to the subject of Virgil’s epic. In Homer, the conflict between the Greeks
and the Trojans is hardly larger in scope than a feud between one Greek city-state and a
coalition of other city-states; behind the story of Aeneas is the consciousness of a more radical
distinction, a distinction, which is at the same time a statement of relatedness, between two
great cultures, and finally, of their reconciliation under an all-embracing destiny. It means that
Virgil is more Catholic, the sweep and range of his epic is vaster and nobler.

In addition to his maturity of mind, shown in his awareness of the history of another people,
Virgil also lived in a society which had maturity of manners and absence of provinciality. Virgil’s
epic displays a refinement of manners resulting from a delicate sensibility and this refinement of
manners is best seen in the private and public conduct of the sexed towards each other. The
meeting of Aeneas with the shade of Dido is not only one of the most poignant, but also the most
civilised passage in poetry. It is complex in meaning and economical in expression. Dido’s
behaviour is a projection of Aeneas’ conscience. By reading the passage we feel that this is the
way in which Aeneas’ conscience would expect Dido to behave to him. Aeneas does not forgive
himself for his conduct towards Dido, though he is well aware that he acted in compliance with
destiny and according to the plan of the gods. The instance shows civilised manners, and a
civilised consciousness and conscience. T.S. Eliot concludes from it: “The behaviour of Virgil’s
characters never appears to be according to some purely local or tribal code of manners; it is in
its time, both Roman and European. Virgil certainly, on the plane of manners, is not provincial.”

As regard the maturity of Virgil’s style and language, it is too obvious to require any comment.
Virgil’s mature style would not have been possible without his having an intimate knowledge of
it. He was a learned poet, who had full command over Latin language and literature, and who
could use the phrases of earlier writers and considerably improve upon them. His maturity of
style is seen in the fact that he had full command over complex structure, and yet he could be
startlingly simple when the occasion required such simplicity. He could draw upon the full
resources of the Latin language, and so his style is a common style, a style in which the full
genius of the Latin language has been realised. This cannot be said of any English poet, not even
of Pope, in whom only the genius of the English language during a particular period is realised.
Shakespeare and Milton, both men of genius, left many of the possibilities of the English
language, unrealised, but Virgil exhausted all the possibilities of his tongue, and so no great
development in it could be possible after him.

Hence it is that achievement of a classic, is not an unmixed blessing for that literature and that
language. After Virgil, there could be no great Latin poetry, for the subsequent poets lived under
his shadow, and were measured by his standards. They could achieve nothing new or original.
England is lucky, for in this country no one has exhausted all the possibilities of the language.
Milton and Shakespeare exhausted possibilities only of particular areas. That is why there could
be no poetic drama after Shakespeare, and no epic after Milton. Says Eliot, “It is true that every
supreme poet, classic or not tends to exhaust the ground he cultivates, so that it must, after
yielding a diminishing crop, finally be left to allow for some generations.”

There is no doubt that every poet of genius makes impossible the production of equally great
works of the same kind. But great poets, as Milton and Shakespeare were, exhaust the
possibilities merely of particular forms, and not of the language as a whole. But when a great
poet is also a great classic, he exhausts the possibilities not of one particular form but of the
language as a whole. It follows from this that a classic can be produced only in one exhaustible
language. A language which has great variety cannot produce a classic, and English is such a
language. The entire possibilities of the English language have never been realised in the work of
a single poet, and so there is no classic in the English language. While a classic is necessary to
judge the performance of other poets, his absence is not a matter of regret. English is a living
language and it has great variety. It does not have that homogenity which Latin has, and so does
not easily tend towards a common style. It has great variety, great capacity for changing and
growing. It has still many unexplored possibilities, and so great achievement is still possible for
new poets. There is no classic in English: therefore, any living poet can say, there is still hope
that I—and those after me for no one can face with equanimity, once he understands what is
implied, the thought of being the last poet—may be able to write something which may still be
worth preserving.
Eliot now points out one more characteristic of a classic— comprehensiveness. Classicism
implies maturity, and maturity means a process of selection and elimination. It means the
development of some possibilities to the exclusion of others. In a minor classic, such as the
classic poets of the 18th century, the elements excluded would be more numerous and of greater
importance. In their works the genius of the English language remains unrealised, and we are
conscious that large areas of sensibility have been left out. Their work is not representative of
the total genius of the race and the language. In a perfect classic the whole genius of a people is
revealed. A perfect classic must have comprehensiveness. The classic must, within its normal
limitations, express the maximum possible of the whole range of feeling which represents the
character of the people who speak that language. It will represent this at its best, and it will also
have the widest appeal among the people to which it belongs, it will find its response among all
classes and conditions of men.

When a classic, in addition to the comprehensiveness in relation to its own language, also has
value and significance in relation to a number of foreign languages, he may be said to have
universality. He is then a universal classic. This is the distinction between a relative classic—
classic in relation to his own language—and absolute classic—classic in relation to a number of
foreign languages and literatures. There is no universal classic in any of the modern languages,
for even Goethe does not represent fully the European tradition. To find a universal classic we
have to go to the two dead languages—Latin and Greek. Of all the great poets of Latin and Greek,
it is Virgil who is the universal classic in the true sense of the word. His universality arises from
the fact of the unique position of the Roman empire and Latin language in the histoiy of Europe.
Virgil’s Aeneas is the symbol of Rome, “As Aeneas is to Rome, so is ancient Rome to Europe.
Thus Virgil acquires the centrality of the unique classic, he is at the centre of European
civilization, in a position which no other poet can share or usurp. The Roman Empire and the
Latin language were not any empire and any language, but an empire and a language with a
unique destiny in relation to ourselves, and the poet in whom that Empire and that language
came to consciousness and expression is a poet of unique destiny.”

Virgil is the consciousness of Rome and the supreme voice of her language. He is a supreme or
absolute classic, and his value for us lies in the fact that he provides us with the criterion for
judging other works of art. He provides us with the standard by which we can measure works in
our language, and realise that they are lacking or are defective in some one respect or the other.
Without such a standard we tend to admire works of genius for the wrong reason, as when we
admire Blake for his philosophy, and Hopkins for his style. Without such a standard we commit
even a greater error when we give the second rate poets equal rank with the first rate ones. In
short, without the constant application of the classical measure, which we owe to Virgil more
than to any other one poet, we tend to become provincial.

The word ‘provincial’ has been variously defined and explained But by ‘provincial’ Eliot means
much more than merely, “wanting in the culture or polish of the capital”, or merely, “narrow in
thought in culture, in creed”. Such definitions are narrow and vague. By this term Eliot means,
“a distortion of values, the exclusion of some, the exaggeration of others, which springs, not
from lack of wide geographical perambulation, but from applying standards acquired within a
limited area, to the whole of human experience; which confounds the convenient with the
essential, the ephemeral with the permanent.” In our own age, says Eliot wisdom is confused
with knowledge, knowledge with information, and efforts are made to solve the problems, of life
through technology. There is coming into existence a new kind of provincialism. It is a
provincialism not of space, but of time a provincialism which considers the past as dead and
useless, and which values the present at the cost of the past. This new kind of provincialism is
world-wide. It leads to intolerance with its stress on the local and particular, rather than on the
universal. The corrective to such a provincialism is literature. Just as Europe is a single whole,
so European literature is a single whole, the same blood stream flowing through the whole body
of it.

The blood-stream of European literature is Latin and Greek—not as two systems of circulation,
but one, for it is through Rome that our parentage in Greece must be traced. What common
measure of excellence have we in literature, among our several languages, which is not classical
in its origin. No modern language could aspire to the universality of Latin even though it came
to be spoken by millions more than ever spoke Latin, and even through it came to be the
universal means of communication between peoples of all tongues and cultures. No modern
language can hope to produce a classic, in the sense in which I have called Virgil a classic, “Our
classic, the classic of all Europe, is Virgil.”

T.S. Eliot's Criticism on 'Milton' CRITICAL SUMMARY

The Scholar and the Practitioner

There is another justification for speaking about Milton. The champions of Milton in our time,
with a few exceptions, have been scholars and teachers. The writer claims to be neither. His only
claim upon the reader’s attention is by appeal to their curiosity to know what a contemporary
poet thinks of one of his predecessors.
The scholar and the practitioner, in the field of literary criticism, should supplement each
other’s work. But the practitioner should not be destitute of scholarship and the scholar
should have some experience of the difficulties of writing Verse. The scholar is more
concerned with understanding the master-piece in the environment of the author, his
intellectual gifts, his learning and the influences which had moulded him. The practitioner is
concerned more with the poem than the author and with the poem in relation to his own age.
He asks: Of what use is the poetry of this poet to poets writing today? Is it, or can it become,
a living force in the English poetry still unwritten? The scholar can teach us where we should
bestow our admiration and respect; the practitioner, when he is the right poet, would make
an old masterpiece actual and give it a contemporary importance. The only example of a
contemporary poet writing about Milton is Charles Williams who wrote an introduction to
Milton’s English Poems, in the Word’s Classics Series.
Antipathy Towards Milton the Man

When Samuel Johnson wrote about Milton and his poetry he wrote as a practitioner, because he
was a poet himself, and deserves to be read with respect, but we cannot judge his criticism or its
merits unless we appreciate his poetry. Even when we dissent from him we must inquire why he
was wrong. Johnson too in his day was a modern and was concerned with how poetry should be
written in his own time. Any change in the prevailing style and in the canons of taste which he
observed cannot diminish the interest of his criticism. In his writings also, the questions are
implied: How should poetry be written now? and what place does the answer to this question
give to Milton? Possibly the answers may be different now from the answers that were correct
twenty-five years-ago.

Everywhere in Johnson’s Life of Milton one prejudice against Milton is apparent, which is even
now felt, and it is an antipathy towards Milton the man. And this prejudice is often involved
with another, more obscure one Milton’s interest in the Civil War of seventeenth century. No
other English poet, except Wordsworth or Shelly, lived through or took sides in such
momentous events as Milton did. It has made it difficult to appreciate Milton’s poetry as poetry
without being influenced consciously or unconsciously by our theological and political
dispositions; especially now when emotions have taken a different turn. Royalists are not liked
on political grounds and Puritans on moral grounds. An attempt has been made to show that
Milton really belonged to no party, but disagreed with everyone. Mr. Wilson Knight in Chariot of
Wrath has argued that Milton was more a monarchist than a republican and not in any modern
sense a “democrat”. Professor Saurat has shown that Milton’s theology was highly eccentric, and
as scandalous to Protestants as to Catholics. While Mr. C.S. Lewis has argued that at least in
Paradise Lost, Milton can be acquitted of heresy. We must, therefore, be on guard being
influenced by such considerations while examining poetry for poetry’s sake.

Milton an Unwholesome Influence

The positive objection raised against Milton in our time is the charge that he is an unwholesome
influence. On this point Mr. Middleton Marry in his Heaven and Earth has stated on Keat’s
authority, that Keats and Blake have both passed substantially the same judgement on Milton:
“Life to him would be death to me,” and that we must admit the justice of Keats’s opinion that
Milton’s magnificence led nowhere. “English must be kept up,” said Keats. “To be influenced
beyond a certain point by Milton’s art, he felt, damned the creative flow of the English genius in
and through itself,” Mr. Marry agrees with this opinion and says: “To pass under the spell of
Milton is to be condemned to imitate him. It is quite different with Shakespeare. Shakespeare
baffles and liberates; Milton is preposterous and constricts.”

The writer does not agree with this confident affirmation. Murry’s remarks seem to assert that
the liberative function of Shakespeare and the constrictive menace of Milton are permanent
characteristics of these two poets. This is not correct. We might better call it an uncertain point.
It is not good to remain under the influence of any poet—Milton or Shakespeare. Keats
attempted to write an epic and also tried his hand at writing plays, but his King Stephen (a play)
was blighted by Shakespeare and Hyperion (an epic poem) by Milton, Milton made a great epic
impossible for succeeding generations; Shakespeare made a great poetic drama impossible. For
a long time an epic poet like Milton or a dramatic poet like Shakespeare is not likely to come.
But it does not mean that efforts should not be made. No one knows when the time is ripe when
a new epic or a new poetic drama will be possible. In Murry’s criticism of Milton, the whole
personality of Milton is in question and not specifically his beliefs, or his language, or
versification, but the beliefs as realized through that personality, and his poetry as the
expression of it.

Milton’s Influence on Modern Poets

The charge against Milton that his technical influence has been bad was made by T.S. Eliot
himself on a previous occasion (1936). Then he had said that “Milton’s poetry could only be an
influence for the worse upon any poet whatever,” and that the “bad influence may be traced
much farther than upon bad poets “and we still have to struggle against it. In this there are three
assertions implied: (1) that the influence has been bad in the past and that good poets would
have written better if they had not yielded to Milton’s influence. (2) That Milton is a master
whom we should avoid. (3) That the influence of Milton or of any poet can always be bad. He is
not prepared to make the first and the third of these assertions, because detached from the
second they have no meaning. For the first assertion it will have to be admitted that the
responsibility lies more upon the poet who yielded to influence than the poet whose work
exerted the influence. The responsibility lies on the poet who unwisely chooses a model and
imitates it. We cannot say that Keats would have written a very great epic poem if Milton had
not preceded him. We can’t repine for an unwritten master piece in exchange for one we
possess. And as for the remote future nothing can be said about the “good” and “bad” influence.
We are concerned with the immediate future.

The writer recalls a remark which he had made in an essay on Dryden, and had said that “In the
seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered; and
this dissociation, as is natural, was due to the influence of the two most powerful poets of the
century, Milton and Dryden”. Tillyard in his Milton has disputed this remark. The writer admits
that to lay the burden on the shoulders of Milton was a mistake. If such dissociation did take
place it is difficult to account for the change in literary criticism. All that can be said is that it
had something to do with the Civil War; not that it was caused by it, but is a consequence of the
same causes which brought about the Civil War, and that the causes are to be sought in Europe,
not in England alone.

Johnson’s Censure of Milton

The essence of permanent censure of Milton is to be found in Johnson’s essay regarding Comus
and Samson.

Johnson says that throughout Milton’s greater works there is a peculiarity of diction and a mode
and cast of expression not resembling to that of any former writer and far removed from
common sense, so that an unlearned reader is surprised to had a new language. Some people
impute this novelty to Milton’s laborious endeavours and the grandeur of ideas. But Addison
says the language sank under him. “But the truth is, that both in prose and verse, he had formed
his style by a perverse and pedantic principle. He was desirous to use English words with a
foreign idiom.” This is condemned in his prose, but is obeyed without resistance in his poetry
due to its force. Johnson continues, “Milton’s style was not modified by his subject; what is
shown with greater extent in Paradise Lost may be found in Comus…..the disposition of his
words is, I think, frequently Italian, perhaps sometimes combined with other tongues.” It can be
said that he wrote no language, but has formed a Babylonish dialect, harsh and barbarous, made
by exallted genius and vast learning, the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure
that one finds grace in its deformity.

The writer says that Johnson’s criticism seems to be substantially true. Unless we accept it we
cannot appreciate the true greatness of Milton. His style is not classic but personal, not based on
common speech or common prose. Milton was the first to commit violence to language by using
distorted construction, foreign idiom, use of a word in a foreign way or with meaning other than
accepted in English. Mallarmi was his nearest analogy in this respect. “Milton’s poetry is poetry
at the farthest possible remove from prose; his prose seems to me too near half-formed poetry to
be good prose.”

Milton the Greatest of All Eccentrics

As a poet Milton seems to be the greatest of all eccentrics. His work illustrates no general
principles of good writing; the only principles of writing that it illustrates are such as are valid
only for Milton himself to observe. There are great poets from whom we can learn negative
rules. They teach us what to avoid by showing what great poetry can do without—how bare it can
be. Of these are Dante and Racine. We can’t learn anything from Milton.

The remoteness of Milton’s verse from ordinary speech, and his invention of his own poetic
language seem to be one of the marks of his greatness. Other marks are his sense of structure
and his syntax, and finally his incrrancy in writing so as to make the best display of his talents
and the best concealment of his weaknesses.

Milton’s project of an epic on king Arthur did not succeed because he had little interest in
understanding individual human beings. In Paradise Lost such an understanding was not
needed; in fact its absence was a necessary condition—for the creation of his figures of Adam
and Eve. They are not ordinary Man and Woman, not types, but prototypes. Else they would not
be Adam and Eve. They have ordinary humanity to the right degree and yet are not ordinary
mortals.

Milton’s Blindness

When we consider the visual imagery, we find that the material of Paradise Lost is appropriate
to Milton’s genius and his limitations—such as being deprived of eye-sight. Hence Milton is at
his best in imagery suggestive of vast size, limitless space, abysmal depth and light and
darkness. The theme and the setting which he chose for Paradise Lost was most suitable to him.
Most of the absurdities and inconsistencies to which Johnson has called attention and
condemned can be properly understood if considered in relation to this general judgements
Milton’s blindness and limited interest in human beings is not merely a negligible defect, but a
positive value when we see Adam and Eve in Eden. A higher degree of characterisation was
unsuitable and a vivid picture of Paradise would be less paradisiacal; it would make Paradise
look like earth with its animals and flowers. The impression of Eden given by Milton was that
which he was best qualified to give. In Paradise Lost we must not expect to see things clearly,
but with a blurred vision. The emphasis is on sound, not the vision, upon the word, not the idea
and the unique versification is a sign of Milton’s intellectual mastership.

Milton’s Versification

Very little has been written about Milton’s versification. There is a treatise of Robert Bridges on
Milton’s Prosody and an essay of Johnson in the Rambler. But these are insufficient to
appreciate the peculiar rythm of a poet. Milton’s verse cannot be properly appreciated it we
examine it line by line. It is the period, the sentence, and the paragraph that is the unit of his
verse. It is his ability to give a perfect and unique pattern to every paragraph, and the full beauty
of the line is found in its context. This is the most conclusive evidence of Milton’s supreme
mastery. The peculiar feeling and sensation conveyed by his long periods is impossible to obtain
from rhymed verse.

In his essay Johnson says that the music of English heroic lines (rhymed copulets) is obtained
by the artifice of rhyme. “The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse,
changes the measures of an English poet to periods of a declaimer,” and there are very few
skilful readers of Paradise Lost who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or
begin. Notwithstanding Johnson’s remarks, it can be declared that Milton is the greatest master
of free verse in English. He perfected non-dramatic blank verse and imposed strict limitations
upon its use to exploit its great musical possibilities.

There have been important changes in the idiom of English verse associated with the names or
Dryden and Wordsworth, which may be said to be successful attempts to escape from obsolete
poetic idiom as observed by Wordsworths in his Prefaces. Another such revolution was due by
the beginning of the present century. It is inevitable that young poets who take part in such a
revolution exalt the merits of those poets whom they regard as models and depreciate the merits
of those who do not come up to their standards. It is right and inevitable that their critical
observations should attract their readers to the poets by whom they have been influenced. Such
influence develops a literary taste. Now, in spite of changes of poetic idiom, no modern poet has
ever denied Milton’s consummate powers. It must be said that Milton’s diction is not an obsolete
poetic diction. When he violates the language he is not imitating any body nor any body can
imitate him. But he deviates from two accepted rules—that verse should have the virtues of
prose and diction should be assimilated to cultivated contemporary speech, and that the subject-
matter of poetry should cover topics and objects related to the life of modern man or woman. In
this respect study of Milton could be of no help; it was a hindrance.
Revolutions in literature do not take place every now and then; if they do it is a sign of the
detereoration of language and the failure of poetry to perform its most important function viz to
refine the language and to prevent it from changing too rapidily. In trying to discover new and
more elaborate patterns of diction we might have much to learn from Milton’s extended verse
structure, and avoid the danger of servitude to colloquial speech. We might devote some study to
Milton who is the greatest master in language excluding dramatic poets. In Samson we find
irregularities which are justified, in Paradise Lost the verse is continuously animated by a
departure from, and return to, the regular measure.

THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM by T.S. Eliot

The Origin, of the Essay: Its Four Parts

The essay Function of Criticism 1923, arose out of a controversy. Eliot’s essay Tradition and
Individual Talent was published a few years earlier in 1919. Middleton Murry challenged the
opinions of Eliot in his essay Romanticism and the Tradition. The present essay is Eliot’s reply
to Murry. The first part gives in brief the opinions expressed by Eliot in the essay Tradition and
Individual Talent, in the second part, he gives a resume of the views of Middleton Murry, in the
third part, these views of Murry are briefly dismissed, and in the concluding fourth part, the
poet examines the different aspects of the nature and function of criticism.

Eliot’s Dynamic Conception of Tradition

Eliot begins the essay by referring to certain views he had expressed in his earlier essay,
Tradition and Individual Talent, because they are relevant to the present essay. In the earlier
essay, he had pointed out that there is an intimate relation between the present and the past in
the world of literature. The entire literature of Europe from Homer down to the present day
forms a single literary tradition, and it is in relation to this tradition that individual writers and
individual works of art have their significance. This is so because the past is not dead, but lives
on in the present. The past is altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the
past. Past works of literature form an ideal order, but this ideal order is disturbed if ever so
slightly, when a really new work of art appears. There is a readjustment of values, resulting in
conformity between the old and the new. Literary tradition is constantly changing and grow
different from age to age.

Literary Tradition: The Value of Conformity

The literary tradition is the outside authority to which an artist in the present must owe
allegiance. He must constantly surrender and sacrifice himself in order to have meaning and
significance. The true artists of any time form an ideal community, and artist in the present
must achieve a sense of his community. He must realise that artists of all times are united
together by a common cause and a common inheritance. While a second rate artist assets his
individuality because his distinction lies in the difference and not in similarity with others, the
true artist tries to conform. He alone can “afford to collaborate, to exchange, to contribute.”

Definition of Criticism and Its Ends

Eliot’s views on criticism derive from his views on art and tradition as given above. He defines
criticism as, “the commentation and exposition of works of art by means of written words’“.
Criticism can never be an autotelic activity, because criticism is always about something. Art, as
critics like Matthew Arnold point out, may have some other ends, e.g., moral, religious, cultural,
but art need not be aware of these ends, rather it performs its function better by being
indifferent to such ends. But criticism always has one and only one definite end, and that end is,
“elucidation of works of art and the correction of taste.” In his essay The Frontiers of Criticism,
he further explains the aim of criticism as, “the promotion of understanding and enjoyment of
literature.”

The Need of Co-operation and Conformity

Since the end of criticism is clear and well defined, it should he easy to determine whether a
critic has performed his function well or not. However, this is not such an easy taste. The
difficulty arises from the fact that critics, instead of trying to discipline their personal prejudices
and whims and composing their differences with as many of their fellow critics as possible and
co-operating in the common pursuit of true judgment, express extreme views and vehemently
assert their individually, i.e. the ways in which they differ from others. This is so because they
owe their livelihood to such differences and oddities. The result is criticism has become like a
Sunday Park full of orators competing with each other to attract as large and audience as
possible. Such critics are a worthless lot of no value and significance. However, there are certain
other critics who are useful, and it is on the basis of their works, that Eliot establishes the aims
and methods of criticism which should be followed by all.

Murry’s Views or the Classic and the Romantic

In the second part of the essay, Eliot digresses into a consideration of Middleton Murry’s views
on classicism and Romanticism. While there are critics who hold that classicism and
romanticism are the same thing, Murry takes a definite position, and makes a clear distinction
between the two, and says that one cannot be a classic and a romantic at one and the same time.
In this respect, Eliot praises Murry, but he does not agree with him when he makes the issue a
national and racial issue, and says that the genius of the French is classic and that of the English
is romantic. Murry further relates Catholicism in religion with classicism in literature, for both
believe in tradition, in discipline, in obedience to an objective authority outside the individual.
On the contrary, romanticism and Protestantism, and social liberalism, are related, for they have
full faith in the ‘inner voice’, in the individual, and obey no outside authority. They care for no
rules and traditions.

Eliot’s Rejection of Murry’s Views

But Eliot does not agree with these views. In his opinion, the difference between classicism and
romanticism is, the difference between the complete and the fragmentary, the adult and the
immature, the orderly and the chaotic. To him the concept of the inner voice sounds remarkably
like doing, What one likes. It is a sign of indiscipline leading to vanity, fear and lust. Neither
does he agree with the view that the English as a nation are romantics and so ‘humorous’ and
‘non-conformists’, while the French are ‘naturally’ classical.

“Inner Voice”: Ironic Treatment of It

In the third part of the essay, Eliot summarily dismisses the views of Murry. The tone is one of
light ridicule. He contemptuously calls the inner voice, whiggery. For those who believe in the
‘inner voice’, criticism is of no value at all, because the function of criticism is to discover some
common principles for achieving perfection in art. Those who believe in the “inner voice” do not
want any principles. In other words, they do not care for perfection in art, which can result only
through obedience to the laws of art, and to tradition which represents the accumulated wisdom
and experience of ages.

Criticism and the Creative Faculty

In the fourth part, Eliot deals with the problem of criticism in all its manifold aspects. In the
very beginning, he comments upon the terms ‘critical’ and ‘creative’. He ridicules Matthew
Arnold for having distinguished rather bluntly between the ‘critical’ and the ‘creative’ activity.
He does not realise that criticism is of capital importance in the work of creation. As a matter of
fact, “the larger part of the labour of an author in composing his work is critical labour’, the
labour of sifting, combining constructing, expunging, correcting, testing.” Eliot further expresses
the view that the criticism employed by a writer on his own work is the most vital and the
highest kind of criticism. Elsewhere, Eliot calls such criticism, workshop criticism. Its high
worth and value cannot be denied, for a poet who knows from personal experience the mysteries
of the creative process is in a better position to write about it than those who have no such
knowledge. Eliot goes to the extent of saying that some creative writers are superior to others
only because their critical faculty is superior. He ridicules those who decry the critical toil of the
artist, and hold the view that the greater artist is an unconscious artist. He calls such concepts
whiggery and pours his ridicule on such people. He comments those who, instead relying on the
‘Inner voice’, or ‘inspiration’, conform to tradition, and in this was try to make their works as
free from defects as possible.
Can There be Creative Criticism?

It is a mistake to separate critical and creative activities. A large part of creation is in reality
criticism. But critical writing cannot be creative. There can be no creative criticism. Creative
criticism is neither criticism nor creation. This is so because there is a fundamental difference
between creation and criticism. Creation, a work of art, is autotelic. It has no conscious aims and
objectives. Criticism, on the other hand, is always about something, other than itself. In other
words, it is not an autotelic activity, its aim being the commentation and elucidation of works of
art. Hence it is that we cannot fuse creation with criticism as we can fuse criticism with creation.
The critical activity finds its highest fulfilment when it is fused with creation, with the labour of
the artist.

The Qualifications of an Ideal Critic: A Highly Developed Sense of Fact

Eliot next proceeds to consider the qualifications of a critic. The foremost quality which an ideal
critic must have is a highly developed sense of fact. The sense of fact is a rare gift. It is not
frequently met with, and it is very slow to develop. The value of a practitioner’s criticism—say
that of a poet on his own art, ‘workshop criticism’ as Eliot elsewhere calls it—lies in the fact that
he is dealing with facts which he understands, and so can also help us to understand them.
Eliot’s own criticism is such workshop criticism, and Eliot is all praises for such critics and their
criticism. There is a large part of criticism which seeks to ‘interpret’ an author and his work. But
most of such interpretation is no interpretation at all. It is mere fiction; the critic gives his views,
his impression of the work, and so is false and misleading. Eliot has no use for such
impressionistic criticism; it gives us no insight into the work under study.

Sense of Fact: The Technical Aspects

True interpretation is no interpretation at all; it is merely putting the reader in possession of the
facts which he might have missed otherwise. The true critic himself knows the facts about a
work of art—its conditions, its settings, its genesis—and puts them before his readers in a simple
and easy manner. Thus it is clear that by ‘facts’ Eliot means the various technical aspects of a
work of art.

The Tools of the Critic: Comparison and Analysis

Comparison and analysis are the chief tools of a critic. These are the tools of the critic, and he
must use them with care and intelligence. Comparison and analysis can be possible only when
the critic knows the facts about the works which are to be compared and analysed. He must
know the facts about the work of art—technical elements like its structure, content and theme—
and not waste his time in such irrelevant fact-hunting as the inquiry into the number of times
giraffes are mentioned in the English novel. However, the method of comparison and analysis,
even when used unjudiciously, is preferable to ‘interpretation’ in the conventional sense.

Warning Against Fact-hunting

Facts, even facts of the lowest order, cannot corrupt taste, while impressionistic criticism, like
that of Coleridge and Goethe, is always misleading. The function of criticism is to educate taste
or, as Eliot puts it elsewhere, to promote enjoyment and understanding of literature. Now facts,
however trivial, can never corrupt taste; they can only gratify taste. Critics like Goethe or
Coleridge, who supply opinion or fancy, are the real corruptors. In the end, Eliot cautions us not
to become slaves to facts and bother about such trivialities as the laundry bills of Shakespeare.
Such fact-hunting is not criticism. Similarly, he warns us against the vicious taste for reading
about works of art instead of reading the works themselves.

‘Lemon squeezer’ and Impressionistic Criticism: Eliot’s Condemnation

Eliot’s emphasis on facts makes it clear that his critical stand is with such New Critics as F.R.
Leavis and I.A. Richards. He commands textual criticism, but he is against the ‘lemon-squeezer’
school of critics who try to squeeze every drop of meaning out of words. A critic should
concentrate on the text, compare and analyse, but he should never stoop to trivialities or empty
hair-splitting. A good critic is objective, his judgment is based on facts, he is guided by tradition,
the accumulated wisdom of ages and not by his, “inner voice”. He does not indulge in mere
expression of opinion or fancy. Eliot is against impressionistic criticism, but he does not
expound any theories or lay down any rules and principles. Impressionistic criticism is erratic,
while adherence to rigid theories hampers the critic and curtails his freedom

Eliot’s Originality: Objective, Scientific Attitude

The critic should be guided by facts and facts alone. He should approach the work of art with a
free mind, unprejudiced by any theories or preconceived notions. Only then can he be
completely objective and impersonal. It is in this way that criticism approximates to the position
of science. It is only in this way that criticism becomes a co-operative activity, the critic of one
age cooperates with critics of the previous ages in common pursuit of truth. Such truths are
provisional, for ‘truths’ of one age are likely to be modified and corrected by truths discovered by
future ages. In this objective-scientific attitude Eliot is different from all other previous English
critics. Herein lies his individuality and originality. He is like a scientist working with an open
mind and co-operating with others, for the realisation of truth which he knows can only be
tentative.

THE PERFECT CRITIC by T.S.Eliot

Literary Criticism After Arnold

Eliot begins his essay on The Perfect Critic by pointing out that Coleridge was the greatest of
English Critics, and in a sense he was the last. No doubt Arnold came after Coleridge, and, no
doubt, his work has enough of good sense, and it bridges the gulf between English Criticism and
European Criticism, still Arnold was a propagandist for criticism rather than a critic, “a
populariser of ideas, rather than a creator of ideas.” His mission was to correct his countrymen.
Since Arnold’s times, English criticism has followed two directions. There has been (a)
impressionistic criticism, and (b) abstract, or philosophic or verbal criticism. Eliot then proceeds
to examine both these types of criticism, regards critics of both these types as imperfect, and
holds out Aristotle as an example of a perfect critic.

Impressionistic Criticism

First, he examines impressionistic or aesthetic criticism, and points out that Arthur Symons and
Swinburne are the two prominent exponents of this type of criticism in the modern age. In this
respect, Arthur Symons is the critical successor of Walter Pater who was also an impressionistic
critic. The mind of the impressionistic critic is sensitive like a sensitive camera plate. Just as a
camera plate when exposed before an object takes an impression of that object, so also the mind
of the impressionistic critic takes on the impression of the work of art to which it is exposed. His
mind is more sensitive and more cultivated—more cultivated because of the impressions it has
received and stored in from the critic’s wide reading and so its impressions are more numerous
and more refined than those of a man of average sensibility. Further, these impressions are not
photographic reproductions. The critic also translates and interprets, and in this way imposes
his own impressions upon the impressions which he has received from the work of art. Thus
impressionistic criticism tends to be personal and objective. Such is Arthur Symons’ criticism of
Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. The critic constantly recounts and comments upon the
impressions he has received in his reading of the play.

Its Shortcomings

In other words, in Symons’ literary criticism his unfulfilled creative impulse mingles and
modifies the impressions he receives from a work of art, or the emotions that are aroused by it.
He does not faithfully record his impressions, he analyses and constructs, and thus creates
something else. Swinburne, on the other hand, could satisfy his creative impulse in his poetry, so
in his literary criticism he is entirely a critic who criticises, expounds and arranges, and does not
interpret or translate. Both, are impressionistic critics, and both are imperfect for their criticism
is emotional and not intellectual or scientific, but Swinburne is the better one of the two for
reasons mentioned above. His effort is directed towards analysis and construction, and not
towards creation. Symons, as matter of fact is, one of those critics who undergo violent
emotional agitation as a result of their contract with a work of art. So, he makes something new
out of his impressions, yet still there is some hidden, unknown obstacle in his nature, some lack
of vitality, which prevents him from rising to the level of true creation. The sensibility of such
critics can alter an object, but never transform it. Their reaction is that of an ordinary person, a
mixed critical and creative reaction. Their criticism is made up of comment and opinion, and is
also coloured by their own vague, personal emotions which have nothing to do with the work of
art under consideration. Symons, therefore, is an instance of an imperfect critic. In a perfect
critic merely personal emotions aroused by a work of art are fused and amalgamated with
countless other emotions from “multitudinous experience”, and the result is the creation of a
new object which in itself is a work of art. Swinburne is a better critic because his creative
impulse finds satisfaction in his poetry, and does not overflow into his criticism; Symons’
unfulfilled creative impulse interferes fatally with his criticism and vitiates it. From this Eliot
draws the general conclusion that poets make more dependable critics. Their criticism is
criticism and not the satisfaction of a suppressed creative wish. Elsewhere, Eliot call such
criticism, workshop criticism, and regards it as the most dependable type of criticism Poet-
critics, as is Eliot himself are, therefore, better than those who are not themselves poets or
creative artists.

Abstract Criticism

The other kind of criticism is abstract, philosophical or verbal. Eliot here uses the words
‘abstract’, ‘philosophical’ and ‘verbal’ in a derogatory sense. He uses them to mean a vague,
unprecise, indefinite, or emotional use of words. Words have a tendency to grow corrupt and to
lose their precise, definite meanings with the passing of time. They take on emotional overtones;
instead of expressing thought they tend to express feeling. They become suggestive, and begin to
express merely personal emotions. In order to explain the point, he quotes from a distinguished
contemporary critic, who wrote in a newspaper article, “Poetry is the most highly organised
form of intellectual activity”. Now this statement does not make it clear how poetry is a more
highly organised activity than, say, astronomy or physics or mathematics. Such statements are
mere string of words, having no real significance as criticism. Such verbiage shows that modern
criticism has grown degenerate. Such statements convey no truth, except the writer’s own
emotions about poetry.

Aristotle, the Perfect Critic

Such degenerate, abstract criticism is entirely different from the criticism of Aristotle, criticism
which is scientific and precise. His disciples regard him as a very God. The approach him in a
canonical spirit and so fail to appreciate his real merit and greatness. Aristotle was a man with a
universal intelligence. By ‘universal’ intelligence Eliot means that he had an intelligence which
he could apply to any subject. An ordinary man is good only for certain subjects. He can apply
his intelligence to poetry, or science or to any other particular subject in which he may be
interested. But Aristotle could apply his mind successfully to every possible subject. Moreover,
the average man’s judgment is coloured by his personal emotions and predilections. Aristotle’s
judgment was entirely free from accidents of personal organisation. He always looked “solely
and steadfastly at the object.” His Poetics is the eternal example of “intelligence swiftly
operating, the analysis of sensation to the point of principle and definition.”

Aristotle and Horace

Aristotle is the perfect critic because he never lays down any laws or rules. He analyses the
impressions he has received from a particular work of art and presents his conclusions in the
form of general principles and definitions. In order to bring out the superiority of Aristotle, Eliot
contrasts his method with that of Horace, a critic who was the model for literary criticism upto
the 19th century. He gives us precepts, and this shows that his analyses of his perceptions is not
complete. “A precept is an unfinished analysis.” Horace is an example of a dogmatic critic, a
critic who asserts, with lays down rules and laws, the value of which he affirms and which he
says, must be followed. But a true, scientific critic, as Aristotle is, does not coerce. He does not
make judgments of worse and better. He simply elucidates, and leaves the readers to form their
own judgments.

Dryden and Campion

Aristotle is neither a dogmatic critic like Horace, nor a technical or legislature critic like
Campion and Dryden. The aim of a legislative critic is a narrow one. His aim is merely to impart
lessons to the practitioner of an art. As his aim is limited, his criticism does not constitute the
disinterested exercise of intelligence. For this reason, even the mind of such a great critic as
Dryden is not a free mind. It is hampered and limited by his narrow aim. In such critics, “there
is always a tendency to legislate rather than to inquire, to revise accepted laws, even to overturn,
but to reconstruct out of the same material. And the free intelligence is that which is wholly
devoted to inquiry.”

Coleridge

Even Coleridge, a man of great ability, did not have an intelligence completely free. It was
hampered and restrained by his metaphysical interests. In his literary criticism, the emotions
aroused by a work of art are mixed up and modified by his metaphysical interests or emotions.
But a literary critic should have no other emotions except those aroused by the work of art under
study. Coleridge’s emotions are ‘impure’. Everything that Aristotle says illuminates the piece of
literature concerned; Coleridge can illuminate in this way only now and then. His criticism
shows the evil effects or emotions, emotions other than those which are aroused by the object
under study.
Sainte Beuve

As a matter of fact, Aristotle had the scientific mind or better still a mind of general or universal
intelligence. While the interests of a scientist are narrow and limited, the interests of Aristotle
were not limited in this way. His was really an intelligent mind. Sainte Beuve, no doubt, is a
great modern critic, but his mind, like the mind of an ordinary scientist, was limited by his
interest, in physiology. Of all modern critics, Remy De Gourmont alone has the universal
intelligence of Aristotle. He has the qualities which a perfect or ideal critic should have.
According to Eliot, these qualities are superior, “sensitiveness, erudition, sense of fact and sense
of history, and generalising power.”

The Ideal Critic: His Qualities

As regards superior sensibility—or the capacity to receive impressions from a work of art—Eliot
simply says that it is a natural gift. A true critic possesses it in a greater degree than an ordinary
individual. Erudition or wide reading is also necessary for a critic. Reading certainly increases
understanding and widens the mental horizons. But the real value of erudition is that the
previous impressions derived from reading are modified and altered by the new ‘impressions’.
In this way older impressions are refreshed by new impressions, and such renewal or
refreshment is necessary even for the existence of the earlier impressions. In this way is formed
a system of impressions, and such a system finds expressions in a generalised statement of the
beauty of a work of art. It is erudition which enables the critic to see an object as it really is in
itself without its being coloured by the personal emotions of the critic. Eliot explains his point
through a concrete example. Even an uneducated reader can enjoy Dante’s Divine Comedy, But
his reaction would be “emotional. His reaction would be purely an indulgence in personal
emotions, an indulgence which has been stimulated by the beauty of the poem. His reaction
would be quite different from that pure contemplation, which is entirely free from personal
emotions. It is only erudition which makes such pure contemplation, such exercise of
intelligence, possible. Wide reading, therefore, is of the utmost importance. Erudition is
necessary also because it alone can give use, a sense of fact and a sense of history. From a study
of Eliot’s other essays we know that by a ‘sense of fact’ Eliot means a knowledge and
understanding of the technical details of a poem. By the historical sense he means, what he
elsewhere calls, a sense of tradition, a sense of European literary tradition extending from
Homer down to our own times.

It is erudition alone which can give to the critic his generalising power. It is through erudition
that the successive impressions received by the critic form themselves into a structure.
Successive impressions do not accumulate in his mind like a formless heap or mass. Rather, they
are organised and systematised, his sensibility is developed and intensified, and is expressed in
the form of generalised statements about the beauty of a work of art. In his criticism there is no
expression of personal emotion, for his personal emotions have been removed or impersonalised
by his erudition. The criticism of such an ideal critic is entirely unemotional. It may hot be liked
by emotional people, but it is true, scientific or intellectual criticism.

Conclusion

In the end, Eliot expresses the view that the so-called ‘historical’ and ‘philosophic’ critics are not
critics at all; they are merely historians and philosophers. Also, he does not agree with those
who would like to separate ‘criticism’ and ‘creation’ into two watertight compartment. In his
view, the creative and the critical sensibilities are not opposite but complementary. Therefore, it
is desirable that the critic and the creative artist should frequently be the same person. Poets are
likely to make the best critics. There should be no “dissociation of sensibility” in this respect. A
‘unification’ of the creative and critical sensibility is likely to show the best results.

TYPES OF CRITICISM AND CRITICS

In his essay the Perfect Critic, T.S. Eliot lists the following different types of critics and criticism.

Impressionistic or Aesthetic Criticism

First, there is the impressionistic criticism or aesthetic criticism. The critic exposes his sensitive
and cultivated mind to the work of art concerned, and records the impressions received in this
way. However, this record is not entirely objective, for it is coloured by and mixed up with the
critics own emotions. Such impressionistic criticism in itself may be of two kinds. In the one, the
criticism begins to be creative, but stops short of true creation as if some deficiency in the critic’s
personality has hampered and frustrated creation. In the second, there is no attempt at creation,
for the creative impulse of the critic has found satisfaction in his poetry. Arthur Symons is an
example of the former, and Swinburne of the later type. Both these types of impressionistic
criticism are unsatisfactory, for both of them are emotional, while criticism of the highest order
is entirely unemotional.

Abstract or Philosophical Criticism

Secondly, there is the abstract or philosophical or verbal criticism. T.S. Eliot has here used these
words in a derogatory sense. It is the type of criticism in which words are used in a vague,
indefinite sense; instead of conveying some definite concepts, they convey the indefinite and
vaguely realised emotions of the critic. Thus when a critic says, “poetry is the highly organised
form of intellectual activity”, he conveys nothing precise and definite except his own emotions
regarding poetry. He does not make it clear in what sense poetry is a more highly organised
activity than say astronomy or physics. The critic has merely substituted for thought his own
emotions regarding poetry. Such criticism is mere verbiage, a mere string of words. It is sign of
corruption and degeneracy.
Dogmatic Criticism

Thirdly, there is dogmatic criticism represented by Horace and Boileau. The critic lays down
percepts and rules, and affirms values. He makes judgments of worse and better. He is not
content merely to elucidate and leave the reader to form his own judgment.

Legislative Criticism

Fourthly, there is the technical or legislative criticism. The aim of such a critic is a narrow one.
His aim is to impart lessons to the; practitioners of an art. His criticism is not disinterested, and
the narrowness of his aim prevents him from achieving the impersonality or generality
necessary for true criticism. Dryden is the best, example of a legislative critic. Despite all his
greatness, he is not a free mind. The free or disinterested play of intelligence in his case is
hampered by the narrowness of his aim. In all the critics of the 17th century, there is a tendency
to legislate and this hampers free inquiry. The critics try to revise, even overturn accepted laws,
but they always reconstruct out of existing material.

Historical Criticism

Fifthly, there is the historical criticism. Instead of having a ‘sense of fact’, and writing with his
eyes steadily fixed on the work of art, the critic tries to judge it in its ‘historical context’. Critics
who depend upon biographical, sociological or historical knowledge, are not literary critics at all.
They may better be called historians and philosophers. A work of art is the thing in itself and it
must be studied and elucidated on its own merits, without bringing in of any extraneous
considerations.

Workshop Criticism

Sixthly, there is the ‘workshop’ criticism or criticism coming from the pen of poet-critics. Such
critics have satisfied their creative impulse in their poetry. Therefore, their criticism is criticism
and not the satisfaction of a suppressed creative wish, which often, in other kinds of critics,
interferes fatally with criticism. Moreover, such poet-critics, as Eliot tells us elsewhere, have a
first hand knowledge of the mysteries of their art, a truer appreciation of poetic beauty, and
hence are likely to make better critics. In their case, there is no ‘dissociation’ of the critical and
creative faculties. This unification makes them more dependable critics.
Scientific Criticism

However, the best kind of criticism is the scientific criticism, and its best exponent in ancient
times was Aristotle and in modern times, Remy De Gourmont. Such a critic has a free and open
mind. He looks solely and steadfastly at the object. He does not lay down any laws or prescribe
any rules or precepts. He does not make any judgment of better or worse. His intelligence
operates swiftly, analyses sensations and perceptions, and this analysis is carried to the point of
general principles and definition. From the particular the critic constantly rises to the universal
and the general. Such a critic illuminates and elucidates and so is conducive to a better
appreciation and understanding of the work of art. In his criticism accidents of personal
emotion are removed, and we see the object as it really is. Aristotle had such an intelligent or
scientific mind, and his Poetics is the eternal example of scientific criticism. He looks, “solely
and steadfastly at the object”, “everything that he says illuminates”, and so Eliot regards him as
a perfect or ideal critic.

The Achievement of Eliot as a Critic

A Poet-Critic: His Greatness

Eliot is one of the long-line of poet-critics extending from Sir Philip Sydney to our own day and
including such names as Ben Jonson, Dryden, Johnson, Wordsworth, Coleridge and Arnold.
Both from the point of view of the bulk and quality of his critical writings, Eliot is one of the
greatest of literary critics of England. His five hundred and odd essays published as reviews and
articles from time to time, have had a far-reaching influence on the course of literary criticism in
the country.
“Eliot made English criticism look different” says George Watson, “through not in a simple
sense”. His criticism has been revolutionary; he has turned the critical tradition of the whole
English speaking world upside down. The Sacred Wood was published in 1920 and since then
his authority has steadily increased. “I cannot think”, say John Hayward, “of a critic who has
been more widely read and discussed in his own lifetime; not only in English, but in almost
every language, except Russian, throughout the civilised world.”

His Faults

As a critic Eliot has his faults, and some of them are quite glaring ones. Sometimes he is
pontifical, assumes a hanging-judge attitude, and instead of sympathetic understanding his
pronouncements savour of a verdict. Often his criticism is marred by personal and religious
prejudices, and dislike of the man comes in the way of an honest and impartial estimate. In this
respect he does not live up to his own theory of the objectivity and impersonality of poetry. His
condemnation of Milton, and that of Shelley, can hardly be called sound literary criticism. When
he scoffs at Arnold for his being an overworked inspector of schools, he drifts away from
criticism proper and stoops to personal invective. Moreover, he does not judge all by the same
standards of criticism. For example, in his essay on Dante he remarks that knowledge of the
ideas and beliefs of a poet is not essential for an appreciation of his poetry. But he condemns
Shelley for his ‘repellent ideas’. There is an element of didacticism in his later essays and with
the passing of time his critical faculties were more and more exercised on social problems.
Critics have also found fault with his style as too full of doubts, reservations and qualifications.

His Contribution: Reassessment of Earlier Writers

However, such faults do not detract from Eliot’s greatness as a critic. His criticism offers both a
reaction and a re-assessment. Through his practical criticism, he has brought about a
revaluation of the great literary names of the past three centuries. His recognition of the
greatness of Donne and the other Metaphysical poets of the 17th century, has resulted in the
Metaphysical revival of the 20th century. The credit for the renewal of interest in the
Metaphysicals and the Jacobean dramatists must go to Eliot, and Eliot alone. Similarly, he has
restored Dryden and the other Augustan poets to their rightful place in the hierarchy of the
Englishmen of letters. According to Bradbrook, his essay on Dante resulted not only in a greater
appreciation of the Italian poet, it aroused keen curiosity and enthusiasm for the latter middle
ages. We may not, sometimes, agree with his views, but there can be little doubt that he is highly
original and thought-provoking. The novelty of his statements, couched in tenchant phrases,
startles and arrests attention. He has shed new light on a number of English writers and has
made them look entirely different—According to Eliot, the end of criticism is to bring about a
readjustment between the old and the new, and his own criticism performs this function to a
nicety. 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, in addition to an unusual capacity for judgment, an independence of mind
powerful enough to recognise and interpret for their generation its own values and categories of
appreciation. “Matthew Arnold was such a critic as were Coleridge and Johnson and Dryden
before him; and such, to our own day, is Eliot himself (John Hayward). Eliot’s re estimation of
the dramatists and poets of the 17th century, remains unrivalled in the history of English
criticism.

Raised Criticism to the Level of Science

Eliot’s practical criticism offers a re-assessment of earlier writers; his theoretical criticism
represents a reaction to romantic and Victorian critical creed. He called himself, ‘a classicist in
literature’, and one of his important contributions in the reaction against romanticism and
humanism which he strengthened. The reaction had been started by T.B. Hulme. Eliot carried it
on, made it a force in literature, and thus brought about a classical revival both in art and
criticism. He rejected the romantic view of the perfectibility of the individual, stressed the
doctrine of the original sin, and exposed the hollowness of the romantic faith in the ‘Inner voice’
as merely doing, ‘what one likes’. He stressed that a critic must follow objective standards;
instead of following merely his, ‘inner voice’ he must conform to tradition. A sense of tradition, a
respect for order and authority is at the core of Eliot’s classicism, and in this respect the essay
Tradition and the Individual Talent is the manifesto of his critical creed. In this way, his
criticism is a corrective to the eccentricity and waywardness of the contemporary impressionistic
school of criticism. Similarly, he sought to correct the excesses of what he contemptuously called
‘the abstract and intellectual’ school of criticism represented by Arnold. The critic must have a
highly developed sense of fact and he must judge on the basis of these facts with perfect
detachment and impartiality. He thus sought to raise criticism to the level of science; in his
objectivity and scientific attitude Eliot is the English critic who most closely resembles Aristotle.
In this stress on facts, on ‘comparison and analysis’, Eliot has exercised a profound influence on
the New Critics. He has started many new trends in English criticism.

His Revolutionary Theory of Poetry

“Eliot’s theory of the impersonality of poetry”, says A.G. George, “is the greatest theory on the
nature of the poetic process after Wordsworth’s romantic conception of poetry.” According to
the romantics, poetry was an expression of the emotions, the personality of the poet. Thus
Wordsworth said that poetry was an overflow of powerful emotions, and that it had its origins
in, ‘emotions recollected in tranquillity’. Eliot rejects romantic subjectivism and propounds the
revolutionary doctrine that poetry is not a letting loose of emotion but an escape from emotion,
not an expression of personality, but an escape from personality. The poet is merely a catalytic
agent in the presence of which varied emotions fuse to form new wholes. He differentiates
between the emotions of the poet and the artistic emotion, and points out that the function is to
turn attention from the poet to his poetry. Thus his criticism is a corrective to the excesses of the
biographical, historical and sociological schools of criticism. He thus changed the entire cause of
critical theory and practice in many ways of far-reaching significance.

Poetry as Organisation: Break from Romantic Tradition

Eliot’s views on the nature of poetic process are equally revolutionary. According to him, poetry
is not inspiration; it is organisation. The poet’s mind is like a receptable in which are stored a
number of varied feelings, emotions and experiences. The poetic process is the process of fusing
these disparate experiences and emotions into new wholes. In his essays on 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”, but in the mind of the poet varied experiences are always forming new wholes.
Perfect poetry results when, instead of dissociation of sensibility’, there is ‘unification of
sensibility’. The emotional and the intellectual, the creative and the critical, faculties must work
in harmony to produce a really great work of art. Until now critics had either stressed that the
aim of poetry is to give pleasure and in this way to mitigate pain, or that its function is moral
edification A great poet both instructs and delights. However, for Eliot the greatness of a poem
is tested not by the pleasure it gives or the moral elevation it leads to, but by the order and unity
it imposes on the chaotic and disparate experiences of the poet. Wimsatt and Brooks are,
therefore, right in saying, “Hardly since the 17th century had a critic writing in English so
resolutely transposed poetic theory from the axis of pleasure versus pain to that of unity versus
multiplicity.” In this way, Eliot’s theory of poetry marks a break from tradition, and gives a new
direction to literary criticism.

His Critical Concepts and Their Popularity

Eliot has formulated a number of new critical concepts which thanks to his gift of phrasing, have
gained wide currency, and exercised a far-reaching influence on criticism ever since. Objective
co-relative, Dissociation of sensibility, Unification of sensibility, are only a few of the Eliot
cliches which have been hotly debated by a host of critics, and have made people sit up and
think. His dynamic theory of tradition, his theory of impersonality of poetry, his insistence on, ‘a
highly developed sense of fact’, on the part of the critic, have all tended to impart to literary
criticism both catholicity and rationalism.

His Influence: Wide and Continuing

To conclude: Eliot’s influence as a critic has been wide and all-pervasive, it has also been a
continuing one. He has corrected and educated the taste of his readers and has brought about a
rethinking regarding the function of poetry and the nature of the poetic process. He gave a new
orientation, new critical ideas and new tools of criticism. It is in the re-consideration and
revitalisation of English poetry of the past “that his influence as a critic, has been most fruitful
and inspiring. ‘No critic, indeed, since Coleridge has shown more clearly the use of poetry and of
criticism’ (John Hayward). Estimating the achievement of Eliot as a critic, George Watson
writes, “Eliot made English criticism look different, but not in a simple sense.” He offered it a
new range of rhetorical possibilities, confirmed it in its increasing contempt for historical
processes and yet reshaped its notion of period by a handful of brilliant intuitions. It is not to be
expected that so expert and professional an observer of poetry should allow his achievement to
be more nearly classified than this.” His comments on the nature of Poetic Drama and the
relation between poetry and drama have done much to bring about revival of Poetic Drama in
the modern age. There is hardly any critic now who does not bear the stamp of his influence.
Even if he had written no poetry, he would have made his mark as a distinguished subtle critic.
The Essay “Tradition and Individual Talent” as a
manifesto of Eliot’s critical creed

By tradition Eliot means all those habitual actions, habits and customs, from the most
significant religious rites to our conventional ways of greeting a stranger, which represent the
blood kinship of the same people living in the same place.

In his essays on the subject, Eliot is critical of a sentimental attitude towards the past. For one
thing, in even the very best living tradition there is always a mixture of good and bad, and much
that deserves criticism, and for another, tradition is not a matter of feeling alone. Nor can we
safely, without critical examination, attach ourselves to a few dogmatic notions, for what is
healthy belief at one time may, unless it is one of the few fundamental things, be a pernicious
prejudice at another. Nor should he cling to traditions as a way of asserting our superiority over
less favoured peoples. Rather we should try to ascertain, what in the past is worth preserving
and what should be rejected; and what conditions within our power to bring about, would foster
the society that we desire.

These remarks make it clear that Eliot’s conception of tradition is an enlightened and dynamic
one. A sense of tradition is essential for it makes us realise our kinship with “the same people
living in the same place”. But we must remember that the conditions of life which produced
some particular tradition have changed and so the tradition, too, must change. Tradition is not
something immovable, it is something constantly growing and becoming different from what it
previously was. We must learn to distinguish between the essential and the unessential, the
good and the bad, in a particular tradition and only the good and the essential must be followed
and revived. While we should justly be proud of our own tradition this should not make us look
down on other peoples who are not so lucky in this respect. In short, tradition must be used
intelligently, changes in the conditions of life must be taken into consideration, and only the
best should be preserved and fostered

In his essay on, Tradition and Individual Talent, Eliot regards the whole of European literature
from Homer down to his own day as forming a single literary tradition which a man of letters
should painstakingly acquire. This tradition is not a dead one; it continues and lives in the
present. When a really great work of art is produced, this tradition is modified, to some extent,
however little. A great poem or a great work of art can be possible only when the poet or the
artist has a sense of this literary tradition. Great artists modify the existing tradition and pass it
on to the future.
A sense of tradition is essential for the creation of good poetry, but individual talent, too, is of
paramount importance. Indeed, the two, tradition and individual talent, are not opposite
concepts. Eliot reconciles the two, and shows that both have an essential role to play in the
process of poetic creation.

Individual talent is needed to acquire the sense of tradition, and this individual talent also
modifies the tradition so acquired. Tradition in the true sense of the term cannot be inherited, it
can only be obtained by hard labour. This labour is the labour of knowing the past writers. It is
the critical labour of shifting the good from the bad, and of knowing what is good and useful.
Tradition can be obtained only by those who have the historical sense. The historical sense
involves’a perception, “not only of the pastness of the past, but also of its presence.” One who
has the historic sense feels that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer down to his
own day, including the literature of his own century, forms one continuous literary tradition. He
realises that the past exists in the present, and that the past and the present from one
simultaneous order. This historical sense is the sense of the timeless and temporal, as well as of
the timeless and temporal together. It is this historic sense which makes a writer traditional. 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. Tradition
represents the accumulated wisdom and experience of ages, and so its knowledge is essential for
really great and noble achievements.

According to this view, tradition is not anything fixed and static, it is constantly changing,
growing and becoming different from what it is, and it is the individual talent which so modifies
it. A writer in the present must seek guidance from the past, he must confirm to the literary
tradition. But just as the past directs and guides the present so the present alters and modifies
the past. When a new work of art is created, if it is really new and original, the whole literary
tradition is modified, though even so slightly. The relationship between the past and the present
is not one sided; it is a reciprocal relationship. The past directs the presents and is itself
modified and altered by the present.

The work of a poet in the present is to be compared and contrasted with works of the past, and
judged by the standards of the past. But this judgment does not mean determining good or bad.
It does not mean deciding whether the present work is better or worse than works of the past.
An author in the present is certainly out to be judged by the principles and standards of the past.
The comparison is to be made for knowing the facts, all the facts, about the new work of art. 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 us to understand the present, and
the present throws light on the past. It is in this way alone that we can form an idea of what is
really individual and new. It is by comparison alone that we can sift the tradition from the
individual elements in a given work of art
In this way, does Eliot reconcile the concept of tradition with individual talent and stresses their
respective roles in the process of poetic creation.

Eliot’s views on “Hamlet”: Their significance and

Originality
In his essay “Hamlet and His Problems”, Eliot points out that critics have generally concentrated
their attention on Hamlet, the character, and ignored Hamlet, the play, which raises a number
of problems of great significance. There has been a dangerous tendency among critics to forget
that their primary business is to study the work of art concerned and base their conclusions on
such a study. As a result, the criticism on Hamlet has often been quite misleading. Even such
men of genius as Coleridge and Goethe have substituted, “their own Hamlet for Shakespeare’s”.
In their criticism they have presented an image of Hamlet out of their own fancy, instead of
remaining true and faithful to the Hamlet of Shakespeare’s play.

The material of the play is certainly intractable. Shakespeare failed to impose order and
arrangement on this material, and as a consequence, “the play is most certainly an artistic
failure.” There is much in the play that is puzzling and which cannot be justified. First, it is the
longest play of Shakespeare and there is much in it that is superfluous and inconsistent
(Polonius-Laertes scenes and Polonius-Reynaldo scene for example). This superfluity is so
obvious that it can be noticed even in a hasty-revision and yet it has been allowed to persist.
Secondly, its versification is uneven and variable. Immature and defective lines alternate with
quite mature ones. Both workmanship and thought are in a unstable condition As a work of art,
it is much inferior to the other great tragedies of the dramatist.

Though the material of the play is intractable and many of the weaknesses of the play are
accounted for in this way, the source of its real weakness lies much deeper, The central motif of
the play is the effect of a mother’s guilt upon her son. A mother’s degradation no doubt causes
unutterable torture and anguish in the son, and therefore “the guilt of mother is an almost
intolerable motive for drama.” In other words, the failure of the drama arises from the fact that
Shakespeare could not handle the effect of a mother’s guilt, with the same success as he could
handle the jealousy of Othello, or the infatuation of Antony, or the pride of Coriolanus. As in the
sonnets, so in the play, there is some mysterious diffused feeling to which the dramatist has
failed to give artistic expression. This mysterious, all-pervasive emotion cannot be localised in
any particular scene or speech. It is all over the play but nowhere in particular. There is no
particular object, event or action which adequately expresses this feeling. The artistic weakness
of the play arises from the failure of the dramatist to objectify this unrealised emotion.

In other words, Shakespeare has failed to find a suitable, “Objective Co-relative” for the
emotions of Hamlet. Eliot defines ‘‘Objective Co-relative’ as, “a set of objects, a situation, a chain
of events, which shall be the formula of that particular emotion: such that when the external
facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately
evoked.” The dramatist should present such actions, events, characters, situations as would
arouse in the readers or the spectators the particular emotion aimed at by him. The emotions of
poetry should be provided with motives, or that the responses of the poets should be responses
to a defined situation For example, the action, gestures and words of Lady Macbeth walking in
her sleep arouse the same sense of anguish in the readers as they do in Macbeth himself, and
hence his words on hearing of his wife’s death seem quite inevitable and natural under the
circumstances. This is also the case with the anguish of Othello. This is so because external
action and situation are quite adequate for the internal emotion. But this is not so in Hamlet.
There is no object, character, situation or incident which adequately expresses the inner anguish
of the Prince of Denmark. His suffering is terrible, but the full intensity of his horror at his
mother’s guilt is not conveyed by any character or action in the play. He suffers terribly, but his
suffering is far in excess to the character and situation as presented in the play. A similar
situation in real life would not arouse equally intense emotion in normally constituted people.
Shakespeare wanted to convey something inexpressibly horrible but the character of Gertrude
and the whole plot of the play is inadequate for the purpose. In other words, Shakespeare has
failed to find a suitable, “Objective Co-relative”, for the emotion he wanted to convey. Herein lies
the real source of the artistic failure of the play.

Hamlet is an artistic failure, but this failure arises only from the fact that in it Shakespeare tried
to tackle a problem which proved too much even for him. He was trying to express an
unexpressible horror and, therefore, as some critics have rightly stressed, his failure itself is a
measure of his artistic greatness and not of his lack of genius. He failed because his chosen plot
and his characters were inadequate for the purpose, just as a great artist would fail to draw a
magnificent picture in the absence of adequate colours and canvas.