T. S.

Eliot (1888-1965)
 Objective co-relative: a way of conveying emotion,
without verbal expression by presenting certain
situations and events which arouse a similar emotion in
the reader. These objects, a situation, a chain of events,
shall be the formula for the poet’s emotions, so that
when the external facts are given, the emotion is at once
evoked.
T. S. Eliot cont’d
Dissociation of sensibility, unification of sensibility: by
unification of sensibility Eliot means a fusion of thought
and feeling, a recreation of thought into feeling, a direct
sensuous apprehension of thought that is essential for good
poetry.
Dissociation of sensibility happens when the poet is unable
to feel his thoughts that results in bad poetry; the poet fails
to transmit his ideas into emotions and sensations.
T. S. Eliot cont’d
Escape from personality:
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotions, but an escape
from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an
escape from personality; the poet should depersonalize the
emotion; there should be an extinction of his personality;
this impersonality can be achieved only when the poet
surrenders himself completely to his work; poetry not the
freeing of the poet’s emotions but an escape from them,
poem an impersonal formulation of common feelings and
emotions

Distinction between man (mind, emotions, personal) and

poet ( personality, experience, universal)
T. S. Eliot cont’d
Intentional fallacy: the error of equating the meaning of a
poem with its author’s feelings or stated or implied
intentions
Affective fallacy: the error of confusing what a poem is(
meaning ) with what it does
 Heresy of paraphrase: a poem’s interpretation taken equal
to a mere paraphrased version of it
T. S. Eliot cont’d
 The critic: (function of criticism: elucidation of works
of art and correction of taste)
1. Objectivity and avoiding sentimentality and being
emotional
2. Being impersonal; he must be guided by some
authority outside himself not by the inner voice.
3. He must have a highly developed sense of fact; a
knowledge of technical details of a poem, its genesis,
setting, etc.
4. He must have a highly developed sense of tradition, the
literature of his own country and that of Europe from
Homer to his own day.
T. S. Eliot cont’d
5. He should be a poet to be in the best position to
communicate his own understanding to his own
readers.
6. He should have a thorough understanding of the
language and structure of a poem and its music.
7. He need to be an expert in the use of comparison and
analysis, to compare the poets of the present with those
of the past to elucidate the qualities of the work under
criticism.
8. He should judge the present work by the standards of
the present.
T.S. Eliot
 Tradition and individual talent:
No poet or artist of any sort can be understood solely on
terms of himself.
All the existing monuments of literature compose an order,
an ideal form (the most valuable parts of the poet’s work
are those in which “ the dead poets, his ancestors, assert
their immortality most vigorously).
The poet lives in a tradition; he must surrender himself to
this tradition.
The emotion of art is impersonal.
T.S. Eliot
 Notes towards the Definition of Culture (1949):
 The strongest cultures are those which have dissent in the
form of local or regional cultures. English culture would be
weakened if there were no Scotch or Welsh cultures too.