The Helpfulness of T.S. Eliot’s Critical Ideas in Understanding his Own Poetry
Abstract
At the present paper, we aim at explaining T.S. Eliot’s own poetry considering his own essayson the art of writing poetry. Thomas Stern Eliot (1888-1965) was a British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, being regarded “one of the twentieth century’s major poets” (Bush, 1999) in the English language. Eliot’s poetry was seen as representative of the Modernist movement, beginning with The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufock(1915) and followed by some of the best-known poems, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four Quartets (1943), among others. He was also known for his work as a playwright, although he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 due to his pioneer contribution to nowadays poetry.T.S. Eliot also made significant contributions to the field of literary criticism, strongly influencing the school of New Criticism. It is, in fact, this arena of the literary criticism the main topic which will be dealt throughout the whole paper. In the current essay, we will explain Eliot’s critical ideas, in other words, what he conceives of poetry and the art on writing poetry, and how his own critical ideas influence on his own poetry. The poet introduces the idea that the value of a work of art must be viewed in the context of the artist’s previous works. He also covers the idea of an objective correlative which shall be dealt with in this paper. We should also consider that Eliot revived, when writing his own poetry, the interest in the Metaphysical Poets as well as in Shakespeare and, specifically, in Hamlet. After having explained the existing relationship between his own criticism and his own poetry, we will conclude the current paper by explaining what Eliot conceives of the concept of communicating.
Keywords: English literature; Poetry; Modern poetry; Literary Criticism;art of poetry; Metaphysical Poets.
References
Bush, R. (1999) T.S. Eliot’s life and career, in American National Biography, edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, New York: Oxford University Press.
Casey, J. (1966) Art and Feeling 2- T.S. Eliot, in The Language of Criticism, California: Methuen
Davie, D. (1995) Syntax as Unpoetical: T.E. Hulme, in Articulate Energy. An enquiry into the syntax of English Poetry. London: Routledge
Eliot, T.S. (1933) Conclusion to The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, London: Faber & Faber, 143-156
Eliot, T.S. (1977) Tradition and the Individual Talent, 1917 in Selected Essays. London: Faber & Faber, 13-22
Eliot, T.S.(1977) Hamlet, 1919, in Selected Essays. London: Faber & Faber, 141-146
Eliot, T.S. (1977) The Metaphysical Poets, 1921 in Selected Essays. London: Faber & Faber, 281-291
Eliot, T.S. (2015) The Annotated text. The Poems of T.S. Eliot, Volume 1: Collected and Uncollected poems. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Hulme, T.E. (1938) Lecture on Modern Poetry, in Michael Roberts (ed.)(1908) London: Faber and Faber, 258-270
Hulme, T.E. (1924) Romanticism and Classicism.In Speculations.Essays on Humanisn and the Philosophy of Art. Read, H. (ed.) 1911-1912, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner; New York: Harcourt, Brace, pp. 113-140.
Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/SpeculationsEssaysOnHumanismAndthePhilosophyOfArt on 26th December 2017
Hulme, T.E.(1922) The Notebooks of T.E. Hulme, in The Modernist Journals Project, The New Age. A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature and Art, 310-312
Richards, I.A. (1926) Mr. Eliot’s Poems, in New Statesman 26 (20th February 1926), 584-585.
Richards, I.A. (1933) Basic Rules of Reason, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner& Co.
Richards, I.A. (2001) Principles of Literary Criticism, London: Routledge.
Roberts, M. (1938) T.E. Hulme, London: Faber and Faber,258-270.
Stead, C.K. (1964) The poetry of T.S. Eliot, in The New Poetic, Yeats and Eliot, New York: Harper, 148-180.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Declaration/Copyright transfer:
1. In consideration of the undertaking set out in paragraph 2, and upon acceptance by ANGLISTICUM for publication of the manuscript in the Journal, I/We hereby assign and transfer publication rights to ANGLISTICUM, whereas I/We retain the copyright for the manuscript. This assignment provides ANGLISTICUM the sole right and responsibility to publish the manuscript in its printed and online version, and/or in other media formats.
2. In consideration of this assignment, ANGLISTICUM hereby undertakes to prepare and publish the manuscript in the Journal, subject only to its right to refuse publication if there is a breach of the Author’s warranty in paragraph 4 or if there are other reasonable grounds.
3. Editors and the editorial board of ANGLISTICUM are empowered to make such editorial changes as may be necessary to make the Manuscript suitable for publication.
4. I/We hereby acknowledge that: (a) The manuscript submitted is an original work and that I/We participated in the work substantively and thus I/We hereby are prepared to take public responsibility for the work; (b) I/We hereby have seen and approved the manuscript as submitted and that the manuscript has not either been published, submitted or considered for publication elsewhere; (c) The text, illustration, and any other materials included in the manuscript do not infringe upon any existing copyright or other rights of anyone.
5. I/We hereby indemnify ANGLISTICUM and the respective Editors of the Journal as mentioned in paragraph 3, and hold them harmless from any loss, expense or damage occasioned by a claim or suit by a third party for copyright infringement, or any suit arising out of any breach of the foregoing warranties as a result of publication of the manuscript.
