T.S Eliot theory of Poetry.pptx

Introduction of Writer, his works, essay tradition and individual talent, theory of poetry( impersonality of poetry, historical sense, poetic emotion, comparison of Wordsworth and T.S eliot theory of poetry, objective correlative, dissociation of Sensibility, unification of sensibility, meta-physical poetry, conceit , use of Conceit in John Donne’s poetry.

1. T.S Eliot Theory of Poetry Submitted by: Safa Mir Supervised by: Sir Adnan Ali. Bs English 7 Semester, UOL. Subject: Literary Criticism

2. Introduction Of T.S Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot famous as T.S Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St.Louis Missouri, US. He moved to England at the age of 25. And died on January 4, 1965 in London, England. Eliot, was a English poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, editor and a literary critic . He is considered one of the 20 th century major poets. He is a central figure in English language modernist poetry. Who is a literary critic? A literary critic is someone who argues on the behalf of an interpretation or understanding of the particular meaning(s) of literary texts. It’s like to judge or comment on the qualities of the literary works.

3. Introduction What is literary criticism? Literary criticism is the study, evaluation and interpretation of literature. It’s not the criticism we see on our daily life, like giving negative comments. Father of Modern poetry: T.S Eliot is the the father of modern poetry and also best known as a leader of the Modernist Movement in poetry. He was awarded Noble prize in literature in 1948. What is Noble prize? The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden, and based on the fortune of Alfred Nobel , Swedish inventor and entrepreneur. The Nobel Prizes are five separate prizes, and are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.

4. Works of T.S Eliot His famous works include; The Waste Land ( 1922 ) Four Quartets ( 1943 ) First poem, The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock ( 1911 ) The play, Murder in the Cathedral ( 1935 ) Essay, Tradition and Individual Talent ( 1919 ). Eliot’s Essay: Tradition and individual talent was first published in the magazine “ The Egoist” in 1919 and later in Eliot’s first book of criticism “ The Sacred Wood” in 1920.

5. Essay Tradition and Individual talent This essay is divided into three parts: The Concept of tradition. The theory of impersonal poetry. Conclusion with a gist( that poetry should be a combination of tradition and impersonality of poet ) to embrace beauty in the writing. Impersonality Of Poetry: Also called as extension of personality. According to Aristotle, “ A good drama is produced when the character completely indulged himself.

6. Impersonality of poetry Similarly, Eliot says “ the artist must continually surrender ( self-sacrifice) himself. He must allow his poetic sensibility to be shaped and modified by the past. He must acquire the sense of tradition to creat a great work. His personality, likes and dislikes should not be seen in his works. 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 . A good poem, he must realize,  is a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written.

7. Impersonality of poetry Hence a poet must be  absorbed in acquiring a sense of tradition and expressing it in his poetry. As Eliot says, “the progress of the artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality” .  In other words, the poet’s emotions and passions must be depersonalised ; he must be as impersonal and objective as a scientist. Example of a Catalyst agent and a mind of poet; Eliot compares the mind of the poet to a catalyst and the process of poetic creation to the process of a chemical reaction. When a piece of platinum is introduced into a vapour chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide, the two combine to form sulphuric acid, but the platinum remains unchanged. The poet’s mind is this platinum, the catalytic agent. The emotions and feelings are sulphur and oxygen. The poet’s mind  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 personality of the poet does not find expression in his poetry. The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him “will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.” There should be an extinction of his personality. 

8. Brief Concept of historical Sense by Eliot Eliot says a good poetry is that having the sense of tradition , means it is influenced by the history and all the works of poetry written in the past. The historical sense involves a perception, “ not only of the pastness of the past, but also 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 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.

9. Sense of Tradition ( Briefly) 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 effort .  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. And then modify according to the modern time. Such comparison and contrast is essential for estimating the real worth and significance of a new writer and his work. Eliot’s conception of tradition is a dynamic one.  Eliot discusses that tradition cannot be inherited, it can only be obtain by hard labour . It also requires the use of a conscious mind .

10. Poetic Emotion: There is always a difference between the artistic emotion and the personal emotions of the poet . The more intense the poetic process, the greater the poem. Eliot says, the emotion of art is impersonal . Example : Like if a poor man is writing about the life of the King, his poverty should not be seen in his writing. For instance , in the drama “Parizad” the writer Hashim Nadeem himself did not experience the problems shown by him in the character of the parizad. Parizad was portrayed as poor and ugly man, his life problems, emotions are created by the writer not experienced. The writer depersonalised himself.

11. Comparison of Eliot and Wordsworth theory of poetry Eliot ventures to give his own theory of poetry while criticising the poetic theory of Wordsworth. He considers Wordsworth's definition of poetry as an inexact formula . His rejection of this theory betrays his attitude as a classic critic.Eliot believes that the poet is a medium of expression. The poet must be objective in his poetic creation. So Eliot rejects the theory of poetry of Wordsworth. He declares that Wordsworth theory “ Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions, recollected in tranquility” is an inexact formula.

12. Comparison…. He points out that in the process of poetic composition , there is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor tranquility. In the poetic process, there is only concentration of a number of experiences. Eliot says every mature art must be impersonal .It seems that in the theory of poetic process, emotion is given place inferior to thought and feelings. This is clearly opposite to Wordsworth's definition of poetry. In this respect, Eliot says, "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.”

13. Comparison…. The emotion of poetry is different from personal emotion 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 resulting 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 .  Example : There is always a difference between the artistic emotion and personal emotions of the poet. For example, the famous "Ode to a 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.

14. Comparison… He is merely a medium in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and expected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man find no place in his poetry. Those which become important in the poetry may have no significance for the man. Eliot thus rejects romantic subjectivism .

15. Objective correlative Eliot discuss the concept of the ‘ objective correlative ’ which he first used in his essay on “Hamlet and his Problems” in his first book of criticism “ The Sacred Wood” . According to Eliot, the poet cannot communicate his emotions directly to the readers; he must find some object or medium suggestive of it to  evoke the same emotion in his readers. This ‘ objective correlative ’ is “ a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that  particular  emotion” so that “when the external facts are given the emotion is at once evoked.”   It is through the objective correlative that the transaction between author and reader necessarily takes place. The reader responds to the object or medium and through that, to the work of art. 

16. Example from Poem Waste land In an attempt to understand the matter better, it is necessary to return to Eliot's poetry . Mr. Eliot's most well-known work, "The Waste Land," the poet does not come right out and moralise, or tell the reader how to feel or think; he uses a set of images, situations or characters to do the job. Eliot's chief use of the objective correlative is in contrasting the grandeur of the past with the indecent , meaningless present. In The Wasteland, for instance , we are first given a description of Cleopatra in her barge going to meet Anthony ; the details are of' gold, jewels, carved dolphins, and rich colors. Eliot follows this scene with one in which a neurotic modern woman begs her bored husband or lover to stay home with her. Eliot further contrast by the rhythm: The Cleopatra scene is done in something like blank verse with a noble tone such as Spenser or Shakespeare might have used; the modern scene has almost no rhythm at all. It is a series of broken questions and repetitions.Then, to reinforce his contrast, Eliot jazzes up Shakespeare: " He is so elegant, so intelligent ". Thus without directly saying so, Eliot makes us feel the cheapness and indecency of modern " love " .

17. Example of Objective correlative 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 in the burning taper, 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 emotion to the reader . 

18. Dissociation of Sensibility Another of the popular phrases of Eliot is ‘ Dissociation of Sensibility ’ and its opposite, ‘ Unification of sensibility’ ,  was first used by T.S Eliot in his famous essay “The Metaphysical Poets” from  Homage to John Dryden . It refers to the way in which intellectual thought was separated from the experience of feeling in the seventeenth century. Basic concept on the dissociation of sensibility: The term dissociation of sensibility comprises two words which are dissociation and sensibilit y . What is Sensibility? The ability to experience and understand deep feelings , especially in art and literature What is the meaning of Dissociation? The meaning of word dissociation is separation or detachment.

19. Unification of Sensibility Before elaborating dissociation of sensibility, the unification of sensibility should be clarified so that we can appreciate the intellectual or metaphysical poets very well. The term “ unification of sensibility ” means fusion of thought and feeling. (A recreation of thought into feeling) . “ a direct sensuous(aesthetically pleasing) apprehension of thought’ . Like when you observe some object of nature it appeals you aesthetically, a thought comes to our mind or feeling is generated. Such fusion of thought and feeling is essential for good poetry.  Eliot finds such unification of sensibility in the Jacobean dramatists and the Metaphysical poets , especially by John Donne first . 

20. Unification of sensibility What is it called as Jacobean? James in Latin is Jacobus, which is why the period of King James' rule , between 1603 and 1625, is known as the Jacobean period. the leading dramatist of this Jacobean period was  Ben Jonson . Who were known as metaphysical poets? Metaphysical poets (act. c. 1600–c. 1690), is a group of seventeenth-century poets, among whom the central figures are  John Donne, George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, and Richard Crashaw . Who is the father of metaphysical poetry? John Donne  was born in 1572 in London, England. He is known as the founder of the Metaphysical Poets.

21. Definition of Meta-Physical poetry It is a combination of two words ‘ meta ’ and ‘ physical in word “ metaphysical ”.’ The first word “ Meta ” means beyond . So metaphysical means beyond physical, beyond the normal and ordinary . The meanings are clear here that it deals with the objects/ideas that are beyond the existence of this physical world. Definition :  “Highly intellectualised poetry marked by bold and ingenious conceits, incongruous imagery, wits, complexity and subtlety of thought, frequent use of paradox, and often by deliberate harshness or rigidity of expression ”. Metaphysical poetry is a genre of poetry that deals with deep and profound subjects like spirituality, religion , etc. It is highly intellectual form of poetry. 

22. example of John Donne Eliot used John Donne’s poetry as an example of united sensibility and thought. He writes , “A thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility.   Works of John Donne ; 1 . 'The Flea’. 2 . 'The Good-Morrow’. 3 . Holy Sonnet: 'Death, be not proud’. 4 . 'The Canonisation’. 5. 'A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. 6 . The Dream. 7 . The Anniversary. 8. ‘The Relic’ etc . The ordinary man’s experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes.”  The sense of sensibility arises creativity in the writing of the literature.Like there is a difference between the experience and observation of a common man and a poet. For Example , the autumn leaves falling down might be taken by an ordinary man as a process of nature but a poet feels and experience it in an other way and write a poetry on autumn leaves like Keats wrote Ode to Autumn.

23. What is Conceit? Definition : A conceit can be defined as an elaborate and fanciful metaphor or analogy, or a witty and ingenious comparison between two things which do not naturally belong to each other.  Much like a builder with a hammer, writers use different tools to set the tone or mood of a piece. A conceit is one such device. Popular in Renaissance literature, a conceit is a cross between a  metaphor  or a  simile . Like a metaphor, a conceit makes a comparison , but the objects are very dissimilar.  A conceit is basically a comparison between two dissimilar things.  Conceits usually demand your attention because the comparison seems so farfetched.  For example, "Her eyes shined brighter than the moon."

24. Use of Conceits in John Donne Poems Many of John Donne's poems contain metaphysical conceits and intellectual reasoning to build a deeper understanding of the speaker's emotional state. For Example; “ A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning ” we see that the separation between husband and wife is not troublesome for Donne as he ends with one of Donne's most famous metaphysical conceits, in which he  argues for the lovers' closeness by comparing their two souls to the feet of a drawing compass —a simile that would not typically occur to a poet writing about his love! In the poem “ Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud” ; the main metaphysical conceit is to use an extended metaphor that paints a picture of death as a being in and of itself. With this technique, it makes it possible for the speaker of the poem to address death directly, as if he were able to hear what was being said like he was a person . The poem is quite rebellious in that the speaker doesn't accept the power of death over people. But by the end of the poem , there is a victory in saying that death, the ultimate destroyer of life, actually cannot destroy life because death itself is an ushering in to a new reality of eternal life.

25. Use of Conceit in John Donne’s poetry in the poem ,  " The Good-Morrow" ,  we find some startling and shocking or fantastic conceits which had never before found. Here he says, the lover is a whole world to his beloved and she is a whole world to him, not only that they are two better hemispheres who constitute the whole world. Here the poet says, "Where can we finde two better hemispheres, Without sharpe North, without declining West?“ Again he says that as the four elements, earth, air, fire and water were supposed to combine to form new substance, so two souls mix to form a new unity . The strength and durability of this new unit is dependent upon how well the elements of the two souls are balanced.

26. Use of Conceit in John Donne’s poetry "The Flea" is a perfect example of a metaphysical conceit . The entire poem itself uses a  flea bite  as a way to talk a lover into a sexual relationship. Donne uses creative and complex analogies to compare their sexual union to the bite of a flea . In another poem," Go and catch a falling star" , he has drawn images from the fields of astronomy by saying that as it is difficult to catch a falling star, so it is difficult to find a true and faithful woman .Then he compares woman with an object of forestry when he says that as it is difficult to get delivered a child by mandrake tree, so it is impossible to find a faithful woman. He also compares the faithfulness of woman with a mythological figure .he says that it is impossible to hear the song mermaids , so it is impossible to find a faithful woman in the world.

27. Use of Conceit in John Donne’s poetry “The Relic” is John Donne’s one of the wittiest love poem . Like in his other poems, here, as well, the author finds a similar characteristic in two totally different subjects. The main figure of speech of the poem is a conceit- such an exaggerated metaphor, where, in fact, there is nothing in common between a signified and a signifier ; but John Donne, using metaphysical wit, composes, invents a common sign between them and connects a beautiful lady and a grave with each other . In the poem “ Anniversary ”, The final stanza contains a beautiful metaphysical conceit where Donne regards himself and his wife as two kings who have only themselves for their subjects.  The poet argues that if he and his wife were buried in one grave -then there would be no divorce for them even in death . The idea of kings and princes with their absolute sway over their subjects is applied by the poet to the wonderful relationship between him and his wife . They are both kings to each other as each has absolute power over the other - and so they are better off than earthly princes. Donne pursues the idea throughout the last stanza .

28. Dissociation of Sensibility Dissociation of Sensibility is also referred as disintegration of sensibility . A bad poetry is a dissociation of sensibility . The poet is unable to feel his thoughts and there is a split between thought and feeling . According to Eliot, in the late 17th century a dissociation of sensibility set in with the onset of rationalism (involves opinion based on reasons). The result was a decline in poetic quality.  The influence of Milton and Dryden and Pope who composed their poetry from their wits and not their souls has been particularly harmful in this respect.  Difference between intellectual and reflective poets? The intellectual poets unified thought and feeling together but the reflective poets separated the feeling or sensibility from thought.

29. Dissociation of sensibility According to Eliot , Tennyson and Browning are great poets but they are devoid of the fidelity of thought and feeling simultaneously like Donne.   “Tennyson and Browning are poets; and they think, but they do not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose.” A mature poet can experience or feel his thought as he does the odour of a rose. Later poets were unable to feel their thoughts in the same way. In other words, there is a sensuous apprehension of thought in good poetry. Merely dry thoughts or logic do not make a great poet. A poet’s function is not to versify ideas but to transmute them into sensations. Eliot’s concept of “ Dissociation of sensibility” has been of far-reaching influence in modern criticism .

30. Conclusion Thus, Eliot argues that dissociation of sensibility is not better than the unification of sensibility to produce good poetry. Example: “ A Valediction Forbidding Morning” is a superb example of unification of sensibility in which the poet compares two lovers to a pair of compasses. Conclusion : Thus, it can be said that Eliot proved himself not only a genius critic of 20 th century but also a founder of intellectual poets in the mind of the readers forever by his two terms dissociation of sensibility and unification of sensibility.