Dr.
Sanjay Kumar Sinha
Head, English Department
Patna College ; PU
Contact details- 9431493845
[email protected]T. S ELIOT’S THE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM
T.S. Eliot, the 1948 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is one of the giants of
modern literature, highly distinguished as a poet, literary critic, dramatist, and
editor and publisher. In 1910 and 1911, while still a college student, he wrote
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and other poems that are landmarks in the
history of literature. Within a few years he had composed another landmark
poem, “Gerontion” (1920), and within a decade, one of the most famous and
influential poems of the century, The Waste Land (1922). Eliot is also an
important figure in 20th-century drama. By the mid 1920s he was writing a
play, Sweeney Agonistes (published in 1932, performed in 1933); in the 1930s he
wrote an ecclesiastical pageant, The Rock , and two full-blown plays, Murder in
the Cathedral ( 1935) and The Family Reunion ( 1939); and in the late 1940s and
the 1950s he devoted himself almost exclusively to plays, of which The Cocktail
Party (1950) has been the most popular.
Eliot was almost as renowned a literary critic as he was a poet. From 1916
through 1921 he contributed approximately one hundred reviews and articles to
various periodicals. His ideas quickly solidified into doctrine and became, with the
early essays of I.A. Richards, the basis of the New Criticism, one of the most
influential schools of literary study in the 20th century. Through half a century of
critical writing, Eliot’s concerns remained more or less constant; his position
regarding those concerns, however, was frequently refined, revised, or,
occasionally, reversed. Beginning in the late 1920s, Eliot’s literary criticism was
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supplemented by religious and social criticism. In these writings, such as The Idea
of a Christian Society (1939), he can be seen as a deeply involved and thoughtful
Christian poet in the process of making sense of the world between the two
World Wars. These writings, sympathetically read, suggest the dilemma of the
serious observer of Western culture in the 1930s, and rightly understood, they
complement his poetry, plays, and literary journalism.
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.”
Eliot argues that the function of criticism is “elucidation of works of art and the
correction of taste.” He sees criticism as an impersonal process, and argues that
rather than expressing a critic's emotions about or impressions of a work,
criticism is grounded in fact.
Although criticism for Eliot is not philology, and its goals are not simply discovery
of historical or biographical background, the critic must be intimately acquainted
with an author's work, the background to that work, and the traditions within
which the author was working.
Eliot emphasizes that one of the main tasks of the critic is to understand how a
work fits within the tradition of literature and how it advances the development
of poetic technique. When, for example, he writes about Jacobean playwrights,
he emphasizes the particular strengths and weaknesses of the ways they handle
various figures of speech and the blank verse line.
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Eliot believes emphatically that the true purpose of criticism is for the critic to
present the facts of the work being assessed to the reader. In this he means the
technical facts related to the work itself and not facts about its creator. Such
details are insignificant. The true critic is objective and open-minded and turns
attention from the artist to his work. The critic therefore assesses the work itself
and is not concerned about or influenced by any factors related to the artist.
In this regard then, it is essential that the critic is knowledgeable about the 'facts'
related to a work of art, i.e. its setting, structure, origin etc. This knowledge, Eliot
emphasises, is a rare gift and can only be developed over an extensive period of
time.
Furthermore, the critic should have a highly developed sense of tradition. Eliot
viewed all forms literature, from the past to the present, as forming part of the
same stream and the critic should understand this connection. A work of art
therefore, is not isolated from its tradition or history.
The function of the critic is to not just criticize a work of art or to pass judgment,
but to present the facts so that the reader may make his or her own judgment.
The critic should be able to compare different works of art and present his
findings objectively. In this manner, the critic provides the reader the opportunity
to develop his or her own aesthetic sense and intellect. As such, the reader would
have greater insight into the work and have a deeper appreciation thereof.
Therefore, the function of criticism is to inform and educate (within the
parameters provided above) and not to judge.
In the modern century, T.S Eliot stands as the mountain peak among the critics ,
who has gained international reputation by his outstanding contributions to
modern critical theories. Eliot has not only broken new grounds but also has
worked to change the taste and outlook of the people towards literary criticism.
Above all, he was the first person who thought of tradition connecting the past
and the present in order to embrace all that had been done and all that was to be
done. Critical works as the Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism only establish
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the fact that he stands on a solid ground and speaks on his first hand personal
knowledge of the subject. He believes that a true critic is a scrupulous avoider of
any formula because he has to refrain from statements which pretend to be
literary true. His truths, therefore, are truths of experience rather than of
calculation. And it is with such experiences that he establishes commonsense and
normal attitude as the cardinal principles of criticism. T.S Eliot will remain a
landmark in the history of criticism, and his relevance to the study of literary
criticism will also remain unchanged as long as criticism moves in the direction
that Eliot has given.
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