1

'T. S. Eliot as a Critic'

Besides being a poet, playwright and publisher, T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was one of the most seminal critics of
his time. Carlo Linati, his Italian critic, found his poetry to be ‘irrational, incomprehensible… a magnificent
puzzle’, and in his poetic endeavors ‘a deliberate critical purpose’. Also in his literary criticism Eliot’s
personality has found its full expression. Thus Eliot’s literary criticism can be seen as expression of his poetic
credo. As one of the seminal critics of the twentieth century; Eliot shows a disinterested endeavour of critical
faculty and intelligence in analyzing a work of art. For the sake a systematic discussion, his critical works may
be grouped under the following headings:
a) theoretical criticism dealing with the principles of literature,
b) descriptive and practical criticism dealing with the works of individual writers and evaluation of their
achievements, and
c) theological essays.
‘Tradition and Individual Talent’ has been one of his extraordinarily influential critical works. It was first
published in 1922 in Sacred Woods, and was subsequently included in the ‘Selected Essays’ (1917-1932). In
this essay, Eliot has primarily dealt with his concepts of
1. Historical Sense, and Tradition
2. Interdependence of the past and the present
3. Impersonality in art in general and poetry in particular

According to the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, Tradition means a belief, principle or way of
acting which people in a particular society or group have continued to follow for a long time, or all of these
beliefs, etc. in a particular society or group. Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes ‘Tradition’ an ‘inherited,
established, or customary pattern of thought, action or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)’.
Eliot commences the essay with the general attitude towards ‘Tradition’.He points out that every nation and
race has its creative and critical turn of mind, and emphasises the need for critical thinking. ‘We might remind
ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing.’In ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’, Eliot introduces the
idea of Tradition. Interestingly enough, Eliot’s contemporaries and commentators either derided the idea as
irrelevant, conservative and backward-looking stance or appreciated the idea and read it in connection with
Matthew Arnold’s historical criticism of texts popularly known as ‘touchstone’ method. In this section we will
first make an attempt to summarize Eliot’s concept of tradition and then will seek to critique it for a
comprehensive understanding of the texts.
At the very outset, Eliot makes it clear that he is using the term tradition as an adjective to explain the
relationship of a poem or a work to the works of dead poets and artists. He regrets that in our appreciation of
authors we hardly include their connections with those living and dead. Also our critical apparatus is
significantly limited to the language in which the work is produced. A work produced in a different language
can be considered for a better appreciation of the work. In this connection, he notices “our tendency to insist…
those aspects” of a writer’s work in which “he least resembles anyone else”. Thus, our appreciation of the writer
is derived from exhumation of the uniqueness of the work. In the process, the interpretation of the work focuses
on identifying the writer’s difference from his predecessors. Eliot critiques this tendency in literary appreciation
and favours inclusion of work or parts of work of dead poets and predecessors.
Although Eliot attaches greater importance to the idea of tradition, he rejects the idea of tradition in the name of
‘Blind or Timid Adherence’ to successful compositions of the past. By subscribing to the idea of tradition, Eliot
does not mean sacrificing novelty nor does he mean slavish repetitions of stylistic and structural features. By
the term ‘Tradition’, he comes up with something ‘of much wider significance”. By ‘Tradition’, he does not
refer to a legacy of writers which can be handed down from a generation to another generation. It has nothing to
do with the idea of inheritance; rather it regrets a great deal of endeavour. He further argues, “It involves... The
historical sense... and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past but its
presence; … This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless
and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.” By this statement, Eliot wants to emphasize
that the writer or the poet must develop a sense of the pastness of the past and always seeks to examine the
poem or the work in its relation to the works of the dead writers or the poets. To substantiate his point of view,
Eliot says, “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is
the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and the artists.” As he says this, he is perfectly aware of
Matthew Arnold’s notion of historical criticism and therefore distances himself from such the Arnoldian critical
stance. He identifies his approach to literary appreciation “as a principle of aesthetics and thereby distinguishes
it from Arnold’s “Historical Criticism”. Thus, Eliot offers an organic theory and practice of literary criticism. In
this, he treats tradition not as a legacy but as an invention of anyone who is ready to create his or her literary
pantheon, depending on his literary tastes and positions. This means that the development of the writer will
depend on his or her ability to build such private spaces for continual negotiation and even struggle with
illustrious antecedents, and strong influences. Harold Bloom terms the state of struggle as “The anxiety of
influence”, and he derides Eliot for suggesting a complex, an elusive relationship between the tradition and the
individual, and goes on to develop his own theory of influence.

The Concept of ‘Impersonality’

In the second part of the essay Eliot argues that “Honest Criticism and sensitive appreciation are directed not
upon the poet but upon the poetry”. This hints at the actual beginning of ‘New Criticism’ where the focus will
shift from author to the text. Eliot here defines the poet’s responsibility. The poet is not supposed to compose
poetry which is full of his personal emotions. He must subscribe himself to something more valuable, i.e., what
others have composed in the past. Thus, Eliot emphasizes objectivity in poetry. Eliot believes that some sort of
‘physical distancing’, to use Bullough’s term, is necessary for successful composition. He also mentions that the
poet has to merge his personality with the tradition:"The progress of the artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a
continual extinction of personality." The mind of the poet is a medium in which experiences can enter new
combinations. He exemplifies this process as when oxygen and sulphur dioxide are mixed in the presence of a
filament of platinum, they form sulphuric acid. This combination takes place only in the presence of platinum,
which acts as the catalyst. But the sulphuric acid shows no trace of platinum, and remains unaffected. The
catalyst facilitates the chemical change, but does not participate in the chemical reaction, and remains
unchanged. Eliot compares the mind of the poet to the shred of platinum, which will "digest and transmute the
passions which are its material". He suggests the analogy of a catalyst’s role in a chemical process in a scientific
laboratory for this process of depersonalization.
Eliot sees the poet's mind as "a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images,
which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together." He
says that concepts like "sublimity", "greatness" or "intensity" of emotion are irrelevant. It is not the greatness of
the emotion that matters, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure under which the artistic process
takes place, that is important. In this way he dissociates the notion on the artistic process from an added
emphasis on 'genius' and the exceptional mind.
Eliot refutes the idea that poetry is the expression of poet’s personality. Experiences in the life of the man may
have no place in his poems, and vice-versa. The emotions occasioned by events in the personal life of the poet
are not important. What matters is the emotion transmuted into poetry, the feelings expressed in the poetry.
"Emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him". Eliot critiques
Wordsworth's definition of poetry in the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads: "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of
powerful feeling: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility."For Eliot, poetry is not recollection
of feeling, "it is a new thing resulting from the concentration of a very great number of experiences . . . it is a
concentration which does not happen consciously or of deliberation." Eliot defines that "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." For him, the emotion of art is impersonal, and the artist can achieve this impersonality only by and
being conscious of the tradition, He is talking about the poetic tradition and neglects the fact that even the
poetic tradition is a complex mixture of written and oral poetry and the elements that go into them. It was only
in his later writings that he realized that in poetic composition many elements are involved. In his poetic
dramas, he sought to brodent his scope.
Eliot has also ignored other traditions that go into social formations. In 'Religion and Literature', he has dealt
with the non-poetic elements of tradition at length. He kept on developing his notion of tradition right up to the
time he wrote ‘Notes towards a definition on culture’.
Creative writer has artistic sensibility. He observes the world like any common men. But his vision observes the
world quite differently. He can perceive from life-experience what common man cannot see at all. This
experience and observation get imaginative colours with the help of artistic sensibility. He creates a world of
imaginative reality. His world is more beautiful and artistic than the real world. He is naturally gifted to create
the work which has power to move or transport the reader. He gets his raw material from the life. He is critic of
life.

Thus, Eliot denounces the romantic criticism of the nineteenth century (particularly Wordsworth’s theory of
poetry); second, it underlines the importance of ‘tradition’ and examines the correlation between ‘tradition’ and
‘individual talent’ and finally, it announces the death of the author (i.e., the empirical author, the author in the
biographical sense of term) and shifts the focus from the author to the text.
2
"Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1919) is an essay written by poet and literary critic T. S. Eliot. The essay
was first published in The Egoist (1919) and later in Eliot's first book of criticism, "The Sacred Wood"
(1920).[1] The essay is also available in Eliot's "Selected Prose" and "Selected Essays".
While Eliot is most often known for his poetry, he also contributed to the field of literary criticism. In this dual
role, he acted as a cultural critic, comparable to Sir Philip Sidney and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Tradition and
the Individual Talent" is one of the more well known works that Eliot produced in his critic capacity. It
formulates Eliot's influential conception of the relationship between the poet and preceding literary traditions.
Content of the essay
This essay is divided into three parts: first the concept of "Tradition," then the Theory of Impersonal Poetry, and
finally the conclusion.
Eliot presents his conception of tradition and the definition of the poet and poetry in relation to it. He wishes to
correct the fact that, as he perceives it, "in English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally
apply its name in deploring its absence." Eliot posits that, though the English tradition generally upholds the
belief that art progresses through change – a separation from tradition, literary advancements are instead
recognised only when they conform to the tradition. Eliot, a classicist, felt that the true incorporation of tradition
into literature was unrecognised, that tradition, a word that "seldom... appear[s] except in a phrase of censure,"
was actually a thus-far unrealised element of literary criticism.
For Eliot, the term "tradition" is imbued with a special and complex character. It represents a "simultaneous
order," by which Eliot means a historical timelessness – a fusion of past and present – and, at the same time, a
sense of present temporality. A poet must embody "the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer," while,
simultaneously, expressing their contemporary environment. Eliot challenges the common perception that a
poet's greatness and individuality lie in their departure from their predecessors; he argues that "the most
individual parts of his [the poet's] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their
immortality most vigorously." Eliot claims that this "historical sense" is not only a resemblance to traditional
works but an awareness and understanding of their relation to his poetry.
This fidelity to tradition, however, does not require the great poet to forfeit novelty in an act of surrender to
repetition. Rather, Eliot has a much more dynamic and progressive conception of the poetic process: novelty is
possible only through tapping into tradition. When a poet engages in the creation of new work, they realise an
aesthetic "ideal order," as it has been established by the literary tradition that has come before them. As such,
the act of artistic creation does not take place in a vacuum. The introduction of a new work alters the cohesion
of this existing order, and causes a readjustment of the old to accommodate the new. The inclusion of the new
work alters the way in which the past is seen; elements of the past that are noted and realised. In Eliot’s own
words, "What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the
works of art that preceded it." Eliot refers to this organic tradition, this developing canon, as the "mind of
Europe." The private mind is subsumed by this more massive one.
This leads to Eliot’s so-called "Impersonal Theory" of poetry. Since the poet engages in a "continual surrender
of himself" to the vast order of tradition, artistic creation is a process of depersonalisation. The mature poet is
viewed as a medium, through which tradition is channelled and elaborated. He compares the poet to a catalyst in
a chemical reaction, in which the reactants are feelings and emotions that are synthesised to create an artistic
image that captures and relays these same feelings and emotions. While the mind of the poet is necessary for the
production, it emerges unaffected by the process. The artist stores feelings and emotions and properly unites
them into a specific combination, which is the artistic product. What lends greatness to a work of art are not the
feelings and emotions themselves, but the nature of the artistic process by which they are synthesised. The artist
is responsible for creating "the pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place." And, it is the intensity
of fusion that renders art great. In this view, Eliot rejects the theory that art expresses metaphysical unity in the
soul of the poet. The poet is a depersonalised vessel, a mere medium.
Great works do not express the personal emotion of the poet. The poet does not reveal their own unique and
novel emotions, but rather, by drawing on ordinary ones and channelling them through the intensity of poetry,
they express feelings that surpass, altogether, experienced emotion. This is what Eliot intends when he discusses
poetry as an "escape from emotion." Since successful poetry is impersonal and, therefore, exists independent of
its poet, it outlives the poet and can incorporate into the timeless "ideal order" of the "living" literary tradition.
Another essay found in Selected Essays relates to this notion of the impersonal poet. In "Hamlet and His
Problems" Eliot presents the phrase "objective correlative." The theory is that the expression of emotion in art
can be achieved by a specific, and almost formulaic, prescription of a set of objects, including events and
situations. A particular emotion is created by presenting its correlated objective sign. The author is
depersonalised in this conception, since he is the mere effecter of the sign. And, it is the sign, and not the poet,
which creates emotion.
The implications here separate Eliot's idea of talent from the conventional definition (just as his idea of
Tradition is separate from the conventional definition), one so far from it, perhaps, that he chooses never to
directly label it as talent. The conventional definition of talent, especially in the arts, is a genius that one is born
with. Not so for Eliot. Instead, talent is acquired through a careful study of poetry, claiming that Tradition,
"cannot be inherited, and if you want it, you must obtain it by great labour." Eliot asserts that it is absolutely
necessary for the poet to study, to have an understanding of the poets before them, and to be well versed enough
that they can understand and incorporate the "mind of Europe" into their poetry. But the poet's study is unique –
it is knowledge that "does not encroach," and that does not "deaden or pervert poetic sensibility." It is, to put it
most simply, a poetic knowledge – knowledge observed through a poetic lens. This ideal implies that
knowledge gleaned by a poet is not knowledge of facts, but knowledge which leads to a greater understanding
of the mind of Europe. As Eliot explains, "Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most
men could from the whole British Museum."

Eliot and New Criticism

Unwittingly, Eliot inspired and informed the movement of New Criticism. This is somewhat ironic, since he
later criticised their intensely detailed analysis of texts as unnecessarily tedious. Yet, he does share with them
the same focus on the aesthetic and stylistic qualities of poetry, rather than on its ideological content. The New
Critics resemble Eliot in their close analysis of particular passages and poems.

Criticism of Eliot
Eliot's theory of literary tradition has been criticised for its limited definition of what constitutes the canon of
that tradition. He assumes the authority to choose what represents great poetry, and his choices have been
criticised on several fronts. For example, Harold Bloom disagrees with Eliot's condescension towards Romantic
poetry, which, in The Metaphysical Poets (1921) he criticises for its "dissociation of sensibility." Moreover,
many believe Eliot's discussion of the literary tradition as the "mind of Europe" reeks of Euro- centrism.
However, it should be recognized that Eliot supported many Eastern and thus non- European works of literature
such as the Mahabharata. Eliot was arguing the importance of a complete sensibility: he didn't particularly care
what it was at the time of tradition and the individual talent. His own work is heavily influenced by non-
Western traditions. In his broadcast talk "The Unity of European Culture," he said, "Long ago I studied the
ancient Indian languages and while I was chiefly interested at that time in Philosophy, I read a little poetry too;
and I know that my own poetry shows the influence of Indian thought and sensibility." His self-evaluation was
confirmed by B. P. N. Sinha, who writes that Eliot went beyond Indian ideas to Indian form: "The West has
preoccupied itself almost exclusively with the philosophy and thoughts of India. One consequence of this has
been a total neglect of Indian forms of expression, i.e. of its literature. T. S. Eliot is the one major poet whose
work bears evidence of intercourse with this aspect of Indian culture" (qtd. in The Composition
of The Four Quartets). He does not account for a non-white and non-masculine tradition. As such, his notion of
tradition stands at odds with feminist, post-colonial and minority theories.
Harold Bloom presents a conception of tradition that differs from that of Eliot. Whereas Eliot believes that the
great poet is faithful to his predecessors and evolves in a concordant manner, Bloom (according to his theory of
"anxiety of influence") envisions the "strong poet" to engage in a much more aggressive and tumultuous
rebellion against tradition.
In 1964, his last year, Eliot published in a reprint of The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, a series of
lectures he gave at Harvard University in 1932 and 1933, a new preface in which he called "Tradition and the
Individual Talent" the most juvenile of his essays (although he also indicated that he did not repudiate it.)[2]
Eliot's impersonal theory of poetry
Thomas Stearns Eliot is the most influential poet-critic of the modern era. In his famous essay Tradition and the
Individual Talent, Eliot propounds his anti-Romantic conception of the theory of poetry which makes him a
classicist. According to the Romantics, poetry is an expression of the emotions and the personality of the poet.
Wordsworth says,
Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in
tranquillity. According to Wordsworth, there are four stages through which poetic composition takes place:
1. Observation
2. Recollection
3. Contemplation
4. Imaginative excitement of the emotions which were experienced earlier.
But in Tradition and the Individual Talent, Eliot opposes the Romantic conception by advancing his theory of
the impersonality in art and opines that the artistic process is a process of depersonalization and that the artist
will surrender himself totally to the creative work. Eliot says,
The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. Eliot holds that the
poet and the poem are two separate things and that the feelings or the emotion, or vision, resulting from the is
something different from the feeling or emotion or vision in the poem the mind of the poet. Hence, T.S Eliot
elucidates his theory of impersonality by examining, Firstly the relation of the poet to the past and Secondly the
relation of the poem to its author.
Eliot realises that the past exists in the present. So, he points out that no writer has his value and significance in
isolation. To judge the work of a poet, we must compare and contrast his work with the works of the poets of
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 points out the relation of the poem to its author and says that relation to the poet. There is detachment or
alienation the poet and his poem. The poem once created is no longer his. The poet uses ordinary emotions to
create new poetry.
According to T.S Eliot, the poet is a medium, not a personality. T.S Eliot compares the mind of the poet to a
catalyst and the process of poetic creation to the process of a chemical reaction. Eliot has cited example by
saying that when oxygen and sulphur-di-oxide are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form
sulphurous acid.
Platinum is the catalyst that helps the process of chemical reaction, bet the metal does not undergo any change.
The mind of the poet is like the catalytic agent. It is necessary for the new combination of emotions and
experiences to take place, but it itself does not undergo any change during the process of poetic creation.
The personality of the poet does not find expression in his poetry; it acts as a catalytic agent. Here, the mind of
the poet is the platinum; and the emotions and feelings are the gases- oxygen and sulphur-di- oxide. Just as the
platinum remains unchanged, in the chemical reaction, the poet remains separate from his creation, though his
feelings and emotions form something new.
Eliot next compares the poet's mind to a receptacle in which are stored numberless feelings, images, phrases,
emotion 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 an organisation rather than an inspiration. And the greatness of a poem does not depend upon
the greatness or the intensity of the emotions, but upon the intensity of the process of poetic composition. The
more intense the poetic process, the greater the poem.
According to T.S Eliot, the emotion of poetry is different from personal emotion of the poet.
T.S Eliot personal emotions may be simple or crude, but the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined.
Eliot says that there is no need for the poet to try to express new human emotions in poetry. It's 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.
That is why, Eliot rejects Wordsworth's theory of poetry, having its origin in emotion recollected in tranquillity
and points out that within the method of poetic composition there's the only concentration of a number of
experiences, and a new thing results from this concentration. According to Eliot,
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.
Being an anti-Romantic, Eliot has no faith in subjectivity which he rejects and tries to route out to finality. In
reaction to Wordsworth's romantic creed, Eliot as a youth with post- Romantic inheritance engages himself with
no delay to formulate his new poetics of depersonalization which was revolutionary in that sense that he
introduces new thinking regarding the conception of poetry and its creation.
What is Objective Correlative?
Objective Correlative is a term popularized by T.S. Eliot in his essay on 'Hamlet and His Problems' to refer to
an image, action, or situation – usually a pattern of images, actions, or situations – that somehow evokes a
particular emotion from the reader without stating what that emotion should be.
Explaining his view Eliot says, "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 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' it is from this point of view that he finds Hamlet defective and “an
artistic failure.” He also says that in Macbeth Shakespeare is successful in finding an 'objective correlative' to
express the emotions of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Eliot says: “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 his wife’s death strike us as if given the sequence of events, these were
automatically released by the last even 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 ……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 envelops and exceeds her.
It is thus a feeling which he cannot understand; he cannot objectify it, therefore remains to poison life and
abstract action. None of the possible actions can satisfy it: and nothing that Shakespeare can do with the plot
can express Hamlet for him.
According to Eliot, when writer fails to find objective correlatives for the emotions they wish to convey, readers
or audiences are left unconvinced, unmoved, or even confused. Eliot applied his theory of 'Objective
Correlative' to Shakespeare’s play Hamlet (1602), arguing that it is an “artistic failure” because occurrences in
the play do not justify Hamlet’s depth of feeling and thus fail to provide convincing motivation.
Objective Correlative was the term first used in a mid-nineteenth-century art lecture given by the American poet
and painter Washington Allston, but later it was redefined by T.S. Eliot and became widespread among the
critical circles specially the New Critics.
The phrase 'Objective Correlative' and the concept lying there in have gained great currency since then. It has
become so popular with the people that critics like Wimsatt and Brooke have gone to the extent of saying that
“the phrase objective correlative has gained a currency probably far beyond anything that the author could have
expected or intended.” The phrase has been used by Eliot to express how emotion can be best expressed in
poetry and it is a part of his impersonal theory of poetry concentrating not on the poet but on the poetry. The
theory of impersonal art implies that greater emphasis should be laid upon the work of art itself as a structure.
Eliot has learnt from the French symbolists that emotion can only be evoked; it cannot be expressed directly.
Eliot’s theory was also anticipated by Ezra Pound in 'The Spirit of Romance.' Pound admitted that in the
ideographic process of using material images to suggest immaterial relations, the poet has to be as impersonal as
the scientists: “Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures,
triangles, spheres, and the like, but equations for the human emotion."
3

T. S. Eliot belongs to the long line of poet critics beginning from Sidney, Ben Johnson and Dryden to Coleridge
and Arnold. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1948 for his outstanding pioneer contribution to
present day poetry. Eliot's criticism has been revolutionary in more than one way. It marks a complete break
from the 19th century Romantic tradition. Eliot reacted against Romantic subjectivism and rejected
impressionistic criticism worthless. He emphasizes the value of order and discipline, tradition and outside
authority. Shiv Kumar comments that Eliot is a critic in the tradition of Aristotle, Dryden and Arnold "who tried
to restore and preserve classical norms of order and discipline in thought and expression." His five hundred and
odd essays have had a far reaching influence in the course of literary criticism. Eliot's essay "Tradition and
Individual Talent" was first published in "Times Literary supplement (1919)" as a critical article.

It contains all those principles which form the basis of Eliot's subsequent criticism. The essay contains his
revolutionary theory of poetry. His impersonal theory of poetry is a revolt against romanticism. Romantic
theory of poetry lays great emphasis on feelings and emotions. It is a spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings. Eliot reacted against this trend and gave his theory of impersonality of poetry. His theory of poetry is
complete break from Romantic tradition. He rejects the romantic subjectivity and advocates objective standards.
T.S. Eliot's contribution to English literary criticism is great and highly praise worthy. He brought a great deal
of bold and original thinking to English criticism. He has often being compared to Arnold. In many ways he is
similar to Arnold but in many ways he is dissimilar too. In any case, the originality of his ideas cannot be
questioned. His ideas on the qualifications and tools of a critic are quite clear. In the essays like, "The Functions
of Criticism", "The Frontiers of Criticism" and "The Perfect critic", Eliot has given the qualifications that a
critic must acquire and develop to perform his functions. Eliot is considered by some to be one of the greatest
literary critics of the twentieth century. The critic William Empson once said, “I do not know for certain how
much of my own mind [Eliot] invented, let alone how much of it is a reaction against him or indeed a
consequence of misreading him. He is very penetrating influence, perhaps not unlike the east wind. In his
critical essay "Tradition and individual Talent", Eliot argues that art must be understood not in a vacuum, but in
the context of previous pieces of art. "In a peculiar sense_ _ _ _ _ _ must inevitably be judged by the standards
of the past." This essay was an important influence over the new criticism by introducing the idea that the value
of the work of art must be viewed in the context of the artist's previous works, a "simultaneous order" of works
(i.e. "tradition").

Eliot's essay "Tradition and individual Talent" contains all those principles which forms the basis of Eliot's
subsequent criticism. Some critics have called this essay as the unofficial manifests of Eliot's critical creed. The
essay consists of three parts. In the first part, Eliot gives his concept of Tradition. The second part states his
theory of Impersonality. The third part is brief and is in the nature of conclusion. Eliot says that the word
tradition is generally used in the derogatory sense. It is taken to mean slavish imitation of the past writers. Eliot
corrects this notion. He says that the tradition is not 'blind adherence' to the ways of previous generations.
Tradition is not something immovable or fixed. It is not hostile to change. It is something constantly growing,
becoming different from what is previously was. When a really great work of art is produced, this tradition is
modified to some extent, However, little Eliot regards the whole European literature from Homer down to his
own age as forming a single literary tradition. Great artists modified the tradition and pass it to the future.
Tradition, says Elliot, 'cannot inherited.' It cannot be obtained only by great labour. It is the critical labour of
shifting the good from the bad and knowing what is good and useful. Tradition can be obtained only by those
who have 'historical sense'. This historical sense involves a perception not only the pastiness of the past but of
its presence'. One who has the historical sense feels that whole literature of Europe from Homer down to his
own day including the literature of his own country forms one single whole. He realizes that the past exists in
the present and that the past and the present form one simultaneous order. It is like a family tree where the
characteristics of the ancestors are present in their grand children. "For any creative writer, the knowledge of
tradition is as essential as the breath of human life." It is the knowledge of the historical sense which makes the
writer traditional. Eliot makes the famous statement: - "No poet or artist of any art has complete meaning
alone."

Thus no writer has value or significance in isolation. His significance is his appreciation of his relation to the
dead poets and the artists. To judge the work of a poet or an artist, we must compare and contrast his works with
the works of the poets and the artists of the past. Here, we hear an echo of Arnold's famous theory to judge the
excellence of the present works with the yardstick of the great writers of the past. But for Eliot this comparison
does not mean deciding whether the present work is better or worse than the work of dead writers. For example,
we cannot say whether Shakespeare's "King Lear" is better than Shaw's "Man and Superman" or Backett's
"Waiting For Godot." It is a judgment, comparison in which the two things are measured against each other.

An artist must be aware of the fact 'that art never improves through the material of art is never the same'. The
comparison is made for the purpose of analysis and forming a better understanding of the new. It does not mean
one work is superior or inferior to the other. Eliot's conception of tradition is a dynamic one. According to this
view, tradition is constantly changing and becoming different from what it was. A writer in the present must
seek guidance from the past. Just as the past directs the present, the present modifies the past. Whenever a new
work of art is created, the whole literary tradition is modified though slightly. The mind of Europe may change
but the change does not mean that the great writers like Homer and Shakespeare have become outdated. It is a
reciprocal relation. Eliot is conscious of the criticism that will be made against his theory of tradition. It was to
be pointed out that his theory requires much learning and scholarship. However, knowledge does not mean
bookish knowledge differs from person to person. Shakespeare, for example, could know more of Roman
history than from Plutarch than most man from the British museum. It appears that Eliot's view of tradition is
rather exaggerated as seen Lucy point out!

“Though tradition is important for art, the conscious cultivation of the sense of tradition by the creative artist is
not always necessary." Eliot's criticism is sometimes (spoil) massed by his personal prejudices. He called his
criticism ' the byproducts of his poetical work ship.' For example, he praises the metaphysical poets, the
Jacobean Dramatic Verse and the Italian poet Dante because they are useful to him in his poetic composition.
But he criticises Milton and Shelly because of they are of not use to him. Still we must give Eliot the credit of
giving one of the most scientific statements on critical theory and creative activity. The second part of the essay
begins with the bold statement! “Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation must be directed not upon the poet
but upon the poetry.” This statement is aimed at the Romantic subjectivism. The Romantics believed that all art
is basically an expression of the artist’s personality. Eliot rejects this Romantic belief of 'inner voice' and says
that the poet must conform (to obey) to tradition. He must have the ‘historical sense’. This historical sense
involves a perception, "not only the pastiness of the past but of its presence." Eliot takes the whole literature of
Europe from Homer down to his own day to be a single literary tradition. It is to this tradition a new writer must
conform. In Eliot's view, the artist must continually surrender himself to something more valuable than himself,
i.e. literary tradition. He must allow his poetic sensibility to be shaped and modified by the past. Eliot says: -
"The progress of an artist is a continual self sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality." It is in this sense
Eliot says that honest criticism should be directed upon the poetry and not upon the poet. In order to explain his
Impersonal theory of poetry, Eliot compares the poet to a catalyst and the process of the poetic creation to a
chemical reaction. He gives the analogy of the action "which takes place when a bit of finally foliated platinum
is introduced in a chamber containing oxygen and sulpherdioxide." This combination takes place only if the
platinum is present.

Nevertheless, the newly formed substance contains no trace of platinum. Eliot says that platinum has remained
"inert, neutrical and unchanged". He goes on to declare, "The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum." The
mind of the poet is a catalytic agent in the presence of which varied feelings and emotions fuse into a new
combination. In the case of a young and immature poet, his personal emotions and experiences may find an
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." Thus, poetry is organisation rather than inspiration.
Eliot scoffs at Wordsworth's famous statement “poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it
takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” Poetry, says Eliot, is not an emotional outburst. Nor it
is the process that takes place in tranquility. The greatness of a poem does not depend upon the intensity of
emotions expressed there in. It the intensity of the poetic process, the pressure under which the creation takes
place which counts. It is like the pressure cooker, in which the food is cooked. The taste of the cooked food
does not depend upon the make of the cooker. The more intense the poetic pressure, greater the poem... The
mind of the poet is in fact a medium, a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases and
images. They unite to form new compound. Eliot concludes the argument by saying that poetry is a craft the
result of hard labour on the part of the poet. Eliot does not deny the emotion to the poet.

The poet has a personality. He has emotions. But the poetry is not an expression of his personality. The poet
must depersonalize his emotions. Eliot quotes the example of Keats 'Ode to the Nightingale' to distinguish
between artistic emotion and personal emotion. Eliot goes on to declare "Poetry is not turning loose of emotion
but an escape from emotion; it is not an expression of personality but an escape from personality." This
impersonality can be achieved only when the poet surrenders himself to literary tradition. This is possible only
when he acquires the historical sense. Eliot says again and again that this historical sense is the awareness of the
living presence of dead writers. Eliot's theory of impersonality gave a new dimension to the process of poetic
creation. Both Wordsworth and Eliot were practicing poets. Wordsworth gave his theory of poetry and of the
creative process as a justification for the new kind of poetry he proposed to write. Eliot was a critic by
profession also. His critical theory has been put forward in a scientific manner. Certain critics have found the
tone of Eliot's critical writing rather too aggressive. A. G. George stated that “Eliot’s impersonal theory of
poetry on the nature of poetic process after Wordsworth's Romantic Conception of poetry.” Eliot says, “The
emotion of art is impersonal and the poet cannot reach this imper knows the facts about a work of art and puts
them before his reader in a simple and easy manner. Connect with the sense of tradition.

A critic must also have a highly developed sense of tradition. Eliot believes that there is an intimate relation
between the present and past in world literature. The Entire literature of Europe, from Homer to the present day,
forms a single literary tradition. The artist must surrender himself to the tradition in order to achieve the
meaning and significance. He must realise, artists of all time are united by a common cause. A good critic must
be objective and impersonal in his elucidation of a work of art. He must not be guided by inner voice as
suggested by Murry. The main tools of a critic are comparison and analysis. A good critic must have the ability
to use these tools in an effective manner. In the process of comparison and analysis, the critic must be
methodical and sensitive. He should show the curiosity and intensity of passion of great knowledge. The critic,
according to Eliot must not try to judge the present by the standard of the past. The requirements of each age are
different and so the principles of art must change from age to age. The good critic must be liberal and flexible in
his outlook. He must be ready to correct and reverse his view from time to time in the light of new facts. Eliot
says that it is the function of a critic to turn the attention from the poet to his poetry. Eliot means to say that the
subject of criticism must be the work of art. It should not be the artist himself. The poet (critic) should criticize
the poem and not the mean who created it. He says that the function of a critic is not a judicial one. A good
critic should not pass judgment on the works of art. He should merely present the facts before the reader. He
must allow the reader to make his own judgment. The critic's function is simply to guide the reader, when a
critic compares any present work of art with the past work, it should not be just to tell which one is better or
worse. It is just to present the details of both the works before the reader so that the reader can make his own
judgment.

Thus, the critic can develop the reader's aesthetic sense and intellectual ability. Thus, Eliot's views on the
functions and qualifications of a critic are classical. He rejects the subjectivity in criticism.sonality without
surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done.” According to T.S. Eliot, an ideal critic must have a
“highly developed sense of facts.” Eliot believes that this quality is a rare gift and it is slow to develop. By the
sense of facts Eliot does not mean the biographical or sociological knowledge. It is the knowledge of the
technical details of a work of art such as its setting, genesis and structure etc. It is the knowledge of these facts
alone that can make criticism concrete as well as objective. Eliot is against the "lemon-squeezer" school of
critics who tried to squeeze every drop of meaning out of words and lines. On the other hand, Eliot has a high
sense of praise for "workshop criticism." It is the analysis of his own work of art by the artist. Eliot says that the
value of such criticism lies in the fact that its practicitioner deals with the facts which he understands and so can
also helps us to understand them. The true critic, says Eliot, the writer himself knows the facts about a work of
art and puts them before his reader in a simple and easy manner. Connect with the sense of tradition. A critic
must also have a highly developed sense of tradition. Eliot believes that there is an intimate relation between the
present and past in world literature. The Entire literature of Europe, from Homer to the present day, forms a
single literary tradition. The artist must surrender himself to the tradition in order to achieve the meaning and
significance. He must realise, artists of all time are united by a common cause.

A good critic must be objective and impersonal in his elucidation of a work of art. He must not be guided by
inner voice as suggested by Murry. The main tools of a critic are comparison and analysis. A good critic must
have the ability to use these tools in an effective manner. In the process of comparison and analysis, the critic
must be methodical and sensitive. He should show the curiosity and intensity of passion of great knowledge.
The critic, according to Eliot must not try to judge the present by the standard of the past. The requirements of
each age are different and so the principles of art must change from age to age. The good critic must be liberal
and flexible in his outlook. He must be ready to correct and reverse his view from time to time in the light of
new facts. Eliot says that it is the function of a critic to turn the attention from the poet to his poetry. Eliot
means to say that the subject of criticism must be the work of art. It should not be the artist himself. The poet
(critic) should criticize the poem and not the mean who created it. He says that the function of a critic is not a
judicial one. A good critic should not pass judgment on the works of art. He should merely present the facts
before the reader. He must allow the reader to make his own judgment. The critic's function is simply to guide
the reader, when a critic compares any present work of art with the past work, it should not be just to tell which
one is better or worse. It is just to present the details of both the works before the reader so that the reader can
make his own judgment. Thus, the critic can develop the reader's aesthetic sense and intellectual ability. Thus,
Eliot's views on the functions and qualifications of a critic are classical. He rejects the subjectivity in criticism.

Thus, Eliot's views are totally classical. He rejects the subjectivity in criticism. He also ridicules the concept of
inner voice. On the other hand, he insists on a highly developed sense of facts, an objective standard and a sense
of tradition. Eliot 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.” It must be noted that Eliot does not reject emotions in
poetry. He simply emphasis the fact that the artist must depersonalize the emotions. The impersonality can be
achieved when the poet surrenders himself completely to the sense of tradition. Thus, Eliot advocates
impersonality in poetry. He clearly rejects the Romantic subjectivity. A.G. George comments, “Eliot’s theory of
impersonality of poetry is the greatest theory on the nature of the poetic process after Wordsworth's romantic
conception of poetry." Eliot changed the entire course of critical theory and practice and his ideas have great
significance.