T.S.

Eliot as a critic

Eliot is one of the greatest literary critics of England from the point of view of the bulk
and quality of his critical writings. His five hundred and odd essays occasionally
published as reviews and articles had a far-reaching influence on literary criticism in the
country. His criticism was revolutionary which inverted the critical tradition of the whole
English speaking work. John Hayward says:
I cannot think of a critic who has been more widely read and discussed in his
own life-time; and not only in English, but in almost every language, except
Russian.
As a critic Eliot has his faults. At times he assumes a hanging-judge attitude and his
statements savor of a verdict. Often his criticism is marred by personal and religious
prejudices blocking an honest and impartial estimate. Moreover, he does not judge all by
the same standards. There is didacticism in his later essays and with the passing of time
his critical faculties were increasingly exercised on social problems. Critics have also
found fault with his style as too full of doubts, reservations and qualifications.
Still, such faults do not detract Eliots greatness as a critic. His criticism has
revolutionized the great writers of the past three centuries. His recognition of the
greatness of the Metaphysical poets of the 17th century resulted in the Metaphysical
revival of the 20th century. The credit for the renewal of interest in the Jacobean
dramatists goes to Eliot. He has restored Dryden and other Augustan poets to their due
place. His essay on Dante aroused curiosity for the latter middle ages. The novelty of his
statements, hidden in sharp phrases, startles and arrests attention. According to Eliot,
the end of criticism is to bring readjustment between the old and the new. He says:
From time to time it is desirable, that some critic shall appear to review the
past of our literature, and set the poets and the poems in a new order.
Such critics are rare, for they must possess, besides ability for judgment, powerful
liberty of mind to identify and interpret its own values and category of admiration for
their generation. John Hayward says:
Matthew Arnold was such a critic as were Coleridge and Johnson and Dryden
before him; and such, in our own day, is Eliot himself.
Eliots criticism offers both reassessment and reaction to earlier writers. He called
himself a classicist in literature. His vital contribution is the reaction against
romanticism and humanism which brought a classical revival in art and criticism. He
rejected the romantic view of the individuals perfectibility, stressed the doctrine of the
original sin and exposed the futility of the romantic faith in the Inner Voice. Instead of
following his inner voice, a critic must follow objective standards and must conform to
tradition. A sense of tradition, respect for order and authority is central to Eliots
classicism. He sought to correct the excesses of the abstract and intellectual school of
criticism represented by Arnold. He sought to raise criticism to the level of science. In his
objectivity and logical attitude, Eliot most closely resembles Aristotle. A. G. George says:
Eliots theory of the impersonality of poetry is the greatest theory on the
nature of the process after Wordsworths romantic conception of poetry.
Poetry was an expression of the emotions and personality for romantics. Wordsworth
said that poetry was an overflow of powerful emotions and its origin is in Emotions
recollected in tranquility. Eliot rejects this view and says that poetry is not an
expression of emotion and personality but an escape from them. The poet is only a
catalytic agent that fuses varied emotions into new wholes. He distinguishes between the

emotions of the poet and the artistic emotion, and points out that the function of
criticism is to turn attention from the poet to his poetry.
Eliots views on the nature of poetic process are equally revolutionary. According to him,
poetry is not inspiration, it is organization. The poets mind is like a vessel in which are
stored numerous feelings, emotions and experiences. The poetic process fuses these
distinct experiences and emotions into new wholes. In The Metaphysical Poets, he
writes:
When a poets mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly
amalgamating disparate experiences; the ordinary mans experience is chaotic,
irregular, fragmentary.
Perfect poetry results when instead of dissociation of sensibility there is unification of
sensibility. The emotional and the rational, the creative and the critical, faculties must
work in harmony to produce great work of art. Critics stressed that the aim of poetry is
to give pleasure or to teach morally. However, for Eliot the greatness of a poem is tested
by the order and unity it imposes on the chaotic and disparate experiences of the poet.
Wimsatt and Brooks are right in saying:
Hardly since the 17th century had critical writing in English so resolutely
transposed poetic theory from the axis of pleasure versus pain to that of unity
versus multiplicity.
Eliot devised numerous critical concepts that gained wide currency and has a broad
influence on criticism. Objective co-relative, Dissociation of sensibility, Unification of
sensibility are few of Eliot clichs hotly debated by critics. His dynamic theory of
tradition, of impersonality of poetry, his assertion on a highly developed sense of fact
tended to impart to literary criticism catholicity and rationalism.
To conclude, Eliots influence as a critic has been wide, constant, fruitful and inspiring.
He has corrected and educated the taste of his readers and brought about a rethinking
regarding the function of poetry and the nature of the poet process. He gave a new
direction and new tools of criticism. It is in the re-consideration and revival of English
poetry of the past. George Watson writes:
Eliot made English criticism look different, but not in a simple sense. He
offered it a new range of rhetorical possibilities, confirmed it in its increasing
contempt for historical processes, and yet reshaped its notion of period by a
handful of brilliant institutions.
His comments on the nature of Poetic Drama and the relation between poetry and drama
have done much to bring about a revival of Poetic Drama in the modern age. Even if he
had written no poetry, he would have made his mark as a distinguished and subtle critic.
The Metaphysical Poets

This essay was originally a review in the London Times Literary Supplement (October 20,
1921) of the book Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century. In this
essay, Eliot discusses three questions: To what extent did the so-called metaphysical
form a school or a movement? How far is this so-called school or movement a digression
from the main current? What is the importance in the modern age, of the study of these
poets? The essay may be summarized under four headings:
1) DEFINITION OF METAPHYSICAL POETRY
According to T. S. Eliot, it is extremely difficult to define metaphysical poetry. The

difficulty arises when we are to decide what poets practised it and in which of their
poems. The poetry of Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, Cowley and Donne is usually called
metaphysical. However, it is difficult to find any precise use of metaphor, simile or other
conceit, which is common to all these poets. Donne and often Cowley, employ a device
which is sometimes considered characteristically metaphysical: the elaboration of a
figure of speech to the farthest stage to which ingenuity can carry it. Donne develops a
comparison of two lovers to a pair of compasses. Sometimes we find in them a
development by rapid association of thought which requires considerable agility on the
part of the reader. Donne is more successful than Cowley because in developing
comparisons, he uses brief words and sudden contrasts:
A bracelet of bright hair about the bone
where the most powerful effect is produced by the sudden contrast of the associations of
bright hair and of bone. So it is to be maintained that metaphysical poetry is the
elaboration of far-fetched images and communicated association of poets mental
processes.
Johnson employed the term metaphysical poets, apparently having Donne, Cleveland
and Cowley chiefly in mind. In their poetry, he remarks:
the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.
The force of this accusation lies in the fact that often the ideas are yoked but not united.
But this is not blameworthy in itself, as it has been practised by a number of poets and
even by Johnson himself. Johnson, shrewd and sensitive critic, Eliot concludes, failed to
define metaphysical poetry by its faults.
Eliot adopts the opposite method to define metaphysical poetry. Instead of calling these
poets metaphysical, he calls them the poets of the seventeenth century. He assumes
that these poets were the direct and normal development of the precedent age. Without
prejudicing their case by the adjective metaphysical, we may consider whether their
virtue was not something permanently valuable.
Eliot lays emphasis on the synthetic quality in these poets. Eliot praises the metaphysical
poets for their successful attempt to unite what resists unification. To unite thought and
feeling, the poetic and unpoetic, form and content, was the main quality of the
metaphysical poets. Eliot points out the difference by dividing the poets into two kinds:
intellectual poets and reflective poets.
Tennyson and Browning are poets, and they think; but they do not feel their
though as immediately as the odour of a rose. A though to Donne was an
experience; it modified his sensibility. When a poets mind is perfectly equipped
for its work, it is constantly merging disparate experience; the ordinary mans
experience is chaotic, irregular fragmentary.
In the mind of the poet experiences are related to one another and from new wholes.
2) DISSOCIATION OF SENSIBILITY
The poets of the 17th century possessed a mechanism of sensibility which could devour
any kind of experience. They are simple, artificial, difficult or fantastic. In the 17th
century dissociation of sensibility set in and Milton and Dryden, the two great poets
carried on with this process. While the language became more refined, the feeling
became cruder. The language became unnatural and artificial. But this development of
language reduced the importance of feeling. The logical conclusion of the influence of
Milton and Dryden was that:

The sentimental age began early in the 18th century and continued. The poets
revolted against the ratiocinative.
In Shelley and Keats, there are traces of a struggle towards unification of sensibility. But
they died and reflective poets Tennyson and Browning held the ground. If there had
been no gap between the 17th and 18th centuries, poets like Donne would not have
been called metaphysical. The poets in question have, like other poets, various faults.
3) THE METAPHYSICAL POETS AND THE MODERN AGE
It is not a permanent necessity that poets should be interested in philosophy, or in any
other subject. But our present civilization demands the poets to be difficult.
Our civilization comprehends great variety and complexity, and this variety
and complexity, playing upon a refined sensibility, must produce various and
refined results. The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more
allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into
his meaning.
Hence we get something which looks very much like the conceit. If this is done, the
poets of the present age will draw closer to the metaphysical poets, because both use
obscure words and simple phrasing.
4) CONCLUSION
In the end, Eliot defends the metaphysical poets that the charges such as quaintness,
obscurity, wittiness and unintelligibility are found even in serious poets. The
metaphysical ideas are not simply the possession of this group of poets. They are found
in other poets as well.
From this essay we can draw three conclusions: First, the main quality of the
metaphysical poets is their fidelity to thought and feeling, an attempt to merge into one
whole the most heterogeneous ideas; secondly, if dissociation of sensibility has not
taken place during the 17th century and a gap had not occurred, they would not have
been called metaphysical; thirdly, modern poets are tending to become like them in their
use of language and ideas and hence the metaphysical poets are in the direct current of
English poetry.