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| Theory of Impersonality |
T.S Eliot's Impersonal Theory of Poetry
A theory is a statement of a general principle,based upon reasoned argument and supported by evidence , that is intended to explain a particular fact ,event or phenomenon.Criticism "is the branch of study concerned with defining classifying ,expounding and evaluating works of literature".
Eliot's revolutionary essay " Tradition and Individual Talents " as a theory of literary criticism ,is famous in the history of theories of literary criticism.
In his essay " Tradition and Individual Talents " T.S Eliot profound his theory of depersonalization of art , especially poetry. Impersonal theory as an anti-romantic conception and Eliot elucidates his theory by examine first " the relation of the poet to the past ,and secondly "The relation of the poem to its author".The past Eliot says ,is never dead ,it lives in the present,"No poet,no artist of any art ,has his complete meaning alone".Eliot's impersonal theory of art is based on his assumption that a poet should express emotion in his poetry .This emotion is not, of course,the emotion which he feels as a person ,as an individual ,but it is emotion which has its life in the poem ,not the history of the poet .So he says ,"emotion of art is impersonal".
In order to reach this impersonality of emotion ,the poet must have a sense of tradition. The sense of tradition involves a historical sense. And the historical sense involves ,in its turn,a perception not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence. It is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal, and of the timeless and of the temporal together. The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with the consciousness of his own generation ,but with a feelings that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homar , and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existent and composes a simultaneous order. He must develop or procure the consciousness of the past ,and should continue to develop this consciousness throughout his career .So what happens to him is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment ,to something which is more valuable -that is, the creation of continual surrender Eliot calls depersonalisation,art approaches the condition of science which is fully objective .
Eliot's critical theory is thus an impersonal theory - a theory in which the art of emotions is impersonal. Emotion involved in the creation of art or poetry is completely detached from the mind of the poet ,from his personality.