Impersonality
as observed in T.S. Eliot's essay ,'Traditon and Individual Talents'
A brief study on Eliot's perception of poetic creation and the role of poet.
"Psychic material" as subjective and
personal
01 Eliot in his essay,opposed the 19th century assumptions of poetry as an
expression of poet's personal feelings and emotions.
In his The Three Voices of Poetry ,Eliot speaks of the possible elements
02
02 required for poetic creations as "psychic material". This "psychic material
includes numberless experience,passions that are subjective and personal.
03 Eliot argues that this psychic material needs to be objectivised and
depersonalized at the time of poetic creation.
04 The poet has to be impersonal to record the reality of the time through
his poetic mind.
Poet's mind as the catalyst
Eliot draws the analogy of the catalyst to portray the function of poet's
01 creative mind in the process of poetic creation .
Oxygen and Sulphur dioxide produce Sulphurous acid when mixed in the
presence of a filament of Platinum.The new acid does not contain any
02
trace of Platinum,and the Platinum remains "inert,neutral and
unchanged".
The poet's creative mind is the "transforming catalyst"; the feelings and
03 emotions preserved in the poet's mind are essentials for a poetic
creation.The mind remains unaffected.Hence,there is a detachment
between the poet's mind and the new creation.
04 The mind of the poet is a perfect medium to preserve numerous
feelings that are "united","digested" and "transmuted" into new
combinations.
The poet has to find the 'Objective correlative
'
Significant experiences and impressions of the poet may not be traced
01 in the poetry that he has created,and the emotions expressed in the
poetry may not be a part of the poet's personality.
Poetry,as perceived by Eliot, is originated from "personal emotions" and is
02
resulted into something impersonal.
The only way to express personal feelings in works of arts,as stated by
03 Eliot, is to find the 'Objective correlative' - "a set of objects, a situation, a
chain of events".
The poet ,thus, utilises the ordinary emotions in his poems to express
04
emotions that are not present in those "actual emotions". So, he is always
indebted to his tradition .
Poetry is not "emotion recollected in
tranquility".
01 Wordsworth, in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads(1800),stated that
"poetry takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility".
02 Eliot contradicts this idea. Poetry is not a "spontaneous" expression of
personal feelings. It is rather an "escape" from personal emotions.
03 Poetry is the " concentration" of a larger number of experience that are
apparently don't seem as experience to the "practical and active person ".
Eliot reasserts in his 'The Metaphysical Poets', that creative mind
04 amalgamates disparate experience - the 'disjecta membra" of
sensations, emotions and thoughts - and combines them into " a new
whole ".
Impersonality achieved through "self-sacrifice
"
01 The poet should transcend his subjective personal emotions and
perceive a large number of experience of the outer world to write poetry.
The poet has to be capable of observing the reality and of expressing the
02 emotions that he has never experienced through his poetic creation.
Eliot claims ,"The emotion of art is impersonal." This impersonality can be
03 achieved through "self-sacrifice" and complete "surrender" to the work of
art.
THANK
YOU.
Name - Sutapa Mondal
Semester - 03, Class roll-11
Reg. no.- 1272021600987
Department of English,
West Bengal State
