- Name : Dodiya Mehul Maheshbhai
- Roll No : 23
- Enrollment No: 206910840120011
- Class : M.A. Sem 2
- Paper Name : Literary Criticism and Terms 2
- Question : Theory of Depersonalization.
- Words : 1800
- Percentage :
- Year : 2017/19
- Submitted to : Smt. S. B. Gardi Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Question: Theory of Depersonalization.
Thomas Stearns Eliot was a British essayist, publisher playwright, literary and social critic and one of the 20th century’s major poet. He gone to England at the age of 25, for settling, working and marrying. He eventually became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39. His poem “The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”” is the masterpiece of the modernist movement. His classical essay ‘Tradition and individual Talent’ was first published in 1919 in the literary magazine “The Egoist”. It was published in two parts. Eliot most of known for poetry. He also contributed to the field of literary criticism. “Tradition and Individual Talent” is one of the more well known works. It formulates Eliot’s influential conception of the relationship between the poet and the literary tradition which precedes them. He say;
“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”
Eliot demands from any critic ability for judgement and powerful liberty of mind to identify and to interpret. Eliot planned numberous critical concept that gained wide currency and had a broad in influence on criticism. The essay is divided into three main section:
- Concept of Tradition
- Theory of depersonalization
- Eliot concludes the debate by saying that the ‘poet’s sense of tradition and the impersonality of poetry are complementary things.’
Eliot says about englishmen’s attitude toward French literature. Englishmen have a habit to feel proud on themselves. That is the proud for their creativity and more for their ‘less’ criticality. Eliot comaparesEnglish with French that they have habit of critical method and English have habit of ‘conclusion’, he says;
“We only conclude that the French are more critical than we; and sometimes even plume ourselves a little with the fact, as if the French were less spontaneous”
Then Eliot talks about ‘tradition’ and ‘historical sense’. He says that if the form of tradition remained only in blind adherence of dead people or ancestors, then it would be lostor such tradition should be destroyed. But, he say that tradition is not in following pre-generation only. This word carries much wider meaning. According to Eliot, in every traditions also there is a bit of novelty, he says;
“Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be unherited and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor. It involves in the first place, the historical sense.”
Historical sense makes a poet to feel that the whole of the literature from homer and the whole of the literature of his own generation has a simultaneous existence. It harmonizes two different things ‘timelessness’ and ‘temporality’ in poet’s work. This makes a poet traditional. Eliot says;
‘No poet, no artist of any art has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation of the dead poets and artists. You can not value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison among the dead.’
‘the past should be altered by the presen as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities.’
When a poet is being judged, in that process two things are being measted by other. Eliot says about ‘a more intelligible exposition of the relation of the poet to the past’. A poet can’t use the past as a shapeless mass. He can’t fit himself in one or two private admirations, and also he cannot fit himself in one preferred period. The port must know that ‘art never improves, but the substance of the art is changing’. He talk about necessary of knowledge for poets. He rejects that belief that a poet requires a huge amount of learning. He believe that ‘must learing deadens or pervert poetic sensibility’. He is not in favor of confining the knowledge is a matter of absorption. What he wants to be insisted is that a poet first must develop the awareness of the past. According to Eliot,
“The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.”
- Theory of Depersonalization
The theory of Depersonalization or Impersonality is T. S. Eliot’s Unvaluable gift in criticism. He hold that the poet and poem are two different phases; ‘the relation of the poet to the past’ and ‘the relation of the poem to its author.’
In the first phase, he says that the past has never died; it lives in present, and if we approach a poet with an open mind. ‘We shall often find that not only the best but the most individual parts of his work may ne those in which the died poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality mist vigorously.’ If he is a great poet, he alters his work in no small scale. In this concept Eliot says;
"Honest Criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry."
Eliot says that the honesty and sensitivity has appreciation directly not trough poet but through poetry. Most of the poetry we find the name and the creativity of poet, but when we seek for enjoyment we seldom get it. For example.. Arvid saksena’s poem on death, here I put some line,
‘maine samjha sabko kisi ne muje na samjha,
‘Aru’ bas itna kehkar aaj chala hoon main’
This two line poet put his name, when we read whole the poem, we find everywhere elements of mourn. But the end of the poem he puts his name, and there we seldom get mournful enjoyment. In this part depersonalization Eliot talk about the different between mature and immature poets can be find out by liberty ot special and very varued feeling that can enter into new combination.
Eliot gives an example from science – chemistry that
So3 + H2o = H2So4
In the process of being sulfurous acid; there are two gases needed: Oxygen and sulfer dioxide and also they must have the presence of filament ‘Platinum’. Eliot comapares this platinum with the poet. In this whole process filament of platinum plaus vital role but that role is indirect. Eliot insists that the mind of the poet should be like that shred if platinum. It should give its total contribution in creating poetry, then also it should remain unaffected and separate when poetry has come out.
According to Eliot the poet;s mind is like a tare or utensil in which numerous feelings, phrases and image can be stored or seized. When poet want them he utilizes them and unites them it doesnot meaning that the poem created by the poet shows his personality or nature. Eliot explains very basic thing of his point that what is expressed by poet is merely a medium, not a personality. According to eliot;
“The poet has not a ‘personality’ to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality”
“This balance of constructed emotion is in the dramatic situation to which the speech is pertinent, but that situation alone is inadequate to it.”
Impressions and experiences come together in unusual and unexpected ways. Eliot says about context that without context nothing can be understood. He gives example from ‘the Revenger’s Tragedy’. He puts some line from that without context to explain this point. Then he says that emotion in poetry remains very complex thing and poet’s own personal emotion may be simple. So every time poet’s own emotion cannot be taken place in poem and if the poet is always looing for new emotion in poem then it will be perverse. A poet has not to find new emotion but he has to use ordinary emotions. He has to deal with every known emotion, Eliot here twists ‘emotion recollected in tranquility’ he says it an inexact formula. To write poetry he will be considered as a ‘bad poet’ because he becomes unconscious. When a poet escapes from his personality then the great poem come out. A poet must not show his emotion in poetry. Eliot says;
“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.”
Thus Eliot really opposite the William Wordsworth, in his “Lyrical Ballad” he says that,
“Poetry is spontaneous overflow of powerful feeing: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
It means that ‘Spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling’, wordworth opines that poetry is a matter of mood and inspiration. Poetry involve feeling of poets. Poetry’s source is the feeling in the heart, not the ideas. A poet cannot write under pressure. Poetry flows out of his heart in a natural. Deep emotion is the basic condition of poetry, and powerful feeling and emotion is fundamental things. But Eliot rejected wordsworth’s definition of poetry. According to Eliot that, poetry is a thing of entertainment. Poetry should not turning loose of emotion, emotion through poem became more lazy and bore the reader. Eliot says further that poetry should escape from emotion. And it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality.
- Conclusion
Thus, Eliot’s second phase is depersonality and Impersonal is more signification in English literary criticism and theories. The essay ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’ stops at the starting of mysticism, and it can be applied by the responsible person, who really interest in poetry. It is very hard thing to take interest in poetry. We usually read poem with the name and fame of the poet. We cannot separate them from each other. I would like to one more quotes of Eliot that,
“There are many people who appreciate the expression of sincere emotion in verse, and there is smaller number of people who can appreciate technical excellence. But very few know when there is expression of significant emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet.”
By this statement, he talk about the poet that, we should admire a poem with poet’s skill and his name is easiest thing. The harder is to knoe the technical skill ot art of the poem. The reader must know that after giving birth of the work od art the connection between art and arist is ended. A poet must know that to reach at the level of impersonality he first has to scarifies himself and has to surrender himself to that work..
- Cites work
www.literary-articles.com/2010/02/t-s-eliots-theory-of-depersonalization.html
www.academia.edu/29758867/T_._S_._Eliots_Theory_of_Depersonalization.docx
Very well explain👌
ReplyDeletethanks very much
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