T.S. Eliot

Adam Turner

Eng. 139

Professor Desserart

T.S. Eliot

                One question that Eliot raises is, “how original can a poet ever be?” To try and answer that question he created a simultaneous existence and a simultaneous order to every existing moment. However when he looked at the images of moments he saw them as inappropriate for what he says is their permanent vitality and so the works of an earlier period are always being changed by later works. Because of that Eliot influenced the theory of the depersonalization of art. Eliot’s argument was that poetry was an escape of emotions, that it was nothing more than a medium. Now the critics task is to “divert interest from the poet to the poetry” according to Eliot. Eliot believes that a poem is a poem without the biographical, social, ethical, or the other frames of reference as sources of judgment that the poem does in fact have its own intrinsic value.

                There is also no poet or artist that has his or her complete meaning alone, they can’t be valued alone. To get to a more clear explanation of the relation of the poet to the past they cannot form themselves solely upon one preferred period. What Eliot is trying to point out with his article is that the poet or artist must acquire the consciousness of the past. They need to develop this consciousness as they go on writing too. The other point that Eliot is getting across is that the poet is not trying to express their personality or their emotions but only a medium.