Eliot’s Theory of The Impersonality of Poetry

 

Eliot’s Theory of The Impersonality of Poetry 

According to Eliot, the personality of the artist is not important; the important thing is the sense of tradition. An artist must continue to acquire greater and greater objectivity. His emotions and passions must be depersonalized; he must be as impersonal and objective as a scientist. An artist must forget his personal joys and sorrows, and be absorbed in acquiring a sense of tradition and expressing it in his poetry. Thus, the poet’s personality is merely a medium, having the same significance as a catalytic agent has in chemical reactions.

Eliot develops further his theory and compares the mind of the poet to a catalyst and the process of poetic creation to the process of a chemical reaction just as chemical reactions take place in the presence of a catalyst alone, so also the poet’s mind is the catalytic agent for combining different emotions into something new. Suppose there is a jar containing Oxygen and Sulphur dioxide. These two gases combine to form Sulphureous acid when a fine filament of platinum (catalytic) is introduced into the jar. The combination takes place only in the presence of the piece of platinum, but the metal itself does not undergo any change. The mind of the poet is catalytic agent. The mind of the poet is constantly forming emotions and experiences, into new wholes, but the new combination does not contain even a trace of the poet’s mind, just as the newly formed sulphureous acid does not contain any trace of platinum. In the case of young and immature poet, his mind, his personal experiences and emotions may find some expression in his composition but as he gains maturity and perfection, the personality of a poet does not find expression in his poetry; it acts, like a catalytic agent in the process of poetic composition. The experiences which enter the poetic process, says Eliot, may be of two kinds. They are emotions and feelings. Poetry may be composed out of emotions or out of feelings only or out of both.

Eliot compares the poet’s mind to a jar in which are stored numberless feelings, emotions, etc., which remain there in an unorganized and chaotic form till “all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together”. Thus, poetry is organization rather than inspiration. Thus, the greatness of a poem does not depend upon the intensity of emotions but upon the intensity of the process of poetic composition. The more intense is the poetic process, the greater is the poem. There is always a difference between the artistic emotions and the personal emotions of the poet. For example, the famous ‘Ode to Nightingale’ of Keats contains a number of emotions which have nothing to do with the nightingale. The difference between art and event is always absolute. The poet has no personality to express, he is merely a medium in which impression and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the writers as an individual may find no place in his poetry, and those which become important have no significance for the man. The emotions of poetry are different from personal emotions of the poet. His personal emotions may be simple or crude, but the emotions of his poetry may be complex and refined. The business of a poet is not to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotions but he must impart to them a new significance and a new meaning. And it is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions. Even emotions which he has never personally experienced, can serve the purpose of poetry.

Eliot says, that in the poetic process there is only concentration of a number of experiences, and a new thing results from this concentration. And this process of concentration is neither conscious not deliberate; it is a passive one. The difference between a good and a bad poet is that a bad poet is conscious where he should be unconscious and unconscious where he should be conscious. It is this consciousness of the wrong kind which makes a poem personal, whereas mature art must be impersonal.

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. The poet must depersonalize his emotions. This impersonality can be achieved only when the poet surrenders himself completely to the work that is to be done. And the poet can know what is to be done, only if he acquires a sense of tradition, which makes him conscious, not only of the present, but also of the present moment of the past, not only of what is dead, but of what is already living.