Book Description

This study explores the many striking parallels between the poetic theory and practice of T.S. Eliot and that of writers belonging to what is generally regarded as the last expression of nineteenth century romanticism, the "aesthetic movement." The first chapter explores the basic assumptions of that movement, pointing out that, above all else, it was an attempt to establish the independence of art from utilitarian considerations of any kind. The suggestion is also made that this insistence on the autonomy of art was responsible for the preoccupation of the aesthetes with what might be called a subjective kind of poetry, with a poetry offering not an objective description of the external world but a view of reality charged with the subjective feelings and mystical perceptions of the poet. Also examined are some of the techniques developed by the aesthetes to communicate this world of inner experience, techniques such as the use of symbols (ordinary objects given emotional suggestiveness by being evoked rather than named directly), the substitution of a logic of association (characteristic of inner mental processes) for a coherent development of thought, an avoidance of all explanatory rhetoric, and a concentration on achieving an effect of incantation. The second chapter concentrates on Eliot's criticism, noting how he always retained a fundamental belief in the aesthetic doctrine of the autonomy of poetry, but modified it by insisting that unless poetry is considered in relation to the various disciplines upon which it draws its sustenance, it deteriorates into a mere abstraction. This belief in the separate-but- relatedness of poetry is shown, in turn, to have shaped his view that poetry must take into consideration both the subjective and the objective aspects of experience, that it must represent a fusing together of thought (or feeling) and sensation, form and content. That in taking this position Eliot was not rejecting but only modifying aesthetic doctrine is demonstrated in the third chapter which examines the poetry and shows how it continues to exhibit such familiar aesthetic features as a preoccupation with states of feeling, a tendency to avoid discursive rhetoric, a preference for associative patterns of organization, and an emphasis on incantation. What is modified is shown to be mainly the imagery which, being altogether more concrete and substantial than that of aesthetic poetry, made possible the expression of precise rather than generalized emotional states. Only in the later poetry where the emphasis is less on feeling than on ideas is there found to be a significant departure from the aesthetic tradition, a departure evident in such stylistic changes as a greater concentration on rational as opposed to associative forms of organization, a preference for a more intensive allegorical kind of imagery, and a greater use of abstract language.