Literary Criticism: T.S.Eliot and Functions of Criticism

Orderliness in Literature
Eliot stands for orderliness both in art and in criticism. Art means search of an order in life. Criticism is a search of order in art. Each, therefore, must be orderly itself. The real aim of criticism is ‘the elucidation of works of art and the correction of taste’. In England, however, it was a place for quiet co-operative labour. Each critic endeavours to ‘compose his differences’ with other critics as possible.
Classicism and Eliot
English criticism has ever been divided between the contending claims of classicism and romanticism. Classical criticism is said to follow the principle of allegiance to an outside authority. Romaniticism follows individual liberty. Thus, the issue between classicism and romanticism is ‘a national and racial issue’. However, Eliot says that the right approach to criticism is classical. Those who stand for individual liberty in art listen to their Inner Voice only. They have nothing to refer to confirm their opinion. Due to this, instead of facts about the author or work, one is supplied with the critic’s opinion or fancy. The function of criticism is fact finding. Only the facts can prove what the author or what the work really is. This is best done when the critic has something outside himself to guide him. Some standard of perfection, to judge a work, based upon tradition and the accumulated wisdom of time.
Objectivity
The approach of a critic to a work should be objective. He must have a highly developed sense of fact. Such a sense would allow him to preclude the imposition of his own opinion on it. Also, he should have his tools – ‘comparison and analysis’. Comparison helps him to see how a work modifies past tradition and is itself modified by it. Analysis helps him to see it as it really is. ‘Any book, any essay, any note which produces a fact even of the lowest order about a work of art is a better piece of work than nine-tenths of the most pretentious critical journalism, in journals or in books.’
Impressionism
Criticism ‘is about something other than itself’. Interpretations done by critics putting as much of him in it is not criticism. Similar is the case of impressionism – the exposure of a sensitive and cultivated mind before a work of art to form its true impression. Interpretation is the impression of a mind predisposed by former impressions in particular direction. It is the critic’s idea of the work rather than a faithful elucidation of it. It is a new work of the critic’s own, stimulated by the author’s.
Abstract style in criticism.
Eliot decries the abstract style in criticism. The duty of a critic is not to coerce. He must not take judgement of worse of better. He must simply elucidate. The reader will form the correct judgement for himself.
True criticism
True criticism is the institution of a scientific enquiry into a work of art to see it as it really is. It is ‘the disinterested exercise of intelligence’, such as Aristotle brought to bear on his work. Aristotle analysed a work to the point of discovering the principle underlying its composition. The modern critic has to do the same. This is similar to what a botanist or zoologist do by dissecting a specimen. He looks not for what is interesting in it, but for the principle that makes it what it is. All other criticism is but the satisfaction of some inner urge of the critic.
Author is a best critic
During the creation of a work, the author himself becomes a best critic of his own work. The frightful toil of the author in the labour of sifting, combining, constructing, expunging, correcting, testing etc, is as much critical as creative. The criticism employed by a trained and skilled writer on his own work is the most vital, the highest kind of criticism. Some creative writers are superior to others solely because their critical faculty is superior.
Impersonality of Poetry
According to Eliot, the poet and the poem are two separate things. The feeling, or emotion, or vision, resulting from the poem is something different from the feeling or emotion or vision in the mind of the poet. Eliot proves this by examining, first, ‘the relation of the poet to the past’ and, next, ‘the relation of the poem to its author. The past is never dead. It lives in the present. The best and most individual parts of a poet’s work may be those in which his ancestors assert their immortality most vigorously. One can see a continual surrender by the poet to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. Through his work, the past and present fuse and form a new compound.
Thus there is no connection between poet’s personality and the poem. He has a mind in which special or varied feelings are at liberty to enter into new combinations. The feelings need not be his own. But, his mind is a medium to combine the feelings to a new shape. It may partly make use of his experiences. Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion. It is an escape from emotion. It is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. The emotion of art is impersonal. It has its life in the poem. So honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry.
Objective correlative
The emotion cannot be simply transmitted from the mind of the poet to the mind of the reader. It can only be done through something concrete. The object in which emotion is thus bodied forth is its external equivalent or ‘objective correlative’. The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative” or a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of the particular emotion. For example, to convey the full sense of Lady Macbeth’s mental malady in the last Act of Macbeth, Shakespeare merely makes her do over again what she had done before. This unconscious repetition of her past actions is the objective correlative, the objective equivalent, of her present agony of the heart. Her lack-lustre eyes and the burning taper in her hand aid the effect of this objectification.
Dissociation of sensibility
When the poet’s thought is unable to convert itself into feeling, the result is dissociation of sensibility and therefore bad poetry. Dissociation of sensibility means a split between thought and poetry. A poet may have the best ideas to convey but they serve no purpose unless they issue forth as feelings. Opposite to this is unification of sensibility. It means a direct sensuous apprehension of thought, or recreation of thought into feelings. When this happens, as in the poetry of Chapman or Donne, the result is good poetry. Thought is transformed into feeling to steal its way into the reader’s heart. It is this union of the two that constitutes poetic sensibility.
The value of his criticism
Eliot’s model critic is Aristotle. Aristotle had a scientific mind, which is wholly devoted to inquiry. Every thing he says illuminates the literature. This is what England ever lacked, says Eliot. Eliot calls himself a classicist. As Aristotle did, he applies the method of science to the study of literature to see it as it really is. This is what he has to offer to present day criticism.