Comments on: T.S. Eliot: An Excerpt

By: khalil mesrour

khalil mesrour — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:35:13 +0000

i have just finished my research which concerns eliot’s impersonal theory of poetry and my thesis measured to what extent he lives up to his claims about impersonality in his poetic work especially the waste land-my target in the project. i finished stating that he failed to commit to his theory in the waste land and whomever wishes to have an online copy of my research,he can just ask! khalil.mesrour.22@hotmail.com bye

By: khalil mesrour

khalil mesrour — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:48:03 +0000

t s eliot’s impersonal theory cannot be underestimated.Nevertheless, micheal Schmidt says in an article that eliot’s poetry is the most personal. Though he didn’t give some clear evidence about his claim, this can be deduced from the personal pronouns (i)found in almost all his poems. In other words, the poet is present there in every line since ‘poetry is an expression of a poem’s emotions, attitudes and experiences’.So, it’s more or less impossible to imply the theory of ‘psychic distance’ on poetry.

By: tina rathore

tina rathore — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 14:02:51 +0000

Craig Raine’s book is a long awaited version of T.S.Eliot’s life. Eliot’s poetry is read against his impersonal theory of poetry. He is always taken as an Impersonal poet, a poet whom we have been reading sans the knowledge of his life, a poet who is looked upon as a anti-romantic for whom poetry is “not an overflow of emotion…collected in tranquility’ …but an ‘escape from personality’ , without ever giving a critical thought to his idea of Impersonality of poetry.
Raine, very subtly gives a new dimension to Eliot’s Impersonality theory, at times coming clear of the ambiguity which Eliot himself faced while describing the term, first in 1919 and then revising it in 1940 leaving it ambigous for the posterity to delve upon.