Question

Write a note on eliot theory of impersonality of poetry

Answer 1

Eliot explains his theory of impersonality by examining first, the relation of the poet to the past and secondly, the relation of the poem to its author. According to his view the past is never dead, it lives in the present. “No poet or no artist has his complete meaning alone.  His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.” Above all, the artist or the poet has to work in the long established tradition of the literature to which he belongs. We cannot value the poet alone; we must set him for comparison and contrast among the dead poets of his language.