T. S. Eliot - ON POETRY AND POETS

 

T. S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets. London: Faber and Faber, 1957.

(Handwritten notes taken by José Angel García Landa, c. 1990)

   

 T. S. Eliot

ON POETRY AND POETS

 

1. ON POETRY.

 

The Social Function of Poetry  (1943, 1945)  - (15-25)

15- Meaning what the function has actually been, not what it ought to be— "if poetry—and I mean all great poetry—has had no social function in the past, it is not likely to have any in the future." Specific functions of particular genres, in particular ages, etc. 

16-  Didactic poetry has been superseded by prose; now it is restricted to satire or morals, etc. 

17- "We might consider the function of any of those kinds of poetry and still leave untouched the question of the function of poetry. For all these things can be dealt with in prose. Poetry is non-transient, it survives "the complete extinction of interest in the issues with which the poet was passionately concerned." 

18- The first sure function: "poetry has to give pleasure . . . the kind of pleasure that poetry gives", but "if it were only pleasure, the pleasure itself coule not be of the highst kind" — "there is always the communication of some new experience, or some fresh understanding of the familiar, or the expression of something we have experienced but have no words for, which enlarges our consciousness or refines our sensibility." 

  

 

 

To be continued...