Poetry Theory Notes - Wordsworth & Eliot

T.S. Eliot: Tradition and the Individual Talent

● Establishes the universality & essentiallity of tradition in poetry

● “The most individual parts of his work may be those in which dead poets, his
ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously”
● Following tradition goes beyond reproducing what came before
● Writing with tradition in mind requires the poet to acknowledge their place in literary
history
● Past poets inform a reader’s sense of meaning
● When new work comes into the world, the “existing order” adjusts to it
● “The past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the
past” (37)
● Poets learn that “Art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the
same”
● Pursuit of knowledge requires “continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of
personality” —> “depersonalisation”
● Criticism and appreciation are “directed not upon the poet, but upon the poetry” - so
poetry is imporsonal and separate from its author, and poems draw from the whole of
poetry
● A mature poet is one that is in perfect command of the medium of the poem and the
“liberty to enter into new combinations” of feelings/ideas.
● The more “perfect” a poet is, “the more completely separate in him will be the man
who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and
transmute the passions which are its material” (40)
● Artist’s material is of 2 kinds: “emotions and feelings” (40). When paired with a poets
artistic process, they provide the environment needed for a poem to be created.
● Poem is separate from the poet. Poet as a person is separate from the poet on the
page.
● Poem forms when poet aims to “use feelings which are not in actual emotions at all”
(41)
● Poet’s emotions & experiences are materials that evolve into a poem - “passive
attending upon the event” (42)
● Poetry is an escape from emotion & personality
● Essay is a practical guide for those interested in poetry
● Only accomplished by a rare poem, with emotion emerging from the poem itself not
the “history of the poet” (42)
● For the depersonalisation of poetry to occur, a poet must experience not just the
present moment but the past too.

Wordsworth: Preface to Lyrical Ballads

● Poetry = a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (13)

● Poet is “a man speaking to men” (8)
● Poetry and prose should be close in style
● Aim of poetry should be to imitate nature and inspire emotions in the reader