Assess the importance of T.S. Eliot as a critic
T.S. Eliot is one of the greatest figures in the history of literary criticism during the 20th century. His criticism of poetry, drama, art and society is based on a coherent series of principles that evolved from time to time. He has taught himself a consistent view of literature, and as a critic, he brings carefully sharpened tools to each fresh task of literary judgement.
Eliot owed his inspiration as a critic to the movement in American criticism called the movement of Humanism led by Professor Irving Babbit and Paul Elmer more inspired by the protagonists of this new wave of Humanism, Eliot also modelled his critical principles and judgments on the line of the Humanists and his critical position in the Sacred wood (1920) is practically the same as that of the humanities, `Eliot was also for classicism and tradition and stood against the tide of romantic criticism which he characterised as fragmentany, immature and chaotic.
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He felt that discipline, order sanity, from were once again to be imposed and re-introduced in the field of literary criticism. T.S. Eliot can be considered as a classicist re-stating the claims of classicism in its demand for order, poise and right reason. In general, his conception of literature was a classical one, placing a high value on tradition, content, and form. It is one of the peculiar excellences of T.S. Eliot that his own work in the field of creation is governed by his principles.
There is a conformity between what he preaches or professes and what he actually creates. His criticism is not divorced from his poetic activity. In his case, the critic and the creative artist are frequently the same person. We can better appreciate his early poetry by studying his remarks in the metaphysical poets.
T.S. Eliot is at his best when he is writing on Dryden, Dante, Metaphysical poets, post Elizabethan dramatists. His sympathies are with Dryden and Donne His appreciation of Milton, Blake and Shelley is at best reluctant and partial of the moderns, his criticism is less impressive. In After Strange Gods (1934), He is very severe on James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. His spiritual position compelled them to denounce them as heretics.
Eliot co-related social and literary criticism. In this respect, he 'resembles Matthew Arnold who was a critic both of life and letters. He is of the view that arts are the by-products of society, and that good prose can not be written by a people without convictions. His critical style resembles that of Matthew Arnold particularly in the use of analysis, definition and comparison. There, is, however, a note of difference between Eliot and Arnold. While Eliot Wields Arnold's tone of authority he does not suffer from the repetitions and mannered approach of Arnold.
Eliot belongs to the tradition of Dryden, Johnson, Coleridge and Matthew Arnold in being the poet and the critical at the same time. Eliot is the most influential of all modern critics. Eliot has expressed his views on all the aspects of literature and life on the problem and process of creative activity, on the survival of culture and civilization, on religion and on social values. In literature, Eliot is a classicist and supports orderliness both in art and criticism.
Despite these shortcomings, Eliot's reputation as the leading critic of the twentieth century is secure. He has made a positive contribution to the literature of criticism. In an age of falling values, he emphasizes the importance of literature. He says that the people who cease to care for their literary inheritance become barbaric, and the people which ceases to produce literature cease to be more in thought and sensibility.
In his theoretical criticism, Eliot touches upon the essential problems concerning poetry. He is against the impressionistic school of criticism. He, therefore, emphasizes the need for a strict critical method or the application of the method of science to the study of literature. He has faith in the craftsman critic, provided that he possesses a highly developed 'sense of fact'. There is a lucidity and severity in his prose style which is admired by all the eminent critics.
He is more successful in his judicial criticism than in his theoretical criticism. He analyses the works of specific writers with subtlety and lucidity. He has a wide influence in the modern age and has influenced writers like F.R. Leavis. He has been rightly recognized as the leader of modern criticism.
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