Depersonalization??

T.S. Eliot's essay, Tradition and the Individual Talent, talks about the depersonalization of art or poetry. He writes, "The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality." Throughout his entire essay he talks of this need to express, but not "personality", rather "a particular medium which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experience combine in peculiar and unexpected ways." He continues by saying that "poetry isn't a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality." So is Eliot trying to say that in order to create good poetry, poetry that touches the soul and gives reader's a new emotional experience, there must be no personal insight or experience in the poem? I'm not sure if this is what Eliot is attempting to prove or argue but I find that if this is the case I disagree.

I always viewed poetry as a way to express oneself and maybe that makes me naive and limits my experience. But some of the best poems I've read have reflected an author's personal feelings or attitudes towards a subject matter. And because of this I felt the poem come alive and I was able to connect with the author's ideas and I was able to participate in their experience through their poetry. It's like reading an article about someone who hiked Mt. Everest. I know that this is something I will never do (at least I don't think so), but by reading that account of this particular person's trip or experience I'm able to share in that adventure with them even if I never actually reach the top of Mt. Everest myself. Does that make sense? I think that good poetry is personalized, is filled with the author's own ideas and emotions and feelings. And through these reader's are able to relate and learn and grow from another individual. Isn't that what makes a poem good? That the reader is changed after reading it. And that the poet was able to create this amazing flow of verse by expressing emotion from their own life?

Eliot writes that "the emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done." I agree with Eliot in the sense that a poet must surrender themselves wholly to their work in order to create a poem. However, he continues to throw in this idea of impersonality and that this surrendering allows the poet to escape from their own personality and emotions. Is that good? I can't help but question Eliot's ideas. I don't know if cutting off our personality from our work is a good thing. I feel like our personality is what makes our work unique, creative, and vibrant. I read through an article written by Allen Austin and I appreciated the way he ended his critique of Eliot. He writes, "One may agree with Eliot that the poet and the poem are integral, without accepting the Romantic theory that "the primary qualities of a good poem are...attributes of the mind and temper of its composer.""

T. S. Eliot's Theory of Personal Expression
Allen Austin
PMLA, Vol. 81, No. 3. (Jun., 1966), pp. 303-307.
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