<原報>T. S. エリオットの詩と評論 (2) : エリオットの懐疑的精神をめぐる世界観と詩論

概要

論文の詳細を見る
4. A Few Points of View on the Critical Evaluation of His Works. How can we evaluate Eliot's works, from his earlier poetry to his later? It would be approved that, though his earlier poems were highly appreciated for revealing the modern reality in our destructive civilization and for innovating a new mode of expression in modern poems, his later poems were less appreciated because the source of his imagination seems to have been exhausted. I think, nevertheless, we have to investigate more clearly several phases of his world view and poetics conditioned by his scepticism. The first important problem that must be considered is whether or not Eliot could overcome his scepticism. After he decided to become a classicist, Royalist, and Anglo-Catholic, his ideas and poetic imagery were distinctly changed. In spite of having been converted to Anglicanism, it is evident that he, as S. Spender said, unsuccessfully expressed the hope of the religious world in his later poems, and he only chose the gloomy world of meditation, that of transcendentalism. And then, in his later critiques, as H. Laski pointed out, Eliot became politically a reactionary ultra-conservative. Though he could transcend his scepticism subjectively, he could not overcome it objectively, but produced a newer illusion in his world view. However, this is the external criticism, so I intend to investigate the internal, literary problem of his poems through his famous critique, Tradition and the Individual Talent, 1919. His themes are 1) the historical sense and order, 2) the poet's spirit is a catalyst, and 3) the escape from emotion and extinction of personality. He says tradition involves the historical sense, which involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence. And the poet who obtained the historical sense has to approve the idea of order, of the form of European literature. If the poet can understand it, he is to readjust the relations, proportions, the values of each work of art toward the whole. In order to do so, the poet has to make his mind inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet, therefore, becomes the shred of platinum, the catalyst, using the analogy. In fact, he ought to escape consciously from emotion and personality. It may be appropriate that the younger critics and poets criticized Eliot's literary points of view, because he expressed his sceptical visions in his poems while using his vast knowledge and erudition, thus making his poetry complicated and difficult to understand. They were difficult as well as pedantic, and reduced the value of both past and present. His emotion and personality were withered up, so to speak, year after year. The more the mind of the poet was reduced to neutrality, the farther his originality flew up and disappeared into vanity. Did he cease to be significant as an artist? A lot of younger poets would answer the question…….
共立薬科大学の論文
1976-02-25

<原報>T. S. エリオットの詩と評論 (2) : エリオットの懐疑的精神をめぐる世界観と詩論

スポンサーリンク

概要

共立薬科大学 | 論文

スポンサーリンク