Functions of
criticism
About the author
Thomas Stearns Eliot was a poet, essayist,
publisher, play writer, literary critic and editor. He is considered as one of
the 21st century’s major poet he is a central literary figure in English
language of modernist poetry.
Eliot also made significant
contributions to the field of literary criticism, and strongly influenced the
school of New Criticism. He was somewhat self-deprecating and minimizing of his
work and once said his criticism was merely a "by-product". But the
critic William Empson once said, "I do not know for certain how much of my
own mind invented, let alone how much of it is a reaction against him or indeed
a consequence of misreading him. He is a very penetrating influence, perhaps
not unlike the east wind."
Also important to New Criticism was
the idea—as articulated in Eliot's essay "Hamlet and His Problems"—of
an "objective correlative", which posits a connection among the words
of the text and events, states of mind, and experiences. This notion concedes
that a poem means what it says, but suggests that there can be a non-subjective
judgment based on different readers different but perhaps collective interpretations
of a work.
(1) Murder
in Cathedral
(2) Selected
Essays
(3)
Tradition and Individual talent
(4) The
sacred wood
(5) The
family re-union
(6) The
waste land
(7) Four
quartets
Introduction
This essay the Function of
Criticism is written by TS Eliot was published in 1923 it was a response to
John Middleton Murry who challenged the idea of Eliot presented in his previous
work Tradition and individual talent .This essay has been divided into
four parts.
In the first part Eliot talks about critic and creative work
of art and In the second part he criticized Murry for morality and spirituality
in the third part he strongly criticized over natural instinct and while
writing in the final part of the essay Eliot drove attention to people like
Arnold who considers criticism as superior than creative work of art.
Summary of the essay
It is commonly believed that Criticism is an auto-letic
activity. However according to Eliot it is quite wrong statement because a
great a work of art requires great efforts and hard work those who considered
criticism as an auto-letic activity should be strongly criticized.
Following are the opinion of T.S Eliot regarding criticism
and his creative work of art,
(1) Creative
work of art should be judged by its words.
(2) A good
text can only be produced with having a particular aim in mind.
(3) The
ultimate aim of every critic should be enlighten the readers mind through the
text.
(4) A critic
should have just one aim in mind.
(5) Justification
and explanation should be provided by a critic.
(6) A critic
should not be a blind follower of other critics.
John Middleton Murry believed that
classism and romanticism cannot exist together because he believed that
classism is a feature of French literature and romanticism is the feature of
British literature. He criticized the the orthodoxy of Murry as he does not
give significant to classism. TS Eliot gives significance to romanticism and glorifies
it as modern literature and shows it as superior than classical works.
Murry also believed that traditions
and morality cannot exist simultaneously, however Eliot disagrees with this and
identifies traditions as spirituality and morality can exist together.
``Those who obey the inner voice will
not be interested in the attempt to find any common principles for the pursuit
of Criticism``.
Eliot criticized Murry`s attitude for
rejecting the dignity of others by saying that critic should not follow the
natural Instinct he strongly suggest that rules are made to be broken. Murray
said that we should follow the rules and write literature as per literary
traditions but TS Eliot opposed this by his essay. Eliot disagrees with Murry
and says that search of perfection is small and pity thinking as it bounds
everyone to confirm to individuality.
According to TS Eliot the functions of Criticism is the quest
for some common principles for the perfection of art.
In the final part of the essay Eliot
says that some intellectually weak people like Matthew Arnold and John
Middleton Murry considered criticism is better than creative work of art. According
to TS Eliot a critical work can only be produced if creative work of art exists.Criticism
which includes analysis, evaluation, construction of its work and therefore he
strongly believed that criticism and creative work of art can coexist together
and they are equally valuable.
As a conclusion a critic who analyses the creative text and
then create criticism. It is only possible if creative work of art exist so
criticism is not creative according to Eliot but criticism is dependent on
creative work.
){kind=link}