The Philosophy of Poetry (Pt. 1): Eliot, Theory and Criticism

In this blog, and in subsequent blogs, I will be posting portions of a forthcoming seminar in which I will discuss the relevance of a philosophy of poetry. In this blog I discuss the critical work of T. S. Eliot, which dominated much of the 20th century thought on poetry. Eliot's criticism helps to set the groundwork for a philosophy of poetry, in spite of the fact that he shows an aversion for explicit philosophising on the subject, particularly by poets.

Eliot, Theory and Criticism

I wish to put a general proposition to you: poetry is a philosophical activity. I wish also to put another, related, proposition to you: there exists a discipline of the philosophy of poetry. The veracity of the latter follows from the inherency of the former. “Poetry is a philosophical activity,” however, is quite vague; do I mean writing poetry? Or do I mean reading poetry? I mean both; and I mean all that poetry entails, including poetic criticism and theory. Poetry is a philosophical activity because it is an investigation into what is meaningful, and why. Poetry is also the creation of meaning. The philosophy of poetry, as I envision it, then, entails an attempt at understanding this dual dynamic of poetic investigation and creation.

In this seminar, I will explore the possibility of a philosophy of poetry through a synthesis of different theoretical perspectives on poetry. In particular, I will discuss and analyse the critical and theoretical work of a number of prominent 20^th century poets, as well as a number of 20^th century philosophers who address the question of poetry. The question of poetry can be understood simply as “what is poetry?” The philosophy of poetry, then, can be understood as an attempt to answer this question.

T. S. Eliot addresses the question “what is poetry?” in the "Introduction" to his The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism. Eliot argues that poetry and criticism both seek to address this question; that poetry and criticism are, in effect, different aspects of the same activity. "The question 'what is poetry?'" he says, "issues quite naturally from our experience of poems." "To ask the question 'what is poetry?'" he says shortly after, "is to posit the critical function," by which he means the act of criticism. Eliot is justifying the importance of criticism to the understanding of art, in this case poetry. He says, in fact, that criticism is "inevitable and requires no justification" (emphasis mine).

My interest in Eliot's apology revolves around a seemingly innocuous parenthetical phrase. It occurs amidst the quotes already cited. I will cite the extended quote:

At any rate, the question 'what is poetry?' issues quite naturally from our experience of poems. Even, therefore, although we may admit that few forms of intellectual activity seem to have less to show for themselves, in the course of history, in the way of books worth reading, than does criticism, it would appear that criticism, like any philosophical activity, is inevitable and requires no justification. To ask 'what is poetry?' is to posit the critical function. (emphasis mine)

"Like any philosophical activity" implies that criticism is a philosophical activity. At the very least, Eliot means that criticism is comparable to philosophical activities. This proximate relationship of criticism and philosophical activity is important in light of the causal relationship between poetry and criticism with regard to the question "what is poetry?"

If "the experience of poems" leads "naturally" to the question "what is poetry?" and if "to ask 'what is poetry?' is to posit the critical function," and if criticism, which is "inevitable," is "like any philosophical activity," then there is a philosophical dimension to poetry.  The question "what is poetry?" then, is a question with philosophical implications, a philosophical question. I will address the conceptual importance of this point shortly. There are two further points I need to address first.

Eliot does not deny the connection between philosophy and poetry, but he does obfuscate the relationship. There are two quotes that illustrate this point. In his lecture on "Shelley and Keats," Eliot opines, "I believe that for a poet to be also a philosopher he would have to be virtually two men." He goes on to say that

A poet may borrow a philosophy or he may do without one. It is when he philosophises upon his own poetic insight that he is apt to go all wrong.

He says elsewhere, however, that "the extreme of theorising about the nature of poetry, the essence of poetry if there is any, belongs to the study of aesthetics." We can glean from these two quotes that poetry can, indeed, be understood philosophically, but that poets themselves are "apt to go all wrong" when they try to engage in that philosophising.

The division Eliot erects between philosophers and poets, however, is arbitrary, and it may have more to do with Eliot's dislike of Shelley and the Romanticism more broadly, which he called a "literary disease." There is nothing to say that a poet cannot philosophise or theorise on poetry; Eliot himself does it. Like many poets, Eliot smuggles his own theorising into his criticism of the poetry or literary works of others. For instance, Eliot postulates his theory of the "auditory imagination" in his criticism of Mathew Arnold, while he develops his "Impersonal theory" of poetry in his critique of Hamlet. Criticism is a philosophical activity.