T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot OMwas an American-born British essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and "one of the twentieth century's major poets". He moved to England in 1914 at age 25, settling, working and marrying there. He was eventually naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39, renouncing his American citizenship...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth26 September 1888
CountryUnited States of America
art poetry feelings
I take as metaphysical poetry that in which what is ordinarily apprehensible only by thought is brought within the grasp of feeling, or that in which what is ordinarily only felt is transformed into thought without ceasing to be feeling.
art crafts way
The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula for that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.
art important importance
When comparing works of art, it is important that the art itself, and not the artists, be considered.
art past art-is
Past art is subject to change.
art writing reading-poetry
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
art personality roles
The role of art is not to express the personality but to overcome it.
art art-is materials
Art never improves, but... the material of art is never quite the same.
appreciation art generations
No generation is interested in art in quite the same way as any other; each generation, like each individual, brings to the contemplation of art its own categories of appreciation, makes its own demands upon art, and has its own uses for art.
appreciation art poet
No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead.
artist immature aliens
A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest.
men artist perfect
The more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates.
art unique stealing-things
One of the surest tests of the superiority or inferiority of a poet is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate mature poets steal bad poets deface what they take and good poets make it into something better or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique utterly different than that from which it is torn the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time or alien in language or diverse in interest.
art poetry return
All art emulates the condition of ritual. That is what it comes from and to that it must always return for nourishment.
art occupation ifs
If one has to earn a living, therefore, the safest occupation is that most remote from the arts.