The sacred wood essays on poetry and criticism. The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920, 1921) 2022-10-05
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The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism is a collection of 20 essays written by T.S. Eliot, a prominent figure in modernist poetry and literary criticism. The essays, which were originally published in various literary journals between 1920 and 1922, offer Eliot's insights and analysis on a range of topics related to literature, poetry, and criticism.
One of the key themes that emerges in The Sacred Wood is the importance of tradition in literature. Eliot argues that the works of poets and writers, particularly those of the past, are essential for understanding and appreciating the present. In the essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent," Eliot writes that "the most individual parts of [a poet's] work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously." This idea of tradition as a living, breathing entity that informs and shapes the work of poets and writers is central to Eliot's understanding of literature.
Eliot also explores the role of the critic in The Sacred Wood. In the essay "The Function of Criticism," he argues that the critic should be a mediator between the work of art and its audience, helping to "place" the work within a broader historical and cultural context. The critic, according to Eliot, should be a "reader" of the work, not a "judge." This approach to criticism is in contrast to the more traditional view that the critic's role is to pass judgment on the merit of a work.
In addition to these themes, The Sacred Wood also includes essays on specific poets and works of literature. For example, Eliot writes about the poetry of John Donne, the plays of Shakespeare, and the influence of Dante on literature. These essays offer a deeper understanding of Eliot's views on literature and provide insight into his critical approach.
Overall, The Sacred Wood is a thought-provoking and influential collection of essays that offers a unique perspective on literature, poetry, and criticism. It is a must-read for anyone interested in modernist poetry and literary criticism, and its insights and ideas continue to be relevant and meaningful today.
The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism by T.S. Eliot
This is a collection of Eliot's critisism. Unfortunately in this book those explanations are rare and for the most part lightly sketched. I was preparing for my very first university lecture. And when we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts. So much suffices for Campion.
The sacred wood : essays on poetry and criticism : Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888
Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, and Four Quartets; the plays Murder in the Cathedral and The Cocktail Party; and the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. Such statements may often be justifiable as a saving of time; but in matters of great importance the critic"" must not coerce, and he must not make judgme! Likewise, it became an Agenbite of inwit for the young James Joyce. At a time when the word "traditional" had become a way of damning with faint praise by reference to the past, Eliot reinterpreted the term to mean something entirely different. Who found their only recourse in Ethical Absolutism. Goethe has not, that is to say, sacrificed to consecrated his thought to make the drama ; the drama is still a means. Other than some interesting quips on isolated authors interesting only to parties who know and care about those authors- Blake and Dante, for me there is nothing in this book lost by only reading the central essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent.
The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism by T.S. Eliot
A note on the American critic. I heard my name called from the circulation desk and was taken into a l I went to E. . Poetic drama is not so foreign from the work non-naturalistic plays of Anouilh, Giraudoux, and Brecht, up to Frayn, Stoppard and Kushner today. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion.
Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. If some of the elusive essences of an author's heart and mind occasionally escape him, we have no right to object. This is quite an early collection of essays, mainly about Elizabethan and Jacobean poetic drama. There is always a tendency to legislate rather than to inquire, to revise accepted laws, even to overturn, but to reconstruct out of the same material. We assume the gift of a superior sensibility. His hyperventilating essay on Blake actually made me laugh; his presumption to understand a poet wholly indifferent to Eliot's own concerns, perhaps even hostile to Eliot's notions of poetry and what makes a poem "great.
The sacred wood; essays on poetry and criticism : Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888
And — by implication — even a fully-competent reader of poetry needs to be far more widely-read than is commonly the case today and perhaps even then. In our postmodernist age it is everywhere. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest. It was a different sorta growing up fast, for his coming-of-age coincided with his mid-life crisis. And for Pessoa, it was a game of chess that has seemingly reached terminal stalemate. His early attacks on romantic poets, for example, often reveal him as a romantic against the grain. Other than some interesting quips on isolated authors interesting only to parties who know and care about those authors- Blake and Dante, for me there is nothing in this book lost by only reading the central essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent.
The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism by Rachel Teubner
Some of us didn't need convincing! The poetry may be an accidental stimulus. Some of the chapters, however, are not about poets at all but critics, people who were no doubt well-known in their day but are not important now. The same divisions carry over into his verse, where violence struggles against restraint, emotion against order, and imagination against ironic detachment. And probably more people have thought Hamlet a work of art because they found it interesting, than have found it interesting because it is a work of art. However, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, there has always been a taste for drama focused on the possibilities of language. Project Gutenberg books are always free! He is particularly scathing about "Marlowe's Mephistopheles is a simpler creature than Goethe's. He pronounces many judgments, but the most helpful judgments to this reader a century later are the ones for which he explains his reasoning.
The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920, 1921)
Talk about a weird kind of perhaps self-promotion or publicity campaign. French poetry was a strong influence on Eliot's works, in particular that of Charles Baudelaire, whose clear-cut images of Paris city life provided a model for Eliot's own images of London. Alfred Prufrock" 1915 , which exploited fresh rhythms, abrupt juxtapositions, contemporary subject matter, and witty allusion. Who was I to teach the new undergraduates about T. But Aristotl~ad none of these impure desires to satisfy ; in whatever sphere of interest, he looked solely and steadfastly at the object ; in his short and broken treatise he provides an eternal example-not of laws, or even of method, for there is no method except to be very ~ intelligent, but of intelligence itself swiftly operating the analysis of sensation to the point of principle and definition. I harbor a tone of mixed response about this tome, much as I do towards the literary theory of Ezra Pound. In a way it reflects the thesis of Tradition and the Individual Talent — probably the best-known of the pieces included here: a poet of worth needs to be rooted in the ongoing tradition.
The Sacred Wood Essays On Poetry And Criticism : Eliot, T.s : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
The party poopers vs the party animals, no matter what your political allegiances. But at least Marlowe has, in a few words, concentrated him into a statement. The Cardinal is not a cast of the Dudkss of Mal. His end does not always appear to be the return to the work of art with improved perception. Thereafter, his career underwent a change.
