Eliot, Post-Structuralism, and Criticism

This week’s readings were certainly intense for any newcomer to Modernism. Chock full of criticism and the encompassing concern of each author, to establish not only what his respective point was (and what it was not), each essay required several readings in order to grasp as much information as possible.

Eliot’s essays engaged me the most out of this week’s readings. Although dense in language, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” touched on some interesting issues. Eliot gets right to the point by immediately confronting the difference between tradition and individualism. As critics, we want to see something new, something completely non-traditional in order to applaud the work. However, Eliot dives right into what essentially reminds me of what will become the post-structuralism argument of Roland Barthes, as seen in his essay “Death of the Author” (1967) and the work of others, such as Derrida and Foucault. Each piece of work that is created has nearly no possibility of being totally free from external influence and this is where the notion of tradition comes into play for Eliot. Eliot writes, “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” (38). Eliot argues that it is this influence from “dead artists” that is necessary in order to produce great works.

Although it is a known fact that Shakespeare used the influence of “dead artists” in “Hamlet”, Eliot certainly had no problem blasting the character Hamlet to shreds. Eliot returns to the ideas of emotions and feelings and ultimately, he decides that Shakespeare was inexperienced in the emotions and feelings that Hamlet displays. Aside from this, Eliot believes there is a detrimental imbalance between the cause and effect of Hamlet’s emotions and feelings. This ultimately results in the reader’s inability to truly understand “Hamlet” since “we should have to understand things which Shakespeare did not understand himself” (49).

“The Function of Criticism” returns to build a main point first addressed in “Tradition and the Individual Talent”. Eliot refers to many other critics in order to prove his point (or disprove theirs, I am not sure). Eliot is concerned this time with an “inner voice” that Murry has coined, yet Eliot believes that with an inner voice, it has the ability to take over and lose the meaning that may otherwise rear its head. It is in this essay that Eliot solidifies an idea that was beginning to form in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” – the necessity of fact in criticism. However, with the proposal of this idea, also arises a dilemma – how will proof against fraud be possible? So, how are we to truly criticize then? Eliot seems to give himself a safety net at the end of this essay, defending his ideas, yet not discouraging dispute. Is criticism similar to every other –ism in this world and it runs on a “to each his own” basis?