Some notes from the Norton [Modern] reading for this week.
Perhaps they are; but we might remind ourselves that criticism is as inevitable as breathing, and that we should be none the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel an emotion about it, for criticizing our own minds is their work of criticism.
---Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (p 942)
It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor.
---same
Impressions and experiences which are important for the man make take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality.
---Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (p 945 - 946)
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
---Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (p 946 - 947)
But very few know when there is an expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet.
---Eliot, Tradition and Individual Talent (p 947)
The intense feeling, ecstatic or terrible, without an object or exceeding its object is something which every person of sensibility has known; it is doubtless a subject of study for pathologists. It often occurs in adolescence: the ordinary person puts these feelings to sleep, or trims down his feelings to fit the business world; the artist keeps them alive by his ability to intensify the world to his emotions.
---Eliot, From Hamlet (p 949)
The possible interests of a poet are unlimited; the more intelligent he is the better; the more intelligent he is the more likely that he will have interests: our only condition is that he turn them into poetry, and not merely meditate on them poetically.
---Eliot, From The Metaphysical Poets (p 952)
We can only say that it appears likely that poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult. Our civilization comprehends great variety and complexity, and this variety and complexity, playing upon a refined sensibility, must produce various and complex results. The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into his meaning.
---Eliot, From The Metaphysical Poets (p 952)
Those who object to the ‘artificiality’ of Milton or Dryden sometimes tell us to ‘look into our hearts and write’. But that is not looking deep enough; Racine or Donne looked into a good deal more than the heart. One must look into the cerebral cortex, the nervous system, and the digestive tracts.
---Eliot, From The Metaphysical Poets (p 953)
I had recreated the point of view of somebody else. Therefore the words ran with a certain smoothness. Shakespeare never expressed any feelings of his own in those sonnets. They have too much smoothness. He did not feel “this is my emotion, I will write it down.” If it is your own feeling, one’s words have a fullness and violence.
--Stein, From A Transatlantic Interview (p 989)
Somehow or other in war time the only thing that is spontaneously poetic is children.
---Stein, From A Transatlantic Interview (p 990)
Dirty has an association and is a word that I would not use now. I would not use words that have definite associations.
---Stein, From A Transatlantic Interview (p 991)
There is the eternal vanity of the mind. One wants to see one’s children in the world and have them admired like any fond parent, and it is a bitter blow to have them refused or mocked. It is just as bitter for me to have a thing refused as for any little writer with his first manuscript. Anything you create you want to exist, and its means of existence is in being printed.
---Stein, From A Transatlantic Interview (p 993)
---Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (p 942)
It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor.
---same
Impressions and experiences which are important for the man make take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality.
---Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (p 945 - 946)
Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
---Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (p 946 - 947)
But very few know when there is an expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet.
---Eliot, Tradition and Individual Talent (p 947)
The intense feeling, ecstatic or terrible, without an object or exceeding its object is something which every person of sensibility has known; it is doubtless a subject of study for pathologists. It often occurs in adolescence: the ordinary person puts these feelings to sleep, or trims down his feelings to fit the business world; the artist keeps them alive by his ability to intensify the world to his emotions.
---Eliot, From Hamlet (p 949)
The possible interests of a poet are unlimited; the more intelligent he is the better; the more intelligent he is the more likely that he will have interests: our only condition is that he turn them into poetry, and not merely meditate on them poetically.
---Eliot, From The Metaphysical Poets (p 952)
We can only say that it appears likely that poets in our civilization, as it exists at present, must be difficult. Our civilization comprehends great variety and complexity, and this variety and complexity, playing upon a refined sensibility, must produce various and complex results. The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into his meaning.
---Eliot, From The Metaphysical Poets (p 952)
Those who object to the ‘artificiality’ of Milton or Dryden sometimes tell us to ‘look into our hearts and write’. But that is not looking deep enough; Racine or Donne looked into a good deal more than the heart. One must look into the cerebral cortex, the nervous system, and the digestive tracts.
---Eliot, From The Metaphysical Poets (p 953)
I had recreated the point of view of somebody else. Therefore the words ran with a certain smoothness. Shakespeare never expressed any feelings of his own in those sonnets. They have too much smoothness. He did not feel “this is my emotion, I will write it down.” If it is your own feeling, one’s words have a fullness and violence.
--Stein, From A Transatlantic Interview (p 989)
Somehow or other in war time the only thing that is spontaneously poetic is children.
---Stein, From A Transatlantic Interview (p 990)
Dirty has an association and is a word that I would not use now. I would not use words that have definite associations.
---Stein, From A Transatlantic Interview (p 991)
There is the eternal vanity of the mind. One wants to see one’s children in the world and have them admired like any fond parent, and it is a bitter blow to have them refused or mocked. It is just as bitter for me to have a thing refused as for any little writer with his first manuscript. Anything you create you want to exist, and its means of existence is in being printed.
---Stein, From A Transatlantic Interview (p 993)