How To Be A Writer
Sep 26, 2022 · 2 mins read
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Introduction. T.S. Eliot is one of the most influential poets of all time. His output is relatively limited: he wrote 5 major poems. But he won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948 for pioneering "present-day poetry." In this Memo, discover his fascinating theory of writing 👇
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T.S. Eliot builds his theory of art by first taking us inside the chemistry lab. He asks: What happens "when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and Sulphur dioxide?" Sulphurous acid is produced; this won't happen without platinum.
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For Eliot, the "mind of the poet" is the "shred of platinum." Eliot: "The newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected; has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged." Art is produced from calm heights - from where one can think.
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In a great artist there’s a split between the "man who suffers" and the "mind which creates." T.S. Eliot: "The more perfect the artist, the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material." The mind unlocks its greatness by being impersonal.
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Does the best art come from an artist’s personality? Eliot said no - he wrote that the best art is made when the artist makes himself a medium - a workshop on the floor of which different “feelings, phrases, images” combine to produce new insight.
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Eliot’s formula for art: “We must believe that emotion recollected in tranquility is an inexact formula. For it is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor, without distortion of meaning, tranquility. It is a concentration, and a new thing resulting from the concentration."
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Consider Eliot’s mysterious lines: “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 isn’t poetry the medium with which we express our emotions and personality?
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Eliot further writes: “But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” Art then, for Eliot, is the calm lighthouse from which one observes the tempests of one’s emotions - the turmoil of one’s personality.
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T.S Eliot v/s Contemporary Poets. Eliot rightly won the Nobel Prize for influencing modern poetry - his style of free verse is everywhere now, from literary magazines to slam poetry. But while he promoted an ice-cold and understated style, poetry today is very emotional.
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Conclusion. Thank you for reading! You may enjoy: 8 storytelling tips from Nietzsche. Let's end with these lines from Eliot's Hollow Men - the most quoted lines of 20th century poetry:
"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
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