The Symbolic Imagination Spring Essay

Basically mate, my comments are a bit of a spew, and are way too philosophised… There more to possibly give you ideas, than to be taken at face value.

In particular, it might be a distortion of Eliot on the grounds certain language which reminded me of Immanuel Kant, and in turn gotme thinking about Heidegger and existentialists. So yeah, not sure how much this will help, and if any of it sounds wrong/odd to you, it probably is!

But the long/short of how I might be tempted to understand Eliot’s view like this … As said, is overly philosophical, and wildly speculative!:

1) We are not “autonomous” readers - i.e. we are not objective, in the Enlightenment sense of thinking and understanding independently of everything else. There is no ‘pure reason’ or ‘pure understanding’: our thinking is shaped by who we are, our feelings, our histories, etc. - is it in part “subjective”. (all the stuff about not being autonomous and the like)

2) When we read poetry, we bring this “baggage” with us. In other words, our interpretations are partly shaped by the words on the page, and the poets intended meaning, but only partly - they are also shaped by the reader themselves, and all the things they bring with them. (see all the stuff about the present/the end/8 years ago but now, etc.)

3) This “baggage”, or things which shape how a reader reads a poem or how a poet writes a poem includes previous poems they’ve written or read. In other words, poems “collide” like elements, forming new poems: as the poems read in the past meet new poems through the reader (because past poems have shaped who the readeris, and that same reader is reading a poem in the present), new poems are formed. The reader is therefore a “catalyst”. (first paragraph; also, maybe look at post-modern views of the reader, such as the “dialogical” approach)

1. Compare T. S. Eliot’s “impersonal theory of poetry” with John Keats’s concept of the “camelion poet” through a comparative analysis of a Romantic and a Modernist poem thatyou have read for this module.

(Lay out Eliot’s impersonal theory)

(Quote some fucking Wallace Stevens or some of that nonse)

As the “catalyst” poet, Eliot feels as if his work is not a representation of himself. In tradition and the individual talent, he relates the poet’s imaginative experience to a chemical reaction. Two elements/ compounds collide to produce one or more new compounds. Eliot considers himself as neither of the reactants, he is simply the catalyst- a “reciprocate” which allows elements of the past to combine. The reciprocate is therefore that which causes specific combinations to occur: they do add something new/that wasn’t alreadythere, but, without them, or if they were perhaps different, there wouldn’t be the same mixture - you have a quote like this in your notes: “Compares to a chemical reaction, new elements are not added,the old are combined to create a new compound”)

“mature” catalyst

In lieu of its themes, Eliot’s Burnt Norton must be regarded in relation to a history of poetical, philosophical, and scientific discoveries. Its deictic manner extends to a critique of itself: an introspective look at the relationship between the temporality of our existence, the poem itself, and the ‘here.’ Burnt Norton commenceswith the following lines: “Time present and time past / Are both present in time future / And future contained in time past.” The repetition of “time” and the pattern of thought (there might be a literary term for this sort of repetition; Also, the repetition of present, future and past, in different combinations/orders; it reminds me of chiasmus, but’s not… might be a good point grabber to chuck about if it exists!) imbibe these first lines with gnomic elements. This trinity of reiteration

At the end of the first stanza, the undeceiving bird acts as a vessel by which time is alluded to “Time past and time future / What might have been and what has been / Point to one end, which is always present.” Eliot alludes to the elusive concept of the present, or what “is”, through a literal representation of what ‘being’ is. Paradoxically, this eighty year old poem will always be read in the present, its voice will always be heard with reference to its past and the past that follows it. The reader acts as an “active” reader, as opposed to passive, who brings certain “baggage”with them - i.e., there are no objective readings. This relates to afair few post-modern ideas, for example the “Dialogical” approach, aterm I think Bhaktin put forward; maybe chuck around ‘existential’ if it’s appropriate)The “end” which is “present” applies as much to the year the poem was published as it does to any contemporary reading. And it is that applicability which defines the “present”; adeictic term which requires context to understand i.e. the time which has preceded it and the time which proceeds. Eliot paradoxically details the present as an “end”; it leads the reader to surmise how they may exist as a (maybe rephrase this - I’m not too sure what it means to exist within an end). Yet the “end” may always, by association, be depicted at the start, and it is here that any logical understanding falls in on itself. “Time past” and “time future” are both rendered as constructions, and the bird indirectly implores the reader to momentarily distance themselves from these constructs, yet encourages us to consider these constructs as part of the present.

Eliot’s writes Burnt Norton as a poem of humility; he does not limit himself with the “autonomous, self-sufficient, declarative, self-asserting, essentially closed vision toward which [his] early critical writing tended.”1 Eliot seems to suppose that we are never wholly autonomous in our decisions, as there are always influencing factors - we are never “self-sufficient” or “self-asserting”, and nor do we have a “closed vision” as we are all essential caught up in subjective existence: we must be humble, and not suppose that we are capable of taking an objective, God’s Eye view. This humility showcases two facets of Eliot’s imagination: The part which attempts

1 Omri Moses, “AFFECTING TIME: TS. Eliot’s “Burnt Norton” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal v. 88, no. 1/2 (Spring/ Summer 1998): 130

to break away from reason; and the part which attempts to fill everysupposed meaningless event in one’s life with a universal equivalent, and thus grant dignity to our existence. Eliot’s espousal of life’s uncertainties extends to the speculative passage:“I can only say, there we have been Heidegger’s Being & Time (1930-ish): was all about how we are necessarily beings within time and existence.. And our existence can be reduced basically to ‘being there’, and we only ever exist in relation to our surroundings, not independent of them - was all very existentialist) : but I cannot say where. / and I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time” The present that Eliot discusses provides no promise of furtherance; his conjecture does not eclipse circular logic that forms repetitious loops upon itself. Eliot is discussing a frozen point, extraneous to time itself, which may only be accepted as a promise. For one to truly experience the “here” one must experience it from their own perspective- it must be intelligible to the personthemselves- otherwise it becomes the “there.” We are not “autonomous”, but perhaps subjective in our understanding - necessarily so: we cannot understand anything without reference to ourselves, or to our subconscious concepts through which we view theworld). It is in this manner that Eliot implores his reader to absorb the voice of the poet- to react his words with a collection of accumulated compound experience and emotions, and thus to catalyse the “here” for themselves. It is a “dialogical” approach toreading poetry, where poet, poem and reader come together to form a post-modern reading, however it is not themselves but their experience that they bring with them. So, what he is asking still remains an impossibility. If we are to accept the present as “a still point outside time itself,”2 then the present may only be truly viewed without context- or ourselves. Yet, to view the presentwithout ourselves is to view the present without consciousness.

Keats’s chameleon poet is the vessel poetical ideology which sees the poet take on the voice of the subject itself. Keats speaks as the wind, a bird, or an emotion. Similarly, the poet does not seem 2 P. 145 affecting time

to vest themselves in their poetry, rather they mimic their surroundings; poetry becomes “not a turning of loose emotion, but anescape from emotion, it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality… only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”3 Eliot’s statements seem to be a refelction of Keats’ work in that the poet does not place themselves in their final product- they simply channel their surroundings, as the catalyst manipulates its elements. However, what separates Keats’ ideologies is that the poetactually becomes their poetry, ad their surroundings, through the employment of the imagination. This form of transcendence is only a possibility through the imagination. Keats iterates that “the excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate. 4” Wordsworth or one of them “must be sympathetic with everything around itsfelf- true imagination Keats’Grecian Urn struggles with this poetical dilemma and is a representation of his attempt to attain the speechlessness of great art. The poem offsets with Keats attempting to address the “Unworthy”5 urn in a similar manner to which Eliot attempts to give light to life’s mundanities. The addressee of the poem, the urn, is not referenced directly in the opening lines, as such it evades the embarrassment and the “the intimidation by an inaccessible phenomenon by avoiding the name”6 The effect of this self-evident lacking allusion is that Keats steers clear from the presumptuousness and absurdities that come with addressing the urn. The title is, in many senses, a misdemeanor when combined with the humility of the opening lines. It is as if Keats is attempting to hide away from the direct address of the urn, with underlying suggestions that the ode may, in fact, be on the urn itself.

Keats ode signs off in a self-referential manner “Thou shalt remain / in midst of other woe / Than ours, a friend to man, to whomthou say’st, / Beauty is truth, truth beauty,- that is all / Ye knowon earth, and all ye need to know.” Here, Keats does not speak of the “dark corridors” 7 that he so anxiously describes in his letters,

3 P. 24014 P. 8895 Klaus Hoffman, “Keats’s Ode to a Grecian Urn” Studies in Romanticism v. 45, no.2 (Summer 2006): 2566 Hoffman p. 2567 Find one

rather he decides to stay in the light of the main room, the room heknows, the room that is filled with beauty.

Conclusion:

The process of the imagination- of creation- relies on an accumulative knowledge of universal, specifically human, understandings. Knowledge may be seen as a portrait, painted over thousands of years, the present is its current appearance, the past the surface strokes and the strokes beneath- all of which has shapedits modern day product. Eliot understands this specifically (If this is Eliot’s view, then scratch everything I’ve said, which was speculation, anyway - if he believes in a universal, especially universal human existence, perhaps consider how this is brought out when reading poetry and its relation to certain (subjective?) readings)

Could switch it up: When constructing poems, we are really constructing emotions - taking elements & smashing them together It's impersonal, we are really just catalysts - we draw on an 'arsenal' of past poems, and stitch them together In contrast to the metaphysical poetry, which viewed itself as tapping into eternal truths etc. etc. That downplays the notion of being wholly subjective escaping personality bit - i.e., whoever you are, you can represent something different to yourself

TS Eliot:

Tradition is a word that is looked upon disapprovingly in poetry.Everyone has both an imaginative and a critical turn of mind. Put too much stake in our “critical habits”8 so much so that we are oblivious for its creative genius. “Criticism is as inevitable as

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breathing”9 (Erroneously, or validly, believe the French are more critical) however one should voice the criticisms of their mind, it is simply the voicing of emotion- one should not feel guilty about it. We should celebrate, rather than criticise, poets whose work resembles their predecessors. Approach poet without prejudice, we may find that the best (and most individual aspects of their work) may be those where “ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously”10 Eliot is not discussing the impressionable period of adolescence, rather the developed ideas that result from full maturity (is this even a possible concept?).

Eliot is not discussing the simple tradition of “handing down”11 or imitating. Novelty is better than tradition if tradition is a mere repetition of what makes the previous generation successful. You must achieve tradition through “great labour.”12 One must write not only with his own generation in his mind, but with an entire compendium of literature. Combination of the “timeless” and the “temporal” together.13 Makes a writer aware of their own place in time “contemporaneity”. Complete individuality is an impossibility in the world of poetry.

“The existing monuments form an ideal order amongst themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. Readjusting of old values is conformity between the old and the new.

The poet cannot take the past as a lump, or in indiscriminately. Artnever improves, rather the material is never the same. (I don’t knowI feel this is true, art may improve with respect to its subjectivity and relativity in it contemporaneity. History is a linear mind which changes en route. Refinement is not supposedly an improvement, maybe talk as if it is an adaptation. “the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past’s awareness of itself cannot show”.14 Compares to a chemicalreaction, new elements are not added, the old are combined to createa new compound.

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The mature poet is a more refined medium for ideas to come together in. Eliot likens the mature poet to a “catalyst”15. The platinum catalyst enables the chemical reaction yet none of it enters the sulphuric acid. The catalyst remains unaffected- inert. The elementsof the catalyst are two-fold.

Is there the perfect metaphor for the creative process or is the world entirely random?

Can anything be explained without metaphor. The building blocks and the history are essential as the formation of languages and images are what allow us to relate newlThe building blocks and the history are essential as the formation of languages and images are what allow us to relate new readjustments. The pressure is what creates the fusion that counts. “the difference between art and the event isalways absolute”. “The ode of Keats contains a number of feelings which have nothing particular to do with the Nightingale, but which the Nightingale partly, perhaps, because of its attractive name, andpartly because of its reputation, served to bring together.”16Poet isonly a medium and not a personality.

In summary, “Poetry is not a turning of loose emotion, but an escapefrom emotion, it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality… only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”17

METAPHYSICAL POETRY:

Johnson coined the term as a description of 17th century poets who discussed concepts such as religion and love. The metaphysics were characterized by their use of poetical conceits- the use of metaphorwithout a clear-cut analogy between the things being described, the effect is used more “to concede likeness while being strongly conscious of unlikeness.”18

15 P. 239816 P. 239917 P. 240118 Helen Gardner, The Metaphysical Poets (Oxford University Press), 1961, "Introduction" p. xxiii.

Metaphor and simile are poetical conceits which should be avoided- Donne refrained from usage. “a degree of heterogeneity of material compelled into unity by the operation of the poet’s mind is omnipresent in poetry.”19 Idea and the simile must become one. Language of metaphysical poets must be “simple and pure”20 this simplicity (of the likes of Herbert) was supposedly emulated unsuccessfully by Eliot’s contemporaries. Structure of sentences induces thought and feeling, but is not always simple effect of great speed with short syllables (Marvell’s Coy Mistress) or an “ecclesiastical solemnity” with long ones (Crashaw Saint Teresa).21 Shelley and Keats struggled toward “unification of sensibilities”22 but subsequently died ☹ . Various and complex results must come from the variety within our society. Classical poets have the ability of “transmuting ideas into sensations, of transforming an idea into a state of mind”23

Racine and Baudelaire, two great French masters of Diction triumph the soul. Milton and Dryden, similarly great poets, disregard the soul. One must look past the heart to write, one must look “into thecerebral cortex, the nervous system, and the digestive tracts.”24

John Keats:

Happiness can only occur in those who delight in sensation, rather than those who starve for truth. Adam’s dream- Paradise Lost. He dreams of Eve and then awakes to find her real, in front of him. Thesimple imaginative mind may have its rewards in the repetition of its own silent working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness- Negative capability- for one to revel in their imagination, they must see it repeated in those around them, the poem is the means by which this feat is achieved. The recreation of a sensation- for example the recollection of a beautiful melody, andthe beauty of the singer’s face it inspired on the wings of the imagination is in itself a practice of pure spirituality. Eliot’s

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mind consists partly of sensation, partly of thought partly of imagination, partly of reason. Repetition of ethereal musings is thewine of Heaven. “Increase in knowledge and know all things”25 Regarding happiness; “I look not for it if it not be in the present hour- nothing startles me beyond the moment”26

“the excellence of every Art is its intensity, capable of making alldisagreeables evaporate , from their being in close relationship with Beauty & Truth”27

“Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason”28

“why should we kick against the Pricks, when we can walk on Roses?”29

“I compare human life to a mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me- The first we step into we call the infant or thoughtless Chamber, in which we remain as long as we do not think- We remain there for a long while, and notwithstanding the doors of the second Chamber remain wide open, showing a bright appearance, we care not hasten to it; but are at once imperceptibly impelled by the thinkingprinciple- within us- we no sooner get into the second chamber, which I shall call the chamber of Maiden-Thought, than we become intoxicated with the light and the atmosphere, we see nothing but pleasant wonders, and think of delaying there for ever in delight: However among effects this breathing is father of is that tremendousone of sharpening one’s vision into the heart and nature of Man- of convincing one’s nerves that the World is full of Misery and Heartbreak, Pain, Sickness and oppression- whereby This Chamber of Maiden Thought becomes gradually darken’d and at the same time on all sides of it many doors are set open- but all dark- all leading to dark passageways- We see not the ballance of good and evil. We are in a Mist- We are now in that state- we feel the “burden of Mystery”. To this point was Wordsworth come, as far as I can conceive when he wrote “Tintern Abbey” and it seems to me his genius

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is explorative of those dark passages. Now if we live, and go on thinking, we too shall explore them. he is a genius and superior [to] us, in so far as he can, more than we, make discoveries, and shed light in them- Here I must think Wordworth is deeper than Milton- though I think it has depended more on the general and gregarious advance of intellect, than individual greatness of the Mind- From the Paradise Lost and the other Works of Milton- though Ithink it has depended more upon the general and gregarious advance of intellect, than individual greatness of Mind- From the Paradise Lost and the other works of Milton, I hope it is not too presuming, even between ourselves to say, his Philosophy, human and divine, maybe tolerably understood by one not much advanced in years,”30

CAMELION POET:

“What shocks the virtuous philosopher delights the camelion Poet.”31

A poet has no firm identity, and so is the most unpoetical being in existence. The poem takes the form of the sea, the clouds, a maiden.The poet has no self, Keats has no self. “not one word I ever utter can be taken can be taken for granted as an opinion growing out of my identical nature- how can it, when I have no nature?”32

Ode to a Grecian Urn:

Resembles the fifth stanza of “Burnt Norton”

Burnt Norton:

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