T.S. 엘리어트의 文藝批評精神에 대한 批判的 論究 : 특히 「The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism」을 중심으로 Especially on his book, "The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism" = A Critical Study on T.S. Eliot's Literary Criticism

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Thomas Stearns Eliot is undisputedly considered one of the most influential men of letters as critic as well as poet in the first half of the 20th century. Born, raised, and educated in the United States. T.S. Eliot was naturalised in England in 1927.
Shortly after his official conversion in 1928, he announced that his position was "classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic in religion."
He came to regret the categorical flatness and quotability of these phrases, but nevertheless they provide a valuable summary of his basic concerns. As John Margolis' careful study, "T.S. Eliot's Intellectual Development, 1922∼1939, now demonstrates, Eliot's stand had been prepared for earlier... at least as early as 1916, when he had maintained (in the syllabus for an Oxford Extension course in Modern French Literature) that
The beginning of the twentieth century has witnessed a return to the ideals of classicism. These may roughly be characterized as form and restraint in art, discipline and authority in religion centralization in government …… The classicist point of view has been defined essentially as a belief in Original Sin… the necessity for austere discipline.
The responsibilities of criticism follow logically from Eliot's conception of tradition and the orthodoxy of the writer under consideration. As early as 1929 Eliot admitted that he could not in practice "separate my poetic appreciation from my personal beliefs."
In general Eliot remains faithful to the broad definiton of criticism he proposed in 1923 : "the elucidation of works of art and the correction of taste." He returns to these phrases in one of his last important lectures. "The Frontiers of Criticism" (Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press, 1956) :
Among all this variety, we may ask, is there, if anything, that should be common to all
literary criticism? Thirty years ago, I asserted that the essential function of criticism was "the elucidation of works of art and the correction taste." That phrase may sound somewhat pompous to our ears in 1 956. Perhaps I could put it more simply, and more acceptably to the present age, by saying "to promote the understanding and enjoyment of litirature."……To understand a poem comes to the same thing as to enjoy it for the right reasons. One might toy that it means getting from the poem such enjoyment as it is capable of giving… It is certain that we do not fully understand a poem unless we enjoy it; and on the other hand, it is equally true that we do not fully enjoy a poem unless we understand it. And that means enjoying it to the right degree and in the right way, relative to other poems.
"The greatness of literature," Eliot concludes, "cannot be determined solely by literature standards, though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literature standards." For these reasons, perhaps, he is a critic essentially without heirs.
Although many people are fully prepared to admire Eliot's basic stand of criticism, this writer is not able to be persuaded into accepting his impersonalism on poetry, mainly because this writer is firmly convinced that, including poetry, all creative writings are the inseparable products of a writer's thought and experience. Accordingly, I am not in favour of Eliot's statement that poem has nothing to do with its poet after publishing it.
Most carefully and presumably this writing attempts to assume that Eliot must have been in agony originated from his intellectually spiritual and psychological wandering in the process of the commercially post-industrialising development, especially in the United States. Therefore this intellectually spiritual and psychological wandering had supposedly founded his opinion and orientated his works including criticism, attracting and influencing many people's attention.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Ⅰ. 序說
• Ⅱ. Eliot의 成長背景
• Ⅲ. Eliot文藝批評의 基底
• Ⅳ. Eliot文藝批評의 전문성
• Ⅴ. 批評적 맺음말