CRITICISM OF POETRY BASED ON ENJOYMENT

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27636, 18 April 1955, Page 12

CRITICISM OF POETRY BASED ON ENJOYMENT

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.)

LONDON, April 15. Criticism of poetry begins and ends in enjoyment. It should not be assumed that in order to understand a work of art it is always necessary to invade the privacy of the artist, said the author and playwright, T. S. Eliot, in an address to the Authors* Club in London. x .. “Many critics today assume that the art of literary criticism is wholly comprised in an examination of the sources. If you can discover what a poem is made of, if you can take the machine to pieces, you have done all that criticism can be expected to do. “There is a belief that the way to Spreciate and enjoy poetry is to exMn it, and that the way to do this is is to explain it away. I say that to understand a poem it is first necessary to be moved by it, and to be aware of the way in which one is moved. “A genuine poem may arouse a very great number of differing individual responses, yet there will always be something m common between them. That is what a poem is for. “The tendency to explain a poem by

the origins, to explain until the poem disappears, dissolved into explanation, is fostered by the teaching of poetry in schools. “The trouble is that if you teach poetry you feel bound to provide itom thing to examine the pupils on. Child, ren are made to study, not onj. Shakespeare and Milton, but even the work of living poets, so they have fag and less opportunity to discov* poetry for themselves without fim having it explained to them. ‘'This is supported by the vogue of the new sciences of psychology and sociology. I am not expressing dkapproval of these sciences, but I think the critics should ponder carefully ho> far these studies are relevant in each cade. “Criticism of poetry begins and endi in enjoyment. Otherwise we may find something masquerading as criticism which is really psychology or sociology or biograohy, or even gossip or scandal. “We should not assume that in order to understand the world of art, it |s always ">ecessary to invade the privacy of the artist,” he said.