Eliot’s Theory of Impersonality

In his essay "Tradition and Individual Talent", Eliot elaborates his theory of poetic creation. He questions the existing romantic notion of creativity and suggests that poetry should not be an expression of poets feelings and emotions. The emotion of poetry is different from the personal emotions of the poet. The personal emotions may be simple or crude but the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined. Eliot rejects Wordsworth’s theory of poetry having, “its origin in emotions recollected in tranquility“ and points out that in the process of poetic composition there is no place for emotion, recollection and tranquility. In the poetic process, there is only concentration of a number of experiences, and a new thing results from this concentration. And this process of concentration is neither conscious nor deliberate; it is a passive one. The difference between a good and a bad poet is that a bad poet is conscious where he should be unconscious and unconscious where he should be conscious. Eliot does not deny the role of poet's personality or emotion but s/he has to depersonalize his emotions. There should be an escape from his personality. This impersonality can be achieved only when the poet surrenders himself completely to the work that is to be done and the poet knows what is to be done, only if he acquires a sense of tradition, the historic sense which makes him conscious not only of the present, but also of  the present moment of the  past, not only of what is dead, but of what is already living.