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DIacuzzo - Methodological Module for Textual Analysis - T.S. ELIOT, Language for Poetry
by - (2011-10-04)
Up to 5B - Methodological Module for Textual Analysis
This essay by T.S. Eliot deals with the issue of poetry.
The first thesis it presents it's the English language as the best one to writing poetry.
The essayst qualificates his thesis explaining this doesn't mean that English poetry is the best in literary world or that England produced the greatest quantity of poets and poems, but that the English language is perfect for poetry for many reasons. The first argument is its largest vocabulary. Than he gives another reason: English language is an encounter of many other languages. It has got Germanic foundations, Scandivian elements, French elements and Latin and Celtic ones. This encounter causes also a union of the variety of the rythms and the music of every language: the early Saxon verse, Norman French rythm, Welsh rythm, Latin and Greek ones, but also a difference in English language itself, because of the differences from one area to another.
After restating his thesis, Eliot underlines England didn't produced the best poets. From this information he states another thesis: the thought according to a country or a person excels in one art. He justifies this writing Italy and French were the best in painting, Germany in music and England in poetry. He considers this is wrong because an art couldn't belong to a singular person or country and the preeminence of a country in a period is preceeded and followed by the preeminence of another. The argumentation which justifies this is the Romantic movement, in which England at the beginning produced the best poetry, but then France exceeded it.
So the essayst adds a nation which leads in a particolar art form in a particolar period doesn't necessarily produce the greatest artists. The example he gives is Goethe. Even if he was German and England had the preeminance in that period in Romantic poetry, he was anyway a great artist.
The third thesis is that no European nation can improve his language, culture... without the improvement of the other countries.
The last statement regards the European literature renew, achievable only with a broadmindedness toward the other countries and the consequent assimilation of their influences and a past coming back in order to rediscover the common origins: Grecian, Israeli and Roman literature.
The first thesis it presents it's the English language as the best one to writing poetry.
The essayst qualificates his thesis explaining this doesn't mean that English poetry is the best in literary world or that England produced the greatest quantity of poets and poems, but that the English language is perfect for poetry for many reasons. The first argument is its largest vocabulary. Than he gives another reason: English language is an encounter of many other languages. It has got Germanic foundations, Scandivian elements, French elements and Latin and Celtic ones. This encounter causes also a union of the variety of the rythms and the music of every language: the early Saxon verse, Norman French rythm, Welsh rythm, Latin and Greek ones, but also a difference in English language itself, because of the differences from one area to another.
After restating his thesis, Eliot underlines England didn't produced the best poets. From this information he states another thesis: the thought according to a country or a person excels in one art. He justifies this writing Italy and French were the best in painting, Germany in music and England in poetry. He considers this is wrong because an art couldn't belong to a singular person or country and the preeminence of a country in a period is preceeded and followed by the preeminence of another. The argumentation which justifies this is the Romantic movement, in which England at the beginning produced the best poetry, but then France exceeded it.
So the essayst adds a nation which leads in a particolar art form in a particolar period doesn't necessarily produce the greatest artists. The example he gives is Goethe. Even if he was German and England had the preeminance in that period in Romantic poetry, he was anyway a great artist.
The third thesis is that no European nation can improve his language, culture... without the improvement of the other countries.
The last statement regards the European literature renew, achievable only with a broadmindedness toward the other countries and the consequent assimilation of their influences and a past coming back in order to rediscover the common origins: Grecian, Israeli and Roman literature.