Literary criticism
In a lot of his prose, T.S. Eliot discusses the idea, role and value of literary criticism in the twentieth-century. In his essays, he charts its past and develops his ideas for approaching literature, emphasizing the importance of reading texts with an open mind and considering them in relation to other texts, not by themselves. The ideas that he put forward in his prose writings have gone on to influence generations of literary critics and English scholars.
The canon
The canon is one of the most hotly contested issues in literary studies. Who belongs in the canon? Who decides who belongs in the canon? Because of the nature of human society over the past thousand years, the 'canon' as we know it is made up mainly of white men - Shakespeare, Marlowe, Dickens, Joyce for example. T.S. Eliot is no exception to that rule. In 'Tradition and the Individual Talent', Eliot makes the case that for every new work that is admitted to the canon it 'is slightly altered'. Eliot takes an open-minded, liberal approach to the issue of canon formation, but does not shy away from giving his personal views on authors who make up the canon of English literature, with essays on John Dryden and Marlowe among others.
The art of poetry writing
Eliot reflects at length in his prose writings on the method of poetry writing. He argues that poetry is born out of a peculiar and unique emotional situation for the poet, claiming that 'There is a great deal, in the writing of poetry, which must be conscious and deliberate.' In addition, he outlines his views on what he calls "programmatic criticism", a phrase which places emphasis on personal reactions in poetry rather than machine-like, societal and collective reactions. In his essays such as 'Notes towards a definition of culture', Eliot attempts to define the culture in existence at the time he was writing, arguing that culture comes into existence from a number of different social strata. As a result, the prose Eliot writes illuminates the nature of his approach to poetry, giving readers a view into the workings of the mind of one of the twentieth-century's greatest poets.
