BOO KS
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self-becoming and the honesty of his self-knowledge. A poet's morality
does not necessarily differ in kind from anyone else's; but what it de–
mands is the most exact expression in a personal idiom and rhythm,
and this Yeats undoubtedly attained. One might say that poetry only
shows what it is
about
by the time it has become the purest poetry;
the moral import of his poetry depends on what the poet is doing with
speech, which is at once his most individual and his most social or
typically human characteristic.
That Mr. Eliot, at least in his criticism, accepts this fusion of the
moral and the poetic, is brought out by several of the essays. On the
evidence of this book one would say that he is "engaged" in the craft
of verse-and moreover that he always has been. The choice of the
word "engaged" instead of something like "occupied" is, I think, justi–
fied, because those which in this book he would call his "workshop"
essays, those dealing with technical considerations including his own
practice, have this moral import as much as any.
In
The Three Voices of Poetry
he begins "The first voice is the
poet talking to himself--or to nobody. The second is the voice of the
poet addressing an audience, whether large or small. The third is the
voice of the poet when he attempts to create a dramatic character
speaking in verse."
The order here suggests that the "progress of poesy" is toward the
dramatic : that the poet, growing at all, tends to grow toward a dra–
matic form of communication. For generally even a dramatic mono–
logue assumes that it could be understood and appreciated by an audi–
ence, and drama is essentially directness of speech, an attempt at the
complete and instantaneous communication of an emotional situation.
This essay should be seen against the background of the one which,
significantly I think, opens the book,
The Social Function of Poetry.
Here Mr. Eliot is talking of the "reason why we cannot afford to
stop
writing poetry":
Most educated people take a certain pride in the great authors
of their language, though they may never read them, just as they are
proud of any other distinction of their country; a few authors even be–
come celebrated enough to be mentioned occasionally in political
speeches. But most people do not realize that this is not enough; that
unless they go on producing great authors, and especially great poets,
their language will deteriorate, their culture will deteriorate and per–
haps be absorbed in a stronger one.
One point is of course that
if
we have no living literature we shall
become more and more alienated from the literature of the past; unless
