The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical EditionVol. 6: The War Years, 1940-1946

Poetical and Prosaic Use of Words

On 11 Nov 1942, TSE accepted an invitation from H. A. Hodges, a fellow member of the Moot, to address the Humanities Club at Reading University. On 24 Jan 1943 he informed Herbert Read that he was about to begin work on both “a talk for the Norwegian Institute on the Social Function of Poetry, and a more ambitious paper for Hodges’ literary society at Reading.” The lecture, completed by 9 Feb and scheduled for 5 Mar, was postponed till 14 May.

On 31 May, TSE sent the lecture to John Hayward for comment, explaining that he planned “to take this as the basis, or as the starting point, for two lectures to be delivered at Bangor [Wales] next year. My impression . . . is that the possible material is all in the first 12 pages. ¹ The rest is unsatisfactory. . . . What I should propose to do, is to go in much more deeply to the question: ‘what is meant by precisionin the use of words in poetry?’ with illustrations (Swinburne, as well as Poe, is needing examination); and in the second part make the point about the application of understanding poetry to the perception of illicit emotional appeal in prose.”

After receiving Hayward’s critique, however, TSE replied on 12 June that he was “ashamed at having allowed you to spend so much time over criticising the details of what is obviously an inferior piece. . . . I am aware, not only that I should have to make a wholly fresh start to make anything of the subject of the paper you have perused, but that my abilities lie rather in the direction of practical wisdom than of abstract thought; and this subject leads, perhaps inevitably, into a maze of semantics, logic and psychology in which I am ill equipped to find my way.” The twenty-page typescript (King’s, pink carbon) was never revised or published; for his 1944 lectures in Bangor, TSE produced “Johnson as Critic and Poet” (published 1957 in OPP).

What I have to say tonight does not belong quite to one or the other of the two usual types of lecture. There is the lecture which aims to impart information, and there is the lecture which attempts to persuade the audience to accept a theory or opinion. The former you hear from the permanent lecturers of the university; the latter, perhaps, is what you expect from a casual visitor. You may find that I have some knowledge, or experience in the use of words for certain purposes: I only regard this as a contribution to the data of the subject. A marksman must acquire a peculiar knowledge of the habits of the birds which he pursues; the ornithologist knowledge of another kind, which cannot be obtained merely by shooting. I am a hunter of words, and have that kind of knowledge of their habits: it is necessary to distinguish this acquaintance with the subject from that of the scholar. I am more anxious that you should say at the end: “he has opened up a field worth exploring” than that you should say: “I believe his view is right.”

I am not concerned here with the general difference between Poetry and Prose, and only incidentally with the nature of verse. I started by asking myself whether there was some characteristic way of using words which we found best exemplified in poetry, and another way which we could say was characteristic of prose. If there are, we must expect these uses to be only characteristic, and not exclusive. There is, or there used to be, a pretty clear distinction between prose and verse; there never has been, and never will be, a clear distinction between poetry and prose. We are all familiar with the meaning of the phrases “poetical prose” or “the prose poem,” and “prosaic poetry” – though we usually call the latter “prosaic verse” instead. But when we use these terms we are apt to imply that the author was attempting something mistaken, or muddling things up: so the terms do not reveal the...