브래들리 철학과 엘리엇의 몰개성시론

Bradley’s Philosophy and Eliot’s Impersonal Theory of Poetry

Since the publication of Eliot’s doctoral thesis on F.H. Bradley in 1964―written between 1913 and 1916―the relationship between philosophy and poetic theory in Eliot has been questioned. Philosophy and poetics working simultaneously on the same mind inescapably influenced each other, of which. Eliot’s Bradley thesis is evidence, giving many examples taken from his experience as an artwork recipient-creator. Philosophy was an inherent part of Eliot’s impersonality theory from the beginning, providing the foundation for Eliot’s poetic theory. The three most principal ideas of philosophy are Bradley’s doctrine of “immediate experience,” “point of view,” and Eliot’s own concept of “half-object.” The first two were evolved into the literary ideas of “dissociation of sensibility,” “objective correlative,” and “point of view.” The last, an extension of the first two, is Eliot’s definition of art as an experience, which transmigrates from one viewpoint to another. The “Absolute” is the ultimate issue philosophy has to face. Bradley accepted it as an experience that exists beyond relations in our dissociated world. Eliot obviously and irresistibly yearned for the “Absolute,” which was all too apparent in his poetry. But he could not logically endorse it in the thesis. His empirical side at this stage kept him highly skeptical of anything beyond relations until his religious conversion in 1926. Instead, he decided to halt at the frontier of metaphysics and turn to poetry, because for Eliot “emphasis upon practice” is what justifies and “impels us toward the “Absolute.” Eliot’s yearning for the “Absolute” lies behind his turning from philosopher to critic-poet.