The Escape

"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things."

~T.S. Eliot, " Tradition and the Individual Talent"

Let me start with something silly: I loved reading T.S. Eliot. His fluid prose and unapologetic ideals appealed to my brain at 3 am the other morning. And yet, as much as I enjoyed him then (and I still do, don't worry), I found myself questioning some of his statements... or at least I was questioning in order to figure out exactly what he meant (and isn't that what criticism is supposed to be?).

Specifically, I'd like to talk a little about the above statement. During high school, I remember teachers and classmates alike telling me that poetry was an outpouring of emotion onto the page. But an escape from emotion? The idea is completely foreign to me. When I write, I usually do so to pour out my emotions, but again, I never thought of escaping from them. And perhaps it is because I am a (very) novice writer, I feel like my writing is so much of me, of my personality, that I have no idea how I can ever escape from that. Or if I would want to. Much of the writing I want to do someday (and have begun already) is literary nonfiction (sorry about that for all who do not believe there is such a thing...).

And yet, part of me takes offense to the latter part of Eliot's statement: "But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things." If I do not "escape" from them (what in the world does this actually mean?), then do I not have personality and emotions? Am I forever to remain a novice at the craft because I do not wish to escape from me?

First, let me discuss escape. The American Heritage Dictionary Online says "escape" can mean the following things:

1. To succeed in avoiding
2. To break loose from; get free of
3. To elude the memory or comprehension of

But besides this, under synonyms for the word, American Heritage first starts by saying that "escape can mean to get free or to remain untouched or unaffected by something unwanted." I can understand writing to break loose from emotions or to write to be freed from societal confines (I'm thinking of those such as the Brontë sisters right now). But to elude the memory of? Writing in and of itself preserves something for all time, so elusion is not necessarily possible. Freeing, perhaps, but not completely erasing. And, lastly, if we escape from emotions, we are "avoiding" them (is this something we really should be doing? Don't emotions put something into a poem or piece of art that couldn't be there if emotions were also not there?). But really, Eliot was convinced that "the emotion of art is impersonal." But is it really?

When searching the internet for T.S. Eliot "stuff," I came across something I would like to share.
This piece of artwork, done by Nada Sehnaoui, is one of a few pieces titled "When Reading T.S. Eliot." I know it doesn't look like too much, but the descriptions of the pieces are fascinating. In particular, one description states that, "Similar to Eliot, the artist gets rid of personal elaboration and creates work that is based on the most important elemental aspects of the human condition—the spirit. Eliot believed that the artist must be impersonal in the creative exercise of the craft." In the area of art, Senhaoui definitely escaped "conventions." But did she end up escaping her emotions? Does any artist truly write / compose / etc. for the sake of escaping? Perhaps they do... perhaps the Brontë sisters were writing to escape the confines of their patriarchal society. Yes, they were. But weren't their emotions also present there? Can't you have an outpouring of emotion while also attempting to escape them? Does it have to be one or the other? I shared this artwork because I thought it was interesting that someone was inspired by T.S. Eliot to make art. But I also wonder how you can truly extract one from the other... one of the artist's descriptions said that she has responded creatively to her environment, and all of her work "conveys something even more whole… meaning and emotion." So, was she trying to escape from the emotional turmoil of her war-torn homeland of Lebanon, or was she turning loose the emotions that were inside of her, that were a part of her, and she wouldn't want to escape from them if she could, since they make her, her? I have no idea, but I really wonder if you can separate the two. Can't we write to clarify, expose, portray our emotions, even in an attempt to escape them?