ABSTRACT
Mr. T. S. Eliot is one of the important forces in modern American literature. He owes his importance to two facts: first, that he is an American who chooses to live in Europe in the face of our so-called intellectual awakening at home. His description of the process of creation in the mind of the individual is also profound. He compares the mind of the poet to a shred of platinum, in the presence of which oxygen and sulphur dioxide can combine to form sulphur trioxide. Mr. Eliot has done much to clarify our conception of the impersonality of art; and all that he says about the difference between the esthetic and other emotions is pure gold. His theory of literary tradition is true only of the esthetic discipline of the artist. His error is perhaps to mistake this value in developing the form of art, for a general value for art, which must also have its subject-matter.
