On The Ironic Poetics Of T.S.Eliot's Poetry

Irony is an important poetics in western literary theories. During the past centuries, so many philosophers, literary theorists and aestheticians have elaborated irony from different perspectives; therefore the nature and content of irony have changed fundamentally by gradually evolving and expanding in long history. It is not only as a rhetorical skill, also becomes a creative method and structural principle of modern poetry, which is the reflection of the dialectical way of thinking of world's complexity, is also the poetic expression and wisdom response to the world's contradiction, complexity and paradox, so it has abundant poetic meanings and profound philosophical meanings. However, the current understanding of irony in the domestic is vaguer, and its use is casual. They regard irony as a literary technique same as "satire" "mock" and other rhetorical devices. Studies on irony of literary works still stay at rhetorical level, yet it has not been upgraded to poetic theory level. By upgrading irony from rhetorical level to poetics level, this paper just studies the structural principles and creating methods in Eliot's poetry, and explores his approaches to art and his world views.T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) is Nobel Prize winner in literature called "one of the most influential poets" in English poetry world and "the founder of Western modern poetry". Studies on Eliot have become a school of study and yielded fruitful results, but irony issue in his poetry is few involved. Moreover, they discuss irony of Eliot's poetry mainly at rhetorical level. This paper by choosing a new perspective studies irony of Eliot's poetry just from the level of poetics. It also explores its theoretical origins and philosophical basis, studies the specific application of Ironic Poetics in Eliot's poetry, concludes the characteristics of his Ironic Poetics and discusses the significant value of Eliot's Ironic Poetics studies. The discussion of those issues has important theoretical and practical values on expanding the vision of literature studies and improving the understanding of literature principles. At the same time it offers a new perspective to Eliot study, also provides a new approach to study Chinese modern poetry, which has significant value for promoting the development of Chinese poetry.Introduction part of this paper mainly describes the background, research methods and significance of this paper.Chapter One reviews historical development of the concept of irony and sorts out its main development stages; it also attempts to elaborate the connotation of irony from literary, philosophy and thinking mode dimension.Chapter Two mainly explores the theoretical origins and philosophic basis of Eliot's Ironic Poetics.Chapter Three studies the specific reflection of Ironic Poetics in Eliot's poetry, also illuminates specifically Ironic Poetics of Eliot's poetry by studying irony in subject, people, image, structure and language.Chapter Four concludes two characteristics of Ironic Poetics in Eliot's poetry.Chapter Five briefly discusses theoretical and practical value of this study.The last chapter concludes the main point of this paper and the significance of this study, also pointes out the inadequate.