The Rebuilding Of Tradition And The Saving Of The Wasteland

T.S. FJiot is the most notable poet, critic and dramatilhst of the20century. His poetic thoughts had inlfuenced all over the world in the20,h century, and theeffect lasts till now. In the recent past half century, quite a few scholars have startedresearching on T.S. Eliot, yet all failed to present a holistic pictuer of Eliot to us. Thefailure was largely due to two main reasons. On one hand, the ifgure of Eliot himself wascomplex; on the other hand, researches tended to focus on Eliot’s achievements from asingle angle，instead of dwelling on a holistic picture. Therefore, the conclusion of theseone-sided researches often resulted in an ampliifcation of the difference between Eliot’scriticism theory and literary creation, thus further caused the readers to consider the“critic Eliot" and the ‘‘poet Eliot" as two different people.For the above reasons, this article will draw special attention to the problems letfover by previous researches about Eliot and present detailed investigation on Eliot’spoetic thoughts. The author will emphasize on three aspects:Firstly, this analysis will interpret the real connotation of Eliot’s “tradition” theory.Eliot was in favor of a "tradition" with "historical conscio”usness，which was closelyrelated to his critical thoughts011"modernity", and behind which, revealed a strongopinion on the concept of "saving".Secondly, this analysis will shed lights on the application of Eliot’s poetics on hisexpertise of criticism and creativeness. Saving Ihe spiritual wasteland of westernmodenrism was Eliot’s driving force of criticism and creativeness, where it also served asa key to understand his criticism，poem, and drama.Thirdly, this analysis will talk about the history and uniqueness of Eliot’s poeticthoughts. On one hand, Eliot had been greatly inlfuenced by anti-romanticism andmodernism in20th century; on the other hand，he maintained a set of his unique opinionson aesthetic, which added a lot of special charm onto his poetic thoughts. This critical analysis will include Eliot’s main achievements in the ifeld of criticism,poetry and drama. The purpose of this study is to correct some misinterpretation incurrent researches about Eliot, as well as to establish the connecti“on among poet Eliot”，"critic Eli‘ot", and ‘dramatist Eliot". Moreover, this study aims to dig out the essence ofEliot’s thoughts, and provide a new perspective to the readers to understand Eliot’s poeticthoughts.