“The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious.”

—  T.S. Eliot, book Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)
Context: The bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious. Both errors tend to make him "personal." 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.

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T.S. Eliot photo
T.S. Eliot270
20th century English author 1888–1965

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