Dissociation of sensibilities I am born with the clue to my soul. The wholeness of my soul I must achieve.

And by my soul I mean my wholeness. What we suffer from today is the lack of a sense of our own wholeness, or completeness, which is peace. D.H. Lawrence "We need one another" T.S. Eliot introduced a phrase into literary criticism which has been the subject of an extensive debate ever since. I have the strong suspicion that with his theory of the dissociation of sensibility Eliot has managed to provide us with a profound account of the conditio humana of modern man or rather with what is wrong with it. The implications of Eliots theory are far reaching, as it transcends like all valuable literary theories - the narrow realm of literary criticism. In every poem we find a representation of intellectual history. And every poem influences the current state of mind of (wo)mankind. In this present examination we have to deal with a complex, interdependent relationship, which is hard to disentangle for the limited intellectual capacity of human beings. The focus will therefore be laid on poetry and the representational level: Poems as artefacts conveying the spirit of sensibility and the change of the poetical faculty since the seventeenth century. Furthermore, the development, which will be outlined here (as anything more than an outline would be a task for a Titan), is not limited to poetry, but seems to affect the general sensibility of the individual and society in Western civilization. The implications for our present state of mind will be hinted at and we shall also have a brief look at the perceptive side of poetry and how the changing and disintegrating sensibility affects the way we read today, keeping in mind that "All human knowledge is inevitably personal and participatory." Gradually establishing the basis for the examination, the following sections will move from a general reiteration of the characteristics of seventeenth century metaphysical poetry to Eliots reception and the introduction of his idea of a dissociation of sensibility. The terms metaphysical poetry and metaphysical poets have come to denote a number of English writers of the seventeenth century. They have been created to establish a convenient category, under which prominent figures are subsumed, such as John Donne (1572-1631) as the most popular representative, George Herbert (1593-1633), Richard Crashaw (1612-1649), Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) and Henry Vaughan (1621/2-1695). A number of lesser poets are associated with metaphysical poetry as well, for instance Henry King (1592-1669), Thomas Carew (1594/5-1640) or Sir John Suckling (1609-1642)3.

The following sections delineate the creation of the term metaphysical poets and provide a short account of the changing reception of these writers throughout the centuries. These examinations together with the description of how Eliot has influenced and dramatically changed the reception will lead to a deepened understanding of the ambiguous attitudes towards metaphysical poetry. n 1912 Herbert J. C. Grierson published an edition of John Donnes poetry10 and in 1921 a full anthology of metaphysical poetry11. The latter work was reviewed by T.S. Eliot in the Time Literary Supplement12, a review which lead to a major change in the critical reception of the metaphysicals. I shall examine the assertions, implications and receptions of this "[...] brilliantly suggestive essay [...]" T.S. Eliot directly resumes Johnsons argument and his description of the metaphysical conceit13 as "the most heterogeneous ideas [being] yoked by violence together" (cf. chapter 3.1.1). However, Eliot turns Johnsons argumentation around and goes beyond the surface of the figure of speech, referring to its epistemological qualities and constituting a specific state of mind of the metaphysical poets, which has been the matter of much debate In Chapman and Donne T.S. Eliot finds "*+ a direct sensuous apprehension of thought, or a recreation of thought into feeling [...]" He is trying to express that the thought in these cases is not limited to being a mere intellectual product of an intellectual process, but it is felt. The capabilities of the head and the heart interact in a peculiar manner in such a poets mind which yields itself to this flux of ideas, culminating in the creative production of lyrical verse15 Whereas Dryden and Johnson were repelled by the disparate ideas brought together in the form of the metaphysical conceit, Eliot argues for the appreciation of the unity into which these ideas are fused, forming a new whole16. The unification which is foregrounded by Eliot in this essay is the one of thought and feeling, which at his time were seen as binary opposites (and continue to be perceived in this way until today). This idea is elaborated later on in Eliots Clarke Lectures, held in 1926 at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he describes more clearly what he actually means by "[...] this power [...] of fusing sense with thought [...]" (VMP: 58). Although he refuses to give a clear definition of metaphysical poetry (cf. VMP: 224), T.S. Eliot provides a description: You have understood that I take as metaphysical poetry that in which what is ordinarily apprehensible only by thought is brought within the grasp of feeling, or that which is ordinarily only felt is transformed into thought without ceasing to be feeling. The paradigm of this metaphysical state of mind for Eliot is John Donne. In

Donne Eliot observes Balzacs recherche de l'absolut (cf. VMP: 128) and he elaborates: In Donne you get always an emotional continuity, a movement from the central to the peripheral, from feeling to thought, to the feeling of that thought, and so on. The unity of thought and feeling, a unity of binary dichotomies, is represented in these cases analogically, mutatis mutandis, by the unity of another pair of oppositional concepts: the male and female principle. The wide-ranging implications of T.S. Eliot's theory, which can be extended to a cultural and sociological level. Eliot's argumentation in his essay "The Metaphysical Poets" conveys a criticism of society20. He connects the state of mind of the poets with the state of mind of the age they live in, as the two constitute an inextricable interdependent relation, a dynamic dependency, fecundating one another. In the Clarke Lectures Eliot refers to this relation of the poet to his/her times by relating poetry to the period of production: "It is these moments of history when human sensibility is momentarily enlarged in certain directions to be defined, that I propose to call the metaphysical periods." (VMP: 53, italics original)21. If there are periods or writers which may be rightly termed "metaphysical", it follows that there must be other periods, which lack the respective characteristics. And, according to Eliot, the lack of this "[...] quality of sensuous thought, or of thinking through the senses, or of the senses thinking [...]" (IP: 23) is characteristic of the periods and the respective poetry that came after the metaphysical poets22. It is at this point of his argumentation that Eliot introduces one of his most famous theoretical concepts: "In the seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered [...]" (MP: 288; my italics). This dissociation of sensibility23 is "[...] something which had happened to the mind of England between the time of Donne or Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the time of Tennyson and Browning [...]" Eliot himself does not pass a value judgement on the process of the dissociation of sensibility: Therefore I would remind you that I am here concerned primarily with poetry, not with modern Europe and its progress or decline; but that if and when I speak of 'disintegration', 'decay', or 'decline', I am unconcerned with the emotional or moral co-efficient of these terms. The 'disintegration' of which I speak may be evitable or inevitable, good or bad [...]However, he does pass judgement on the poetry brought forth by this process In order to elaborate a clear understanding of Eliots term dissociation of sensibility it has to be seen firstly as a reaction against the Romanticism of the nineteenth century and secondly and more importantly - as a philosophical concept. Thus, we have to leave the narrow realm of purely literary studies and elevate our considerations to a philosophical level. Eliot both as a literary critic and as a writer was heavily opposed to

Romanticism. For instance, in his essay on "Imperfect Critics" published in The Sacred Wood, he states that "[...] there may be a good deal to be said for Romanticism in life, there is no place for it in letters." (IP: 32). However, we have to look elsewhere to find concrete reasons for this statement. In his early essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" he directly launches an attack on William Wordsworth and his poetical theories, stating that "[...] emotion recollected in tranquillity is [...] an inexact formula [...]" (TATIT: 21). Eliot goes on, laying the foundation of his theoretical concept of impersonality: 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 Eliot in his criticism as well as in his poetry strives to transcend the individualised vision of the world expressed in Romantic poetry and "[...] refuses to accept *the romanticists+ basic tenet that the sole authority for the artist is his inner voice, the appetites of his personality. The unity of thought and feeling, which Eliot admired in the poetry of the metaphysical poets, is to a large extent absent in Romantic poetry. By proposing his theory of dissociation of sensibility Eliot argues against the prevalence of emotion in the latter. Secondly, when clarifying the term dissociation of sensibility, one must take into account the philosophical notions of this expression. Eliot was himself deeply interested in philosophy. From a philosophical point of view, the dissociation of sensibility can be directly related to the scientific empiricism of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and John Locke (1632-1704) and most importantly to Ren Descartes (1596-1650) and the Cartesian mind-body split. As a contemporary to Donne, Bacon presumably advanced the dissociation of sensibility unknowingly by his scientific method of philosophical inquiry into the nature of human knowledge. The philosophical characteristic of metaphysical poetry is indeed the unity of the subject, which embodies this double perspective. This unity is dissolved in the dualism of Descartes and Locke (cf. Smith, 1991: 247), a state of mind which Bloom metaphorically (and rather dramatically) described as the "state of Satan"29. As pointed out by Snare, the dualism extends also to other concepts: "*+ feeling and thought, the impulsive and the calculated, the wilful and the judicious, the passionate and the intellectual." According to Eliot, the dissociation of sensibility originates in the seventeenth century and we find one major cause for the development (or decline) in the philosophy of Descartes.

Locke said "Different Sentiments are different Modifications of the Mind. The Mind or Soul that perceives is one immaterial indivisible Substance." (Harris, 1987: 508). If we compare this section of Lockes writing to Eliots statement "A thought to Donne was an experience: it modified his sensibility"33, the similarities seem to be striking at first. However, the modification of the mind is not the same as the modification of the sensibility. The former already employs the distinction between mind and body in the Cartesian sense, whereas the latter lays the emphasis on the unity of sensibility and experience. As is natural, Eliots ideas underwent a change in the course of his development34. In the essay "Donne in our time", published only ten years after "The Metaphysical Poets" in 1931 the year of Donnes tercentenary Eliot to some extent readjusts his earlier theory: "In Donne, there is a manifest fissure between thought and sensibility, a chasm which in his poetry he bridged in his own way, which was not the way of mediaeval poetry." It can be derived that by 1931 Eliot had to some extent revised his poetological theory postulated in 1921, although he had not abandoned it completely. Eliot seemingly withdrew his assertions to a larger extent in his later essay "To Criticize the Critic", first published in 1965. He yields to his critics, saying that "*+ even if I am unable to defend them *i.e. the terms 'dissociation of sensibility' and 'objective correlative'] now with any forensic plausibility, I think they have been useful in their time." (TCTC 19). He relates his theoretical concepts to his own reading: "What I wish to suggest, however, is that these phrases may be accounted for as being conceptual symbols for emotional preferences [...]" (TCTC 19) and constitutes their subjectivity in saying that "*+ the 'dissociation of sensibility' may represent my devotion to Donne and the metaphysical poets, and my reaction against Milton." From these considerations two features are clear. First of all, that the term dissociation of sensibility is a complex one and still far from being readily comprehensible and, secondly, that despite or because of - this it has had a strong influence on literary criticism. For the sake of clarity we shall take as the meaning of Eliots term a narrow definition, i.e. a disruption and disintegration of the power of sensation with regard to thought and feeling, primarily as an intra-individual state and secondly as a diachronic inter-individual and socio-historical/-cultural process. A broader meaning will also be employed where necessary, in which the narrow dissociation regarding though and feeling is extended to also affect various other pairs of (seeming) antonyms. The following chapter attempts to the reduce the complexity (by showing how the sensibility has actually dissociated throughout the centuries) and is (yet another) manifestation of the strong influence of Eliot.