T. S. Eliot's View of Verse

Abstract

It seems that to elucidate the problem of poetry and verse must become one of the central problems in poetics of the day. Therefore it is of the most interest for us to learn what opinions the modern European poets have about this problem. If we can clarify the problem of poetry and verse, we not only shall be able to clarify the nature and tradition of European poetry, but also clarify the problem of poetry and prose. I attempted to trace the development of poetics by T. S. Eliot, in order to get at the most delicate or the most difficult core in the science of literature. In other words, the most difficult problem for us to understand poetry, though that problem occupies literally the most important place when we intend to study European literature, is relation and problem between poetry and verse, or between prose and verse. To throw light on these problems, I inquired into T. S. Eliot's essays, "Ezra Pound, " "Reflections on Vers libre", "Prose and Verse", "The Music of Poetry", and his idea of the auditory imagination.