Impersonal Art

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses how T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats and James Joyce were the promoters of new aesthetic concepts that made art into something impersonal and elitist, rather than the expression of personal emotions or experience. The paper conveys their theory that art is not primarily inspirational, but is created according to certain formal patterns. The paper explains that the formal patterns are indeed determined by emotion, but are not solely translating the emotion, instead they are recreating it in an impersonal or objective form.

From the Paper:

"The modernist aesthetic theories that developed at the beginning of the twentieth century brought a whole new perspective upon art and literature. Eliot, Pound, Yeats and Joyce, among others, were the promoters of new aesthetic concepts that made art into something impersonal and elitist, rather than the expression of personal emotions or experience. A piece of art is born out of the sedimentation in the mind of the poet of multifarious life or thought experience, of the type that is not necessarily seen as significant by the common man who has never written poetry. In the same way, according to the modernist views, art became not only impersonal but also elitist and abstract, full of numberless erudite allusions. The new was to be built on tradition and the palimpsest technique became almost an indispensable tool for the modernist artist."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Eliot, Thomas Stearns Sacred Wood, http://www.bartelby.com/200/sw4.html
• Eliot, Thomas Stearns The Waste Land, http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com
• Pound Ezra Selected Prose, 1909-1965, New York: New Directions, 1973
• Yeats, William Butler Essays and Introductions, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1961
• Yeats, William Butler Among School Children, http://www.webbooks.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Yeats/Among.htm

More papers on Impersonal Art:

• Essay # 30146 : "Impressionism and Modernism"
• Research Paper # 26120 : "Minimalism"
• Term Paper # 119157 : "Art and Aesthetic"

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