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What are the qualities of an ideal critic in Eliot’s opinion?

As the best critic of engineering should be an engineer, the best critic of poetry should be a poet. This
question has been answered by many great poets who have been critics like Dryden, Goethe, Arnold and T.S
Eliot. they have opened their minds to all the literatures with an understanding. They have been able to tell
us how the work begins, what its technique is and what its end is. A piece of literature implies not only a
writer but also a reader. There is a voice at one end and a listener to the other side. The critic is a listener
who understands what is said to him. A good critic should have the qualities in himself which described
under:
T.S . Eliot in his essay "The Perfect Critic " contends that criticism and creation are two complimentary directions of sensibility and, therefore ,
"It is to be expected that, the critic and the creative artist should frequently be the same persons. "
As regards superior sensibility—or the capacity to receive impressions from a work of art—Eliot simply says that it is a natural gift. A true
critic possesses it in a greater degree than an ordinary individual. Erudition or wide reading is also necessary for a critic. Reading certainly
increases understanding and widens the mental horizons. But the real value of erudition is that the previous impressions derived from reading
are modified and altered by the new ‘impressions’. In this way older impressions are refreshed by new impressions, and such renewal or
refreshment is necessary even for the existence of the earlier impressions. In this way is formed a system of impressions, and such a system finds
expressions in a generalised statement of the beauty of a work of art. It is erudition which enables the critic to see an object as it really is in itself
without its being coloured by the personal emotions of the critic. Eliot explains his point through a concrete example. Even an uneducated
reader can enjoy Dante’s Divine Comedy, But his reaction would be “emotional. His reaction would be purely an indulgence in personal
emotions, an indulgence which has been stimulated by the beauty of the poem. His reaction would be quite different from that pure
contemplation, which is entirely free from personal emotions. It is only erudition which makes such pure contemplation, such exercise of
intelligence, possible. Wide reading, therefore, is of the utmost importance. Erudition is necessary also because it alone can give use, a sense of
fact and a sense of history. From a study of Eliot’s other essays we know that by a ‘sense of fact’ Eliot means a knowledge and understanding of
the technical details of a poem. By the historical sense he means, what he elsewhere calls, a sense of tradition, a sense of European literary
tradition extending from Homer down to our own times.

It is erudition alone which can give to the critic his generalising power. It is through erudition that the successive impressions received by the
critic form themselves into a structure. Successive impressions do not accumulate in his mind like a formless heap or mass. Rather, they are
organised and systematised, his sensibility is developed and intensified, and is expressed in the form of generalised statements about the beauty
of a work of art. In his criticism there is no expression of personal emotion, for his personal emotions have been removed or impersonalised by
his erudition. The criticism of such an ideal critic is entirely unemotional. It may hot be liked by emotional people, but it is true, scientific or
intellectual criticism.

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