I don't think this is the exact passage you are looking for, but Eliot said
similar things in various places.

"Dissonance, even cacophony, has its place: just as, in a poem of any
length, there must be transitions between passages of greater and less
intensity, to give a rhythm of fluctuating emotion essential to the musical
structure of the whole; and the passages of less intensity will be, in
relation to the level on which the total poem operates, prosaic--so that, in
the sense implied by that context, it may be said that no poet can write a
poem of amplitude unless he is a master of the prosaic."

----from "The Music of Poetry"

Nancy



Date sent: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 17:13:13 EST
Send reply to: "T. S. Eliot Discussion forum." <[log in to unmask]>
From: Pietros Maneos <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: T.S. Eliot - poetry/prose - essay
To: [log in to unmask]

Does anyone recall the essay where Eliot says something to the effect of,
'poetry has as much to learn from prose as from other poetry?'


-Peter