I responded to this earlier when I was about to rush to class.  But I
am curious about your conception of unity and dissociation--
particularly as I have been writing on the subject.  Why do you
identify "dissociation" with "torn up personality"?  What do you
think Eliot does mean by that and why is there some ideal value to
"unified sensibility"?  And why does any of this constitute a
"defect"?  This is not meant to be challenging:  I am interested in
why these words seem to assume truths and values you do not
explain.
Nancy

On 2 Sep 2003, at 16:09, Nancy Gish - Women's Studies <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> The issue is the same as that in the Clark lectures:  they develop
> and extend the ideas of that essay.
> Nancy
>
> On 2 Sep 2003, at 12:07, Vishvesh Obla <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > I am reminded of a related issue after reading a few
> > of these postings:
> >
> > “The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. It may
> > partly or exclusively operate upon the experience of
> > the man himself; but, the more perfect the artist, the
> > more completely separate in him will be the man who
> > suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly
> > will the mind digest and transmute the passions which
> > are its material…”
> >
> > The above passage (from his famous essay ‘Tradition
> > and Individual talent’) appears to me as paradoxical
> > whenever I think of Eliot’s phrases, ‘unified
> > sensibility’, and ‘dissociation of sensibility’.
> > Sensibility is not something cerebral.  Being
> > ‘impersonal’ is one thing, but being two different
> > beings at once is another.    I have always felt
> > Eliot’s dramas are such fractured experiences of a
> > torn up personality.  Probably his conscious
> > conception of art had its inherent defect as displayed
> > by the above passage and that was one reason he could
> > never look with a straight eye at the works of
> > D.H.Lawrence.  Probably, this made Lawrence himself
> > sneer with disgust at the ‘bunkum of classiocity by
> > the Eliots, Goughs…’
> >
> > --- Nancy Gish - Women's Studies <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> > > The Clark and Turnbull lectures explore this issue
> > > at great length in
> > > terms of the "dissociation of sensibility."
> > > (The are published under the title Varieties of
> > > Metaphysical Poetry,
> > > ed. Ronald Schuchard)
> > > Nancy
> > >
> > > On 2 Sep 2003, at 10:27, Ken Armstrong
> > > <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > >
> > > > At 05:36 AM 9/1/2003 -0700, you wrote:
> > > > >This may not be entirely germane but modern brain
> > > > >theory links congnition and feelings (or emotion)
> > > > >extremely closely.
> > > >
> > > >   So does Eliot, which surprisingly no one has
> > > remarked. At least, he saw
> > > > thinking and feeling as distinguishable but not
> > > separate in his dissertation.
> > > >
> > > > Ken A.
> >
> >
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