A função e as fronteiras da crítica segundo T. S. Eliot

Abstract

To formulate concepts of literature and criticism is a difficult task to any researcher on the subject. However, the English poet, playwright and critic Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) is author of theories about the literary constitution of a society and propagator of critical ideals related to a current literary theory. For this article, we selected two author's essays in order to clarify his notes about literature and literary criticism and present some possible theoretical modifications, since there is a range of thirty-three years between the publication of the first and the second essay. Some of his comments help us to visualize the process of transition and adjustment and, thus, understand him fully, for the reason that T. S. Eliot transitions in both means – literature and criticism. The function of criticism (1923) and The frontiers of criticism (1956) synthesize his critical thinking and encompass primordial concepts regarding the close link between literature and criticism.