Question

What does Eliot mean when he says, “the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates"? How does it conflict with the romantic idea of Wordsworth?

Answer 1

With this phrase, Eliot meant that good artists know how to separate their personal lives from their work and that is the culmination of their artistic perfection. In contrast to Eliot, Wordsworth's romantic idea stated that good artistic works are created only when the artist's emotions overflow, through the experiences he had during his journey.

Step-by-step explanation:

Wordsworth was one of the fathers of romantic poetry. Like other poets who adopted this literary style, he believed that quality artistic production was extremely expressive and resulted from the overflow of the artist's emotions, which transcended his body and reached his work, using it as a vehicle for transmitting what the author feels. Eliot, on the other hand, totally disagreed with this position. For him, quality artistic production should come from the artist's creativity and talent, and the artist should be able to separate these elements from his personal life, including his feelings and experiences.