자아성찰과 객관적 시각추구는 자아와 공동체를 개선하기 위해 필요한 정신이다. 그런데 히니는 시를 쓰는 목적에서, 종교 및 인종 갈등을 겪는 북아일랜드 사태를 해결하려는 자세에서, 종교와 정치 구속으로부터 벗어나 순수예술을 창조하려 는 의지에서, 자신의 시와 국수적인 국가를 엄격하게 비판하려는 태도 및 영혼의 세계 와 죽음을 고찰하는 태도 등에서 다른 시인보다 훨씬 깊은 자아 성찰적 태도와 객관적 시각을 드러내고 있다고 생각된다. 혼돈과 부조화와 단절을 찬미하는 시인과 달리 히니는 자신과 공동체를 객관적으로 보고 개선하려는 시인이다.

My paper aims to find the locus of emotion in T. S. Eliot’s objective poetics. Eliot is best known as the promulgator of modern poetics of objectivity in contrast to the Romantic conception of poetry emphasizing subjective feelings. Specifically, along with “an objective correlative,” “impersonality,” defined as “escape from emotion” or “escape from personality,” becomes the watchword identifying the objectivity of his poetic theory. The problem is that the subsequent Modernist reception of Eliot’s poetics contains misunderstanding it as if it disregarded the emotional aspect of poetry. But, actually, Eliot affirms emotion and personality as the essential poetic experiences over and over again throughout his essays on poetry. And even in those scholars who have recognized that affirmation, the problem lies, too: they are at a loss, looking on Eliot’s acknowledgment of both personality and impersonality as a contradiction. In an attempt to solve these problems, my thesis has raised and justified the argument that Eliot, in his basic premise, allocates “impersonality” in the sphere of the poetic technique of creation and “personality” or “emotion” in the locus of the poetic content. By finding the locus of emotion in another poetic sphere than the objective technique, my argument has concomitantly clarified that Eliot’s conceptions of personality and impersonality are not contradictory at all but consistent over the critical writings published throughout his career.