is not an expression of emotion but a transformation of it He writes Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion but an escape from emotion This means that a poet should not directly write about his personal feelings He must rise above his personal feelings and create something that can speak to everyone Poetry should be impersonal and universal not personal and emotional The Poet s Mind as a Catalyst To explain how poetry should be created Eliot uses a comparison He compares the poet's mind to a catalyst in a chemical reaction For example when oxygen and sulfur dioxide are mixed in the presence of a platinum catalyst they form sulfurous acid The platinum helps the reaction but does not change itself Moreover the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum In the same way the poet s mind combines different emotions and experiences to produce a new poem But the poet himself remains unchanged his personality does not appear in the poem So Eliot says The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum The poet s personal life joys and sorrows do not matter What matters is how his mind organizes and transforms these emotions into a beautiful artistic form This process makes poetry impersonal Emotion and Thought Eliot does not say that emotion has no place in poetry He says emotion must be controlled by thought and discipline When emotion and thought combine perfectly a poem is created This combination is not natural or uncontrolled it is carefully shaped by the poet s mind Eliot admires poets like Dante and Donne because their poetry showed both deep feeling and clear thinking He dislikes poetry that only expresses feelings without structure or balance For him the greatness of poetry lies in its harmony between emotion and reason The Disappearance of the Poet In Eliot s impersonal theory the poet himself disappears behind his work He says The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice a continual extinction of personality This means that the poet must give up his personal ego and emotions to create pure art The poem should express universal truths and feelings that belong to all humanity Thus Eliot believes that poetry should not reveal the poet but the art itself The poet becomes only a medium a channel through which art is created In fine Eliot s impersonal theory of poetry teaches that great art is created through discipline control and detachment The poet should not express his private emotions but transform them into something beautiful and universal By escaping from his personality the poet achieves true artistic freedom