Psychology and Literary Criticism: Examining Critical Theories of William Wordsworth and T. S. Eliot

Abstract

Psychology considers art as the expression of artists’ unconscious self under the influence of Freud, whose Interpretation of Dreams aroused a serious interest in the study and psychology of dreams. For a psychological critic, the poem does not originate from conscious self of the poet, but from the unconscious and, sometimes, from the sub-conscious self. T. S. Eliot's critical theories indicate that he has ignored the working of psychology upon the minds of the poet as well as of the reader. William Wordsworth's theory of poetry seems to be more psychological as compared to the theory of T. S. Eliot.