What is the function of criticism according to T. S. Eliot's Selected Essays, 1917-1932?

In this reserved yet scathing refutal of the British literary critical establishment, Eliot dismisses the enduring influence of nineteenth-century Romanticism on his detractor's thinking. According to Eliot, critics like Murry and his illustrious Victorian-era forebear Matthew Arnold have misunderstood the nature of purpose of modern criticism, as well as the role of the critic.

Too often, great critics like Arnold put their own ideas and “impressions” ahead of the works they were writing about, and this showed Eliot that they had a fundamental misunderstanding about the relationship between the critical and creative. Arnold drew a rough distinction between the two activities, but Eliot saw criticism as an essential element of the individual creative process. In fact, Eliot asserted that “the larger part of labour” during a creative project is “critical labour.”

Eliot here is pointing out that the Romantic preoccupation on the felt, subjective, and spontaneous places the locus of creation within the detached individual, divorced from continuity within a formal tradition. Because modern literature with its Romantic influence still privileges the “Inner Voice” as the sources of the creative impulse, the created work cannot be objectively evaluated according to a factual standard.

Eliot questions the value of any work of art that defies categorization within a shared artistic continuum and defies an impersonal, non-”interpretive” qualitative analysis based on recognized criteria. For Eliot, these kinds of “impression” and “inspiration”-based motives “elucidate” little about the text in itself and thus cannot qualify as proper criticism.

Eliot believes emphatically that the true purpose of criticism is for the critic to present the facts of the work being assessed to the reader. In this he means the technical facts related to the work itself and not facts about its creator. Such details are insignificant. The true critic is objective and open-minded and turns attention from the artist to his work. The critic therefore assesses the work itself and is not concerned about or influenced by any factors related to the artist.

In this regard then, it is essential that the critic is knowledgeable about the 'facts' related to a work of art, i.e. its setting, structure, origin etc. This knowledge, Eliot emphasises, is a rare gift and can only be developed over an extensive period of time.

Furthermore, the critic should have a highly developed sense of tradition. Eliot viewed all forms literature, from the past to the present, as forming part of the same stream and the critic should understand this connection. A work of art therefore, is not isolated from its tradition or history.

The function of the critic is to not just criticize a work of art or to pass judgment, but to present the facts so that the reader may make his or her own judgment. The critic should be able to compare different works of art and present his findings objectively. In this manner, the critic provides the reader the opportunity to develop his or her own aesthetic sense and intellect. As such, the reader would have greater insight into the work and have a deeper appreciation thereof.

Therefore, the function of criticism is to inform and educate (within the parameters provided above) and not to judge.  

Analyze Eliot's essay "The Function of Criticism".

In “The Function of Criticism,” one of T. S. Eliot's most important essays, the poet, dramatist, and critic argues that literary criticism should have a factual, objective basis.

Such an approach is entirely in keeping with Eliot's hostility towards Romanticism, with its extreme subjectivity and cultivation of emotions, and what he sees as its baleful effect on criticism. As a consequence of Romanticism, the business of criticism is all too often seen as an expression of personal opinion rather than a judgment on the basis of fact as it should be.

The critic, like the poet, should be impersonal; they need to be completely self-effacing and let the text do the talking. What is needed in analyzing a text is an objective, almost scientific attitude unhampered by any prejudices or preconceptions. Only in this way will it be possible to do justice to the text in question.

Eliot sees critics, like scientists, as being involved in a collaborative venture that joins them and their predecessors in a common search for truth. To be sure, any such truths that are uncovered are purely provisional, always subject to change in the light of new evidence. But when they are modified, as they inevitably will be in the future, they must be done so on the basis of objective fact.