Eliot proposed the term "Three Voices of Poetry" and gave an influential definition of these three voices in the article "The Three Voices of Poetry". He said: "The first kind of voice is the voice of the poet speaking to himself-or the voice of not speaking to anyone. The second kind is the voice of the poet speaking to the audience-whether many or few. The third kind It is the poet's own voice when he attempts to create a dramatic character who speaks in verse." ④
In fact, the poet's voice speaking to himself is subtle in poetry, but not in a poem. Without my own voice, this poem would have no meaning, and it wouldn’t even be called poetry. The third voice that Eliot talks about is actually dramatic poetry, and by extension, poetic drama. In the entire plot, what he prefers is not a single voice, but three voices that complement each other.
In "Three Voices of Poetry", he distinguished the first and second voices of poetry based on the different imaginary audiences that the poet faced when writing. The ** of these two voices *The difference is that the poets are all speaking on their own behalf; the third voice is the voice of drama, where the poet creates a dramatic poem with the possible voices of different characters. Therefore, the third voice has become the main content of this new type of poetic drama. Of course, the first and second voices are not completely excluded, but mixed in it.