Dissociation of sensibility Dissociation of sensibility Dissociation of sensibility is a literary term first used by T. S. Eliot in his essay “The Metaphysical Poets”. It refers to the way in which intellectual thought was separated from the experience of feeling in seventeenth century poetry. Eliot used the term to describe the manner by which the nature and substance of English poetry changed “between the time of Donne or Lord Herbert of Cherbury and the time of Tennyson and Browning.” In this essay, Eliot attempts to define the metaphysical poet and in doing so to determine the metaphysical poet’s era as well as
Eric Robertson (literary critic) Eric Robertson (literary critic) Eric Robertson is Professor of Modern French Literary and Visual Culture at Royal Holloway, University of London. His research focuses primarily on 20th century French literature, especially poetry, and the visual arts, with particular emphasis on European Modernism and the avant-gardes. He is the author of "Arp: Painter, Poet, Sculptor" (2006), "Writing Between the Lines", a study of the bilingual novelist and essayist René Schickele (1995), and various articles and chapters on 20th century French literature, especially poetry, and visual arts. He is also the co-editor of "Yvan Goll - Claire Goll: Texts and Contexts" (1997),