Eliot’s concept of “Traditional and Individual talent”
Prepared by: Richa Pandya
M.A. English Semester – 2
Roll no- 28
Enrolment No: – 206910842019003
Email id: richapandya163@gmail.com
Batch: 2018- 20
Submitted to: S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU
Paper no- 7 Literary Theory and Criticism 2 (20th century western and Indian poetics)
Topic: Eliot’s concept of “Traditional and Individual talent”
Prepared by: Richa Pandya
M.A. English Semester – 2
Roll no- 28
Enrolment No: – 206910842019003
Email id: richapandya163@gmail.com
Batch: 2018- 20
Submitted to: S. B. Gardi Department of English, MKBU
Paper no- 7 Literary Theory and Criticism 2 (20th century western and Indian poetics)
Topic: Eliot’s concept of “Traditional and Individual talent”
Introduction
"Tradition and the Individual Talent" 1919 is an essay written by poet and literary critic T. S. Eliot. The essay was first published in The Egoist 1919 and later in Eliot's first book of criticism, "The Sacred Wood". The essay is also available in Eliot's "Selected Prose" and "Selected Essays".
While Eliot is most often known for his poetry, he also contributed to the field of literary criticism. In this dual role, he acted as poet-critic, comparable to Sir Philip Sidney and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is one of the more well known works that Eliot produced in his critic capacity. It formulates Eliot's influential conception of the relationship between the poet and preceding literary tradition.
While Eliot is most often known for his poetry, he also contributed to the field of literary criticism. In this dual role, he acted as poet-critic, comparable to Sir Philip Sidney and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is one of the more well known works that Eliot produced in his critic capacity. It formulates Eliot's influential conception of the relationship between the poet and preceding literary tradition.
“Time to time it is desirable, that some critic shall appear to review the past of our literature and set the poets and the poems in a new order”. Eliot demands, from any critic, ability for judgement and powerful liberty of mind to identify and to interpret. Eliot planned numerous critical concepts that gained wide currency and had a broad influence on criticism.
This essay divided into three parts. The first is traditional a d Individual Talent, The second is Theory of Depersonalization and the third is Conclusion.
This essay divided into three parts. The first is traditional a d Individual Talent, The second is Theory of Depersonalization and the third is Conclusion.
Only rarely in the history of English literature has a critical essay, such as “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” so changed the way people understand poetry. Anyone who has any real interest in modern poetry—reader, critic, or poet—has had to confront this essay and decide for himself or herself its strengths and weaknesses.
One of the important ways that the essay has altered literary criticism has to do with the meaning of the title’s key words, “tradition” and “individual talent.” In the very first paragraph, Eliot indicates that, by “tradition,” he does not mean what people usually mean in talking about literature; ordinarily, a “traditional” writer is perhaps an old-fashioned writer, one who uses tried-and-true plots and a steady, understandable style. Rather, Eliot uses “tradition” in a more objective and historical sense: His definition of tradition is paradoxical because he says that the historical sense of tradition is a keen understanding of both what is timeless and what is not. A true poet understands “not only the pastness of the past, but . . . its presence.”
This is less confusing than it appears: Eliot simply means that for a poet writing in the tradition—a poet who understands his or her heritage—all the great poetry of the past is alive. When the poet writes a poem, great poems of the past help to enliven the modern work. This dynamic relationship is not finished when the poem is written, however, because the new poem casts a new light on the poems that came before. In the same way that the tradition of great poetry helped shape a new, modern poem, the contemporary poem changes the way one looks at the poems that shaped it.
Another apparent contradiction lies in Eliot’s use of “individual” in “individual talent.” He says that a poet’s true individuality lies in the ways he or she embodies the immortality of poetic “ancestors.” In a sense, poets who know what they are doing “plug into” tradition; electrified by the greatness of the past, they achieve a sharper profile, a greater individuality.
It is important to stress that Eliot is not saying that good poets should simply copy the poetry of the past. In fact, he argues just the opposite: Good poets bring something new into the world—“novelty,” he writes, “is better than repetition”—that makes an important advance on what has come before. To do this, the poet has to know what is truly new and different; a poet can do this only by having a thorough knowledge of the classic and traditional. To have this kind of knowledge means, in turn, that the poet needs to know not only about the poetry of his or her own language but also about the poetry of other nations and cultures.
In a crucial metaphor about midway in the essay, Eliot compares the poet to a catalyst in chemistry. He describes what happens when two gases are combined in the presence of a piece of platinum: A new compound is formed, but the platinum is unaffected. The platinum is the poet’s mind, which uses tradition and personal experience (the two gases) to create a poem. In this kind of literary combustion, the poet remains “impersonal.” That is, he or she manages to separate individual facts of life from the work of art that is being created. As Eliot says, “the poet has, not a ’personality’ to express, but a particular medium,” which is the medium of poetry.
In a third, concluding section of the essay, Eliot draws an important conclusion, one that has been crucial to the way poetry has been studied since the 1920’s. The essay shifts the study of a poem from an emphasis on the poet as a person, to the study of the poem isolated from the poet. After reading this essay, critics would increasingly concentrate on the internal structure of poetry—the tropes, figures, and themes of the work. At the same time, critics would banish the life of the writer from the study of his or her writings; the poet’s personality, as Eliot seemed to imply, was irrelevant to the artwork produced. The peak of this theory was reached with the New Critics and their successors in Britain and the United States from about 1930 through the 1950’s. Later years, however, have seen a waning of the impersonal theory of poetry and a return of the poet to his or her work.
Theory of Impersonality
One of the important ways that the essay has altered literary criticism has to do with the meaning of the title’s key words, “tradition” and “individual talent.” In the very first paragraph, Eliot indicates that, by “tradition,” he does not mean what people usually mean in talking about literature; ordinarily, a “traditional” writer is perhaps an old-fashioned writer, one who uses tried-and-true plots and a steady, understandable style. Rather, Eliot uses “tradition” in a more objective and historical sense: His definition of tradition is paradoxical because he says that the historical sense of tradition is a keen understanding of both what is timeless and what is not. A true poet understands “not only the pastness of the past, but . . . its presence.”
This is less confusing than it appears: Eliot simply means that for a poet writing in the tradition—a poet who understands his or her heritage—all the great poetry of the past is alive. When the poet writes a poem, great poems of the past help to enliven the modern work. This dynamic relationship is not finished when the poem is written, however, because the new poem casts a new light on the poems that came before. In the same way that the tradition of great poetry helped shape a new, modern poem, the contemporary poem changes the way one looks at the poems that shaped it.
Another apparent contradiction lies in Eliot’s use of “individual” in “individual talent.” He says that a poet’s true individuality lies in the ways he or she embodies the immortality of poetic “ancestors.” In a sense, poets who know what they are doing “plug into” tradition; electrified by the greatness of the past, they achieve a sharper profile, a greater individuality.
It is important to stress that Eliot is not saying that good poets should simply copy the poetry of the past. In fact, he argues just the opposite: Good poets bring something new into the world—“novelty,” he writes, “is better than repetition”—that makes an important advance on what has come before. To do this, the poet has to know what is truly new and different; a poet can do this only by having a thorough knowledge of the classic and traditional. To have this kind of knowledge means, in turn, that the poet needs to know not only about the poetry of his or her own language but also about the poetry of other nations and cultures.
In a crucial metaphor about midway in the essay, Eliot compares the poet to a catalyst in chemistry. He describes what happens when two gases are combined in the presence of a piece of platinum: A new compound is formed, but the platinum is unaffected. The platinum is the poet’s mind, which uses tradition and personal experience (the two gases) to create a poem. In this kind of literary combustion, the poet remains “impersonal.” That is, he or she manages to separate individual facts of life from the work of art that is being created. As Eliot says, “the poet has, not a ’personality’ to express, but a particular medium,” which is the medium of poetry.
In a third, concluding section of the essay, Eliot draws an important conclusion, one that has been crucial to the way poetry has been studied since the 1920’s. The essay shifts the study of a poem from an emphasis on the poet as a person, to the study of the poem isolated from the poet. After reading this essay, critics would increasingly concentrate on the internal structure of poetry—the tropes, figures, and themes of the work. At the same time, critics would banish the life of the writer from the study of his or her writings; the poet’s personality, as Eliot seemed to imply, was irrelevant to the artwork produced. The peak of this theory was reached with the New Critics and their successors in Britain and the United States from about 1930 through the 1950’s. Later years, however, have seen a waning of the impersonal theory of poetry and a return of the poet to his or her work.
Theory of Impersonality
T.S. Eliot’s impersonal conception of art and the fullest expression of his classicist attitude towards art and poetry are essentially given by him in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent.
Eliot explains his theory of impersonality by examining first, the relation of the poet to the past and secondly, the relation of the poem to its author. According to his view the past is never dead, it lives in the present. No poet or no artist has his complete meaning alone.His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.” Above all, the artist or the poet has to work in the long established tradition of the literature to which he belongs. We cannot value the poet alone; we must set him for comparison and contrast among the dead poets of his language.
In the next part of the theory he examines the relation of the poet to the poem. According to him, the poem has no relation to the poet. The difference between the mind of a mature poet and an immature one is that, a mature poet has more finely perfected medium. Eliot thinks that the poet and the poem are two separate things. The feeling or emotion or vision resulting from the poem is something different from feeling, emotion, and vision in the mind of the poet. The art emotion is different from personal emotion. In other words the poet should be passive and impersonal.
To explain the theory, Eliot has brought the analogy of chemical reaction. When oxygen and sulphur di-oxide are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphurus acid. This combination takes place only when platinum is presence. Platinum is the catalyst that helps to process of chemical reaction, but it itself is apparently unaffected. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. Its presence may be necessary for partly or exclusively to operate for the combination of the experience in order to give birth to a piece of poetry.
Eliot says that, the business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and in working them up in poetry, to express feelings which are not actual emotions at all.
The emotion of art is impersonal. It has its life in the poem and not in the history of poets. So, honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry. The biography of the poet is not to be studied; the structure of the poem and its evocation powers are important
Eliot explains his theory of impersonality by examining first, the relation of the poet to the past and secondly, the relation of the poem to its author. According to his view the past is never dead, it lives in the present. No poet or no artist has his complete meaning alone.His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.” Above all, the artist or the poet has to work in the long established tradition of the literature to which he belongs. We cannot value the poet alone; we must set him for comparison and contrast among the dead poets of his language.
In the next part of the theory he examines the relation of the poet to the poem. According to him, the poem has no relation to the poet. The difference between the mind of a mature poet and an immature one is that, a mature poet has more finely perfected medium. Eliot thinks that the poet and the poem are two separate things. The feeling or emotion or vision resulting from the poem is something different from feeling, emotion, and vision in the mind of the poet. The art emotion is different from personal emotion. In other words the poet should be passive and impersonal.
To explain the theory, Eliot has brought the analogy of chemical reaction. When oxygen and sulphur di-oxide are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphurus acid. This combination takes place only when platinum is presence. Platinum is the catalyst that helps to process of chemical reaction, but it itself is apparently unaffected. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. Its presence may be necessary for partly or exclusively to operate for the combination of the experience in order to give birth to a piece of poetry.
Eliot says that, the business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and in working them up in poetry, to express feelings which are not actual emotions at all.
The emotion of art is impersonal. It has its life in the poem and not in the history of poets. So, honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry. The biography of the poet is not to be studied; the structure of the poem and its evocation powers are important
Conclusion
T.S.Eliot spread his concept of Tradition which reflects his reaction against Romantic subjectivism and emotionalism. He describes the concept of historical senses very useful for better understanding of poetic sense or literary sense.At the end, in this third part Eliot says that this essay stops at the starting of mysticism.
T.S.Eliot spread his concept of Tradition which reflects his reaction against Romantic subjectivism and emotionalism. He describes the concept of historical senses very useful for better understanding of poetic sense or literary sense.At the end, in this third part Eliot says that this essay stops at the starting of mysticism.
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