Bridge Course: T.S. Eliot's Tradition and Individual Talent

T.S. Eliot's 'Tradition and Individual Talent'

This blog is in response to the bridge course given to us by Dr. Dilip Baradsir. It is about the T.S. Eliot’s ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’, an essay of literary criticism which is considered to be the beginning of new criticism. In this blog I am going to share my understanding about essay tradition and individual talent.

Thomas Steams Eliot:

Thomas Steams Eliot (1888-1965) was a poet, publisher and playwright along with a seminal critic of his time. T.S. Eliot has described his criticism as a “by-product” of his “private poetry-workshop” and as “a prolongation of the thinking that went into the formation of my own verse”. He has been strongly influenced by the school of new criticism .

Tradition and Individual Talent:

In his essay ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’, argues that art must not be understood in vacuum but in context to his previous species of art that is past artistic work. An essay ‘Tradition and Individual Talent was first published in the periodical ‘The Egoist’ in 1919 and later it was published in Eliot’s book of Criticism ‘The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism in 1919/20. This essay is divided into three sections.

The structure of the essay as is as below:

State the difference between the judgment of a work done by the Englishmen and the Frenchmen. He says that the Englishman judges the work based on the novelty of the work and the individuality of the author in the work. If an Englishman examines work critically they will realize that the best part of a book is where a writer mirrors their ancestors/ past writers. That part of the book would be the Immortal part. To judge any book write needs to compare the work with the work of past, comparison is not for derogating the present work but it will help to judge the present work in more better way it will help to understand the facts and to analyze the work done in the contemporary time following the work of the ancestors of the past write a does not mean the mere copy of the past or historical work but it shows that the good the writer has the good historical sense which is necessary for the author.

Concept of Tradition:

How would you like to explain Eliot's concept of Tradition? Do you agree with it?

 What do you understand by Historical Sense? (Use these quotes to explain your understanding)

Tradition means a belief, principle or way of acting which people in a particular society or group have continued to follow for a long time, or all of these beliefs, etc. in a particular society or group.

-Cambridge Dictionary

‘Tradition’ an ‘inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)’

-Merriam-Webster Dictionary

There is always tension between being traditional and the modern writer. Being modern automatically means good and being traditional automatically means not good or undesirable. Englishmen associate the term tradition with a poet and see it in a derogatory way. They criticize poets for being traditional, it seems like imitations of predecessors and is considered as pointing to negative qualities of a poet. But Eliot says that it is not true, an idea of tradition is very wide, It is not just imitating predecessors. He does not mean slavish repetitions of stylistic and structural features. According to Eliot no words can be charged in isolation if you want a correct judgment about any work then it must be compared with the past work it doesn't mean that the writer should have a bookish knowledge about the history and predecessor writer or they should spoon-feed the history but they should know style and structure of the work from the homer to the till day. so that they can write their work in a better way. Every writer should have a historical sense which is not only important in writing but it is also important in everyday life.

“the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.”

Through this statement he states that authors should develop the sense of pastness of the past and examine the work in relation to the work of past writers/ predecessors. According to Eliot tradition is already an existing monument and individuals can only marginally add a bit or extent a bit. For example if we have a heritage structure we can just add a minaret or a floor. Keeping the overall harmony of the individual structure can make an existing thing beautiful.

"The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence"

This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.

Similarly, following tradition in literary work doesn't mean mere imitation of predecessors, it is fitting within the tradition and seeing how he can contribute to the tradition and concept of individual talent. If we read the poetic work of Eliot we need to have knowledge of all the fields like anthropology, French, Shakespeare, religious tradition; we need to have knowledge of all disciplines like mythology, oriental influence, Upanishads etc.

Throughout essay he uses the words like ‘surrendering to the tradition’, ‘sacrificing one’s own self’, We can interpret that all these words are coming in opposition of the writing style of Wordsworth or of all the romantic writers as according to Eliot ‘upholding the self’ is not important but merging with the tradition is important.

Explain: "Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum".

According to the argument done by Eliot, all the writers must be learned scholars and should have the historical sense but here he presents an exceptional case of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare's biography doesn't say that he has visited the university and one of his prefaces also says that Shakespeare must not be knowing any language other than English so we cannot say that he is a learned person but the literary works produced by him is extraordinary work.

“Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential histories from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum”.

He says that some people are so intelligent or talented that they absorb the knowledge of his/her age. Shakespeare acquired so much historical sense about the Roman and Greek histories from the work of Plutarch that today's learned man is not able to get it by reading the whole British museum. The one who is intelligent absorbs the knowledge and others who are ‘Tardy’ have to sweat for gaining the knowledge.

Harold Bloom criticizes and says that ‘this is some kind of anxiety of influence that the current author is feeling the presence of His/ her creative processes/ ancestors looming large upon him/ her.’ Harold Bloom in his book ‘Anxiety of Influence: A theory of Poetry’ says that there is some psychological struggle in the new aspiring authors to overcome the anxiety caused by the influence of their literary antecedents. He says it criticizing Eliot because this essay is stating that the poet should use knowledge of the writers of the past to influence their work.

I personally do agree to the idea of tradition. It is necessary to have historical sense. Edmund Burke is often misquoted as having said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” George Santayana is credited with the aphorism, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Winston Churchill wrote, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Theory of Impersonal Poetry:

Theory of Impersonal Poetry Eliot is comparing the poet and the process of making a poem with a scientific chemical reaction of formation of sulphurous acid in the laboratory. He says that the mind of the poet should be like the catalyst. In the preparation of sulphurous essay Water acidic reaction takes place between water and Sulphur dioxide in the presence of a catalyst Platinum. Once the reaction is done and Sulphurous acid is prepared we find that there is no trace of platinum in sulphurous acid that means that it has taken part in reaction but it has no effect on the production similarly according to the mind of the poet, it should work like a catalyst.it should work in the production of the poem but it should not have effect on the poem that means the personal emotions and personal feelings of the poet should not the present in the poem And this theory is known as the Theory of depersonalization

Explain: " Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality."

"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality."

According to Eliot mind of the poet is like a glass which has infinite emotions and feelings but the proper organization of these emotions and feelings produce an organized poem which is important. So according to Eliot personal emotions don't matter, But composition of the poem and intensity of the poem matters more. Later in the essay he gives an example of John Keats poem ‘Ode to Nightingale’, he says that this poem has many unnecessary personal feelings of the poet which are not related to not nightingale. Here he denounces or criticizes the poem. He also criticizes the definition of the poem given by the Wordsworth ‘Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility’. Eliot is trying to bring classicism and objectivity in the poetry so when Wordsworth is saying that a poetry is an expression of the personal feelings and emotion Eliot is rejecting this subjectivity and says that poetry is the impersonal and universal. So he says that poetry is not to escape from emotion and to escape from personality and tries to bring out the difference between the personal emotions and the artistic emotions. Because the personal emotions can be raw while the artistic emotions can be refined. According to Eliot the poet's mind is filled with so many experiences the poet should look at the experiences in an artistic way and organize them properly to make a poem and not on it by giving the personal experiences.

Explain: "Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry"

It is supporting to write a poetry with artistic emotion he says the following line

“Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry”.

Poems should be criticized or should be appreciated based on the poetry not on the poet. That means if a poem is written with personal emotions or feelings then when we are not criticizing a poem we are criticizing the poet, the author but this is not the right way. According to Eliot's definition poem should be written with artistic emotion and the critic also should criticize the poem based on the poetry and should not feel that the poetry is the personal emotions and feelings of the poet so that the poet should not be criticized the criticism is of work.

Conclusion:

Finally Eliot concludes his essay by saying that the poet should depersonalize himself/herself from his poetry and should not ever express his personal feelings in the poetry. According to Eliot tradition is not something that is already living and this is in the historical sense. by saying that it is not the pastness of the past but the present which is important. He disapproves romantic tradition and talks about the recognition of the continuity of literature. For example when a poet of Gujarati or Bengali or any regional language writes a literary work we do find his roots in the classical Sanskrit literature. Similarly the Western writers should have his roots in the European history of literature that is from Homer to the till date he says that the work of art does not exist in isolation but in continuity. he also says that tradition is not something that you passively in inherent or bestowed upon you but something that you have to strive to get it. His idea of tradition is dynamic. And in the last part the emphasis is on the need for concentrating on the close reading of the text that begins the new criticism.

If we see the idea of tradition in the context of Indian tradition we talk about Ram/ Krishna. It is what is the pastness of Ram but how they are still alive, still living in our perception and attitude. That is what makes tradition it is timeless, do not have any past or present and is temporal, is still existing this is an idea of Eliot that it is not that you completely copy, walk on their footprints but the ideologies what they had in their life, inspire us, which are also applicable in our life and we use the idea of their life we keep the continuity of ideologies, positive ideologies is tradition.

This blog is lengthy but I have tried to cover all the points given by Eliot. I hope it is at least helpful to get a basic idea about the essay. Thank you for visiting.

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