E-C-203:Literary Criticism:Western & Indian Poetics-2

Name: Nargis I. Saiyad

Paper: E-C-203: Literary Criticism

Topic: T.S.Eliot: ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’

SEM: 2, Part: 1.

Year: 2011/12.

Submitted To,

 Dr. Dilip Barad,

Dept.of English,

Bhavnagar University.

 T.S.Eliot: "Tradition and Individual Talent"

The full name of Eliot is Thomas Stearns Eliot. This essay was first published in 1919 in 'The Egoist' then it was published in 'The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism' in 1920/2. David Lodge has celebrated critical essay in the English of the 20th century.

ü Sections of the essay-

                                 The essay is mainly divided into three sections. Through this he has simplified his ideas. The three parts are:

      i.        The concept of tradition,

    ii.        Theory of depersonalization,

   iii.        Complementary thing.

ü Part - I

                                   In the very opening of the essay, Eliot says that the people of England are less critical. They believe that the French people are more critical than us. They tried to find out the individual essence of the man. But as per Eliot's view, no any artist, poet, writer can write without tradition.

  

                                                ''No poet, no artist of any art has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation, is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists.''

                                                                       - Eliot (956)

                                        So, he says that any work of art is not completely meaningful in its isolation.

                                         ''Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It can not be inherited and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves the historical sense.''

                       He says that it is not easy to know tradition so, we have to do hard work. By historical sense, he says that historical sense is the sense of the timeless as well as the sense of temporal and of both and this sense makes the poet traditional.

                            The historical sense is a sense not only of the pastness of the past but also of its presence. A mature poet is well aware of the history of the past literature of his country.

                    Eliot says that he should not be appreciated in the isolation but he should be seen in relation to the dead poet. The comparison and contrast among the dead makes the present poet tradition.

                         Here, Eliot also talks about the improvement of art. He says that any creative writer should be quite aware that art never improves. The material of art is never quite the same. There may be development, refinement and complication from time to time in a work of art but that is not the improvement. He says that tradition is the process of formation. Eliot's reformulation of the idea of literary tradition has been one of the key critical concepts of the 20th century.

ü Part - II

        The opening line of the second part is very significant. It is,

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

                          He gives importance to poetry rather than poet. He says that the poetry has nothing connected with its creator. The progress of an artist is a continual self sacrifice, a continual extinction of the personality. So, he defies the process of depersonalization and it's relation with the tradition.

               

                 He gives the example of gas chamber. He says that the mind of the poet is catalyst. To make sulphurous acid, the combination of the gases Oxygen and Sulphur Dioxide is necessary but these two should meet each-other in the presence of a filament of platinum. This happens only if platinum is present but yes, when new acid comes out there is even no trace of platinum remains. The poet's mind is just like this platinum. It is very important in making the acid but there is not any trace of it. Here, the poem is like sulphurous acid and the mind of the poet is just like platinum.

                        He also said that the man who suffers is different from the mind that creates. It is also possible that the poet may have suffer much in his life but in his poetry, no any trace of that feelings ever seen in his poems.

                          Some poets try to find out new human emotion to express, but this search of novelty is wrong. He says that emotions are the same. The business of the poet is to use this ordinary one and express it in the poetry. He says that the bad poet is generally conscious where he ought to be unconscious and he becomes unconscious where he ought to be conscious. This type of error makes him personal.

ü Part - III

                    In this section, he says that tradition and individual talent both are the complementary things.

                        Here, he says that emotion is very significant and it is impersonal. To make any poem the surrender of our self is very important then we can create a poem.

·         Views of others - 

           

                     'Tradition and the Individual Talent ' - then and now by Gareth, Reeves, F.H.Bradly - the historical sense are the examples of the views for this essay.

                      Gareth Reeves writes that the essay was a major contributor to Modernism's rise and hegemony. It suffered spurn and neglect.

                       Maud Ellamann writes in her book 'The Poetics of Impersonality: T.S.Eliot and Ezra Pound'. She is disagreeing with the idea of impersonality and continual self-sacrifice.

                      Edward Lobb in his book 'T.S.Eliot and the Romantic Critical Tradition' says that the idea of dissociation of sensibility is the story of Eden applied to the secular history of literature and such is a literary myth was first put forward by the Romantics.

                      Eliot's views don't meet with the Romantic Poets.

                      Harold Bloom disagrees with Eliot's view of Romantic poetry in 'The Metaphysical Poet'(1921). He criticizes it because of its dissociation of sensibility.

                      Eliot's view stands awkward with feminist, minority theories. Eliot believe poet strong who knows the tradition whereas Harold Bloom goes against tradition.

      'Stronger the past, lesser the influence'

                      We can say this now, a reprint of 'The use of poetry' and 'The use of criticism', which was the series of lectures given at Harvard University in 1932 and 1933 in which he called the essay the most juvenile of his essays.

                      Amanda S. Campbell does not agree with Eliot. For Amanda,

                Poetry => words on paper

                     Joan Baptiste was also not agree with Eliot. For Eliot's essay someone has written,

  'An urn didn't have to be Grecian, if could just be an urn.'

ü Conclusion-

                            

                  In this essay, he gives novel ideas about poet, poetry, personality, emotion, tradition, historical sense etc... He puts poets at the top. His deep criticism in the essay demands a mental exercise, but there are some people, critics who are disagree with him and one man in the internet has written for his essay,

  "Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent."