T.S.Eliot Tradition and the individual talent prepared by Jameel Al-gahberi,University of Hyderabad

1. University of Hyderabad
School of Humanities
Centre for Comparative
Literature

2. “Tradition and the Individual Talent”
PPrreesseenntteedd bbyy::
Jameel Ahmed Al-Ghaberi
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Dr.Sowmya

3. T. S. Eliot
“Tradition And The Individual Talent”
 “Tradition and the Individual Talent” is one of
the more well-known works that Eliot produced
in his critic capacity.
 The essay is divided into three parts:
 Part I:Eliot’s Concept of Tradition
 Part II:Eliot’s Theory of Impersonality of Poetry
 PartIII:Summary

4. Part I:Eliot’s Concept of Tradition
 The significance of tradition
1. Tradition doesn’t mean a blind adherence to the
ways of the previous generation.
2. Tradition cannot be inherited; it can only be
obtained by hard labor.
3. Tradition can only obtained by those who have
historical sense.

5. The sense of tradition implies
 Recognition of the continuity of literature
 A critical judgment as to which of the writers of
the past continue to be significant in the
present.
 A knowledge of the significant writers obtained
through painstaking effort.

6. A dynamic conception of tradition
 Tradition isn't anything fixed and static; it is constantly
changing, growing and becoming different from what it
is.
When a new work is created, the whole literary
tradition is modified.
The relationship between the past and the
present is not one-sided; it is reciprocal.
The past directs the present, and is itself
modified and altered by the present.

7. The Function of Tradition
 The work of art of a poet in the present is to be
compared and contrasted with works of the past…
 This judgment doesn’t mean “good” or “bad”.
 The comparison is for knowing the facts about
the new works of art.
 The comparison is for the purpose of analysis
and forming better understanding of the new.

8. The sense of tradition
 It doesn’t mean to know the past as a whole without
any discrimination.
 The sense of tradition doesn’t mean that the poet
should know only a few poets whom he admires, a
particular age, or period which he likes. This is a sign
of immaturity and inexperience.

9. Part II: Impersonality of poetry
(The Extinction of Personality)
“Honest Criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but
upon the poetry.”
The artist must surrender himself to tradition.
He must allow his poetic sensibility to be shaped and
modified by the past.
His emotions and feeling must be depersonalized; he
must be as impersonal and objective as a scientist.
The poet’s personality is merely a medium; as a
catalytic agent, or a receptacle in which chemical
reactions take place.

10. A)The poetic process
 “it is not the “greatness", the intensity of the emotions, the
components, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure,
under which the fusion takes place, that accounts.”
The more intense the artistic process, the greater the
poem.
The mind of the poet is like the catalytic agent.
It is merely a medium of combination.

11. Rejecting Wordsworth’s Theory of poetry
 Eliot denounces the Romantic criticism saying….
 In the process of poetic composition, there's neither emotion,
nor recollection, nor tranquility.
 In the poetic process, there's only concentration of a number
of experiences, and a new thing results from this
concentration.

12. Part III: Summary
 Eliot concludes:
– “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.”
– Eliot doesn’t deny personality or emotion to the
poet. Only he must depersonalize his emotions.
– The poet can know what is to be done if he acquires
a sense of tradition; the historic sense which makes
him conscious not only of the present but also of the
present moment of the past.

13. Criticism of Eliot
 Eliot’s theory of tradition has been criticized
for…..
1. Its limited definition of what constitutes
the canon of tradition.
2. The “mind of Europe” reeks of Euro-centriism.