3. Traditional and individual talent
theory
Submitted to: Prof. Noreen Saba
Submitted by: Aqsa Suleman
Roll no: 11750
4. Outline
T.S Eliot
Modern poet
Relationship b/w
traditional and
individual talent
T.S Eliot
concepts
When essay
was being
written
Parts of essay
The concept of
tradition
The theory of
impersonal
poetry
conclusion
5. T.S Eliot Introduction
Thomas Stearns Eliot(full name)
Eliot was an American-English poet, playwright, literary critic,
and editor. He is best known as a leader of the Modernist
movement in poetry and as the author of such works as The
Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943).
6. Modern poet
Eliot might be called a medieval modernist because of his
admiration for the organic and spiritual community of the Middle
Ages together with his “impersonal” conception of art, his elitist
and formalist views isolate him from several of the central terms
of the tradition.”
7. Relation between traditional and individual
talent
According to Eliot, without the sense of tradition, an artist can
never be a good artist. The individual talent is the capability of a
poet to retouch and recolor the pastness of the past. No artist or
no poet of any art has his real value alone. If we want to
evaluate him, we must set him among the dead poets.
8. What according to T.S Eliot is traditional
and individual talent?
The essay Tradition and the Individual Talent is an attack on
certain critical views in Romanticism particularly up on the idea
that a poem is primarily an expression of the personality of the
poet. Eliot argues that a great poem always asserts and that the
poet must develop a sense of the pastness of the past
9. When did he wrote this essay?
Sometime during the early days of September, 1919, T. S.
Eliot—just thirty years old and working as a clerk in the foreign-
exchange division of Lloyds Bank in London—sat down and
wrote his manifesto as a poet and critic, “Tradition and the
Individual Talent.” Its effects were hardly immediate.
10. Tradition and individual talent was first published in “The
Egoist” and later in Eliot’s first book of criticism ,”The Sacred
wood”(1920).
Eliot’s well known work
It formulates Eliot’s influential conception of the relationship
between the poet and the literary tradition which proceeds him.
11. oTradition : past events influence
oRomanticism attack
oHe criticizes Wordsworth's view.
oThere is no question of poet expressing his personal emotions.
oIt is not in his personal emotions, the emotions provoked by
particular events in his life, that the poet is in anyway
remarkable or interesting.
15. The concept of tradition
Eliot presents his conception of tradition and the definition of poet and poetry in
relation to it.
For Eliot, the term tradition is imbued with a special and complex character. It
represents a "simultaneous order," by which Eliot means a historical timelessness
– a fusion of past and present – and, at the same time, a sense of present
temporality.
Eliot claims that this historical sense is not only a resemblance of traditional
works but an awareness and understanding
of their relation to his poetry.
The historical sense involves a perception, not only
the pastness of past, but of its presence.
16. The difference between present and past is that , the conscious present is
an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past’s
awareness of itself cannot show.
When a poet engages in a new work he realizes an aesthetic “ideal order”
, as it has been established by the literary tradition that has come before
him.
As such, the act of artistic creation does not take place in a vacuum.
The inclusion of new work alters the way in which the past is seen
elements of past that are noted and realized.
The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice ,
a continual extinction of personality.
This leads to Eliot's so called “impersonality theory”
of poetry.
17. Eliot’s concept of tradition
Tradition doesn't mean a blind adherence to the ways of the
previous generation.
Tradition cannot be inherited; it can only be obtained by hard
labor.
Tradition can only be obtained by those who have historical
sense.
18. 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.
19. The theory of impersonal poetry
Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the
poet but upon the poetry.
Eliot compares the poet’s mind to a catalyst,
in which the reactants are feelings and emotions that are
synthesized to create artistic image that captures these same
feelings and emotions.
While the mind of poet is necessary for production , it emerges
unaffected by the process.
The artist stores feelings and emotions and properly unities them
into a specific combination , which is the artistic product.
20. oHonest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon
the poet but upon the poetry.
oChemical reaction:
o combination of oxygen and Sulphur
dioxide =Sulphur trioxide
o O2+so2=so3
oSulphur trioxide +water= sulphuric acid
oSo3+H2o =H2SO4
21. The poet has, not a “personality” to express , but a particular
medium , which is only a medium and not a personality , in which
impression and experience combine in peculiar and unexpected
ways. - Impression and experiences which are important for the man
may not take place in the poetry , and those which become important
in the poetry , may play quite an ignorable part in the man , the
personality.
It is not his personal emotions , the emotions provoked by particular
event in his life , that the poet is in any way remarkable or interesting
. - His particular emotions may be simple , crude or flat. - Great work
do not express the personal emotion of the poet . -And the poet does
not reveal his own unique and novel emotions, but rather , by
drawing an ordinary ones and channeling them through the intensity
of poetry.
22. According to Eliot ‘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’. - But ,of course, only those
who have personality and emotions know what it means to want
to escape from these things.
Since , successful poetry is impersonal and , therefore , exists
independent of its poet , it outlives the poet and can incorporate
into the timeless “ideal order” of the “living” literary tradition.
‘Talent’ , especially in the arts , is a genius ,that one is born
with. Instead talent is acquired through a careful study of poetry
23. Summary
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.
24. Conclusion
According to him , the emotion of art is impersonal.
And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without
surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done.
And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives
in what is not merely the present , but the present moment of
past , unless he is conscious , not of what is dead , but of what
is already living.
25. Introduction of writer
S.t Coleridge and sir Philip Sidney comparison
Attack on romanticism
Words worth “spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions
T.s Eliot: escape of personality
Tradition: past writers
Relation of tradition with poet and poetry
Tradition means: historical timelessness : past and present mixture
The whole of literature of Europe from homer.
26. Surroundings discussion in poetry
Immortality of poets
Novelty : nothing is starts from zero(impact of past poets)
Great works never express poets personal expression
Poetry: escape from emotions(that’s why successful poetry is
always impersonal
Objective corelative :no relation between internal and external
feelings of hamlet
Proper relation between situation and the expression of
feelings
27. cannot be inherited, and if you want it, you must obtain it by
great labor.
poet should study must but with his poetic lens
new criticism
Harold bloom criticizes t.s Eliot
t.s Eliot himself supports many non European works
non western tradition : highly influenced
28. “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. You cannot value him
alone; you must see him, for contrast and comparison, among
the dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely
historical criticism...What happens when a new work of art is
created is something that happens simultaneously to all the
works of art which preceded it...The poet who is aware of this
will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities.”
