Assignment 1619536646 Sms

Tradition and the Individual Talent
"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" (1920).[1] 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 a cultural 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 critical capacity. It formulates Eliot's influential
conception of the relationship between the poet and
preceding literary traditions.
This essay is divided into three parts: first the

concept of "Tradition," then the Theory of Impersonal
Poetry, and finally the conclusion.
Eliot presents his conception of tradition and the
definition of the poet and poetry in relation to it. He
wishes to correct the fact that, as he perceives it, "in
English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though
we occasionally apply its name in deploring its
absence." Eliot posits that, though the English
tradition generally upholds the belief that art
progresses through change – a separation from
tradition, literary advancements are instead
recognised only when they conform to the tradition.
Eliot, a classicist, felt that the true incorporation of
tradition into literature was unrecognised, that
tradition, a word that "seldom... appear[s] except in a
phrase of censure," was actually a thus-far
unrealised element of literary criticism.
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. A poet must embody "the whole of the
literature of Europe from Homer," while,
simultaneously, expressing their contemporary
environment. Eliot challenges the common
perception that a poet's greatness and individuality
lie in their departure from their predecessors; he
argues that "the most individual parts of his [the
poet's] work may be those in which the dead poets,
his ancestors, assert their immortality most
vigorously." Eliot claims that this "historical sense" is
not only a resemblance to traditional works but an
awareness and understanding of their relation to his
poetry.
This fidelity to tradition, however, does not require

the great poet to forfeit novelty in an act of surrender
to repetition. Rather, Eliot has a much more dynamic
and progressive conception of the poetic process:
novelty is possible only through tapping into
tradition. When a poet engages in the creation of
new work, they realise an aesthetic "ideal order," as
it has been established by the literary tradition that
has come before them. As such, the act of artistic
creation does not take place in a vacuum. The
introduction of a new work alters the cohesion of this
existing order, and causes a readjustment of the old
to accommodate the new. The inclusion of the new
work alters the way in which the past is seen;
elements of the past that are noted and realised. In
Eliot’s own words, "What happens when a new work
of art is created is something that happens
simultaneously to all the works of art that preceded
it." Eliot refers to this organic tradition, this
developing canon, as the "mind of Europe." The
private mind is subsumed by this more massive one.
This leads to Eliot’s so-called "Impersonal Theory" of

poetry. Since the poet engages in a "continual
surrender of himself" to the vast order of tradition,
artistic creation is a process of depersonalisation.
The mature poet is viewed as a medium, through
which tradition is channelled and elaborated. He
compares the poet to a catalyst in a chemical
reaction, in which the reactants are feelings and
emotions that are synthesised to create an artistic
image that captures and relays these same feelings
and emotions. While the mind of the poet is
necessary for the production, it emerges unaffected
by the process. The artist stores feelings and
emotions and properly unites them into a specific
combination, which is the artistic product. What
lends greatness to a work of art are not the feelings
and emotions themselves, but the nature of the
artistic process by which they are synthesised. The
artist is responsible for creating "the pressure, so to
speak, under which the fusion takes place." And, it is
the intensity of fusion that renders art great. In this
view, Eliot rejects the theory that art expresses
metaphysical unity in the soul of the poet. The poet
is a depersonalised vessel, a mere medium.
Great works do not express the personal emotion of

the poet. The poet does not reveal their own unique
and novel emotions, but rather, by drawing on
ordinary ones and channelling them through the
intensity of poetry, they express feelings that
surpass, altogether, experienced emotion. This is
what Eliot intends when he discusses poetry as an
"escape from emotion." 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.
Another essay found in Selected Essays relates to

this notion of the impersonal poet. In "Hamlet and
His Problems" Eliot presents the phrase "objective
correlative." The theory is that the expression of
emotion in art can be achieved by a specific, and
almost formulaic, prescription of a set of objects,
including events and situations. A particular emotion
is created by presenting its correlated objective sign.
The author is depersonalised in this conception,
since he is the mere effecter of the sign. And, it is
the sign, and not the poet, which creates emotion.
The implications here separate Eliot's idea of talent

from the conventional definition (just as his idea of
Tradition is separate from the conventional
definition), one so far from it, perhaps, that he
chooses never to directly label it as talent. The
conventional definition of talent, especially in the
arts, is a genius that one is born with. Not so for
Eliot. Instead, talent is acquired through a careful
study of poetry, claiming that Tradition, "cannot be
inherited, and if you want it, you must obtain it by
great labour." Eliot asserts that it is absolutely
necessary for the poet to study, to have an
understanding of the poets before them, and to be
well versed enough that they can understand and
incorporate the "mind of Europe" into their poetry.
But the poet's study is unique – it is knowledge that
"does not encroach," and that does not "deaden or
pervert poetic sensibility." It is, to put it most simply,
a poetic knowledge – knowledge observed through a
poetic lens. This ideal implies that knowledge
gleaned by a poet is not knowledge of facts, but
knowledge which leads to a greater understanding of
the mind of Europe. As Eliot explains, "Shakespeare
acquired more essential history from Plutarch than
most men could from the whole British Museum."

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Tradition and the Individual Talent

"Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1919) is an

While Eliot is most often known for his poetry, he

This essay is divided into three parts: first the

For Eliot, the term "tradition" is imbued with a special

This fidelity to tradition, however, does not require

This leads to Eliot’s so-called "Impersonal Theory" of

Great works do not express the personal emotion of

Another essay found in Selected Essays relates to

The implications here separate Eliot's idea of talent

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