Tradition and Individual Talent by T.S.Eliot

Tradition and Individual Talent by T.S. Eliot 

Tradition and Individual Talent was written in 1919 in the Times Literary Supplement. This essay has three parts:

            1. Eliot's Concept of Tradition.

            2. Impersonality Theory of poetry.

            3. Sums up the whole discussion.

Term Tradition:

English people consider the word 'tradition' as a censure. This word is a disagreeable word to the English ears. 

For Eliot

     "Tradition is a much wider significance. Tradition in the true sense of the term cannot be inherited; it can be obtained by hard labour". 

Historical Sense: 

It means a perception of the pastness of the past. It is this historic sense which makes the writer traditional. A writer with this sense is conscious of his own generation and past writers. 

A poet fits into the tradition, " you can't value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison among the dead".

Tradition and the Individual Talent:

If we discover a poet without prejudice we can find the best and the most individual part of his work resemble the dead poet's. The dead poet's are found fully matured in the hands of the present poets. Thus tradition and Individual talent go together.

Eliot says,

         " The past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past".

The excellence of an artist can be determined only in the context of the tradition of the past. Only by comparison ann artist with his predecessors alone we can appreciate a poet. It is a fallacy to divide the works of art into 'individual' or 'traditional'. 

Poetic Sensibility: 

* Poet's should develop his consciousness of the past.

* Past consciousness creates an awareness of tradition.

* This awareness shapes the poetic Sensibility.

* This Sensibility plays a great role in poetic creation.

Impersonality Theory: 

Eliot claims that the poet and the poem are two seperate things. The feeling of emotion or vision resulting from the poem is something different from feeling, emotion and vision in the mind of the poet. The art emotion is different from personal emotion. In other words the poet should remain passive or impersonal. 

To explain this theory Eliot talks about

Chemical reaction. 

When Oxygen and Sulphur-di-oxide are mixed in the presence of platinum (catalyst), they form Sulphurus acid. Platinum acts as a catalyst but remains unaffected when mixed. Sameway the mind of the poet is platinum. It's presence is important for the new birth of poetry. 

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". 

T.S. Eliot claims that a poet must depersonalise his emotions. This Impersonality can be gained only when the poet surrenders himself completely to the work that is to be done.