School of Humanities

Centre for Comparative Literature

University of Hyderabad

“Tradition and the Individual Talent”

Presented by:Presented by: Jameel Ahmed Al-GhaberiSupervised by:Supervised by: Dr.Sowmya

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.