T.S.Eliot, a classicist in literature, was constantly preoccupied with the theme of tradition, and it is very important both to his criticism and to his creative work. In fact Eliot was basically opposed to the Romantic theory which regarded poetry as the expression of the personality of the poet. The Romantic theory, which had been debased first into ninetyism and then into Georgian bucolics, did not attach any significance to tradition. On the contrary, freedom all from tradition was considered to be very necessary for artistic creation. 

Believing in the natural and fundamental goodness of man, the Romantics, from Rousseau onwards, blamed the social, political, and religious institutions for hampering man's freedom, and thus turning everything good into a source of misery and evil. Rousseau said that "man was by nature good, that it was only bad laws and customs that had suppressed him." According to the Romantic view man was "an infinite reservoir of possibilities" and not as in the classical view a creature "intrinsically limited, but disciplined by order and tradition to something fairly decent." Following the idealistic view of the world as an expression of the Immanent Spirit which pervaded all living things and all objects of all thoughts the Romantics strove to find the expression of the one in their own selves.

In his anti-romantic attitude Eliot was deeply influenced by Ezra pound, Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, and T.E. Hulme. Eliot believes that the human nature is essentially " impure" and finite. He is more influenced by Hulme who rejected the view of man's essential goodness, and asserted that for really great creative work a belief in the Original Sin was indispensable. In his essay on Baudelaire, Eliot quotes with approval the words of Hulme: "In the light of those absolute values man himself is judged to be essentially limited and imperfect. He is endowed with Original Sin. While occasionally he can accomplish acts which partake of perfection, he can never himself be perfect". Hulme, therefore, thinks that poetry must recognise its limitations and that it can in way be a substitute for religion as Arnold and pater tried to prove. Hulme, like Eliot, found the classical view to be " identical with the normal religious attitude ", and both, therefore, wanted to return to orthodox doctrine.

In the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent Eliot says that the Englishmen have a tendency to insist, when they praise a poet upon those aspects of his work in which he least resemble any one else. In these aspects of his e they try to find out what is individual, what is the peculiar essence of that man. They try to find out the difference of that poet with his contemporaries and predecessors. But if we study the poet without bias or prejudice, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality forcefully and vigorously. We find the dead poets in the present poets not in their impressionable period of adolescence, but in period of their full maturity. Thus, according to Eliot, tradition and individual talent go together.

Eliot's Concept of culture 

It will be here to have some idea of Eliot's theory of culture which will greatly help us in understanding properly his theory of tradition. In Notes towards the Definition of Culture Eliot essays that there are three ways of regarding culture; as that of the individual, of a group or class, and of a whole society. These three are , no doubt, interdependent, but the truest and fullest idea of culture is to be found in the third one of them (i. e. the culture of a whole society), because other cultures derive from it. Eliot defines it as the way of life of the whole society. The culture of a whole society comprises of urbanity or civility, learning in all branches, philosophy, and the arts. Culture is something alive and its effects are seen in the whole society. As Eliot describes it as a way of life of the whole society, it is quite clear that it cannot be found complete in any individual or group within that society. For a proper understanding of the culture of any particular society we have to study the culture of that society as a whole, and not of any one particular individual or group within that society. It is for this reason that Eliot does not approve of any attempt by an artist to form himself upon some particular period of the past tradition, or upon some particular favorite authors.

"The theme of the cultural unity of Europe," says Sean Lucy, "runs like a thread through all his (Eliot's) writings. He looks at the culture of Europe as a whole. European culture is a living growth and a unity of the cultures of Greece, Rome, and Christianity. It is still alive and has a profound influence on the present. Eliot's ideas on culture can also be applied to his theory of tradition. In After Strange Gods Eliot defines tradition in the following manner: " Tradition is not solely or even primarily, the maintenance of certain dogmatic beliefs; these belief have come to take their living form in the course of the formation of a tradition. What I mean by tradition involves all those habitual actions, habits and customs from the most significant religious rites to our conventional way of greeting a stranger, which represent the blood kinship of "the same people living in the same place". It is also " a way of feeling and acting which characterise a group throughout generations, and it must largely be unconscious. " Tradition he says, is "the meanest by which the vitality of the past enriches the life of the present.

"What is Tradition?

In all his work Eliot is mainly concerned with the problem of order as it arises in various ways. In Tradition and the Individual Talent he takes up this problem of order by enquiring whether the works of literature coming down to us through the entire Western tradition from a recognisable and definable order and the existence of which is to effect the creative work of the present. Eliot emphasises the presentness of the past order and strives to show that the needs of the present age can only be expressed in the perspective of past tradition. Again the present also has relevance of the past, because the traditional order is modified by the production of a truly great work of literature in the present. Eliot considers tradition as a part of the living culture of the past and working in the order of the present. Tradition is a dynamic force; it does not mean standing still.

              And do not call it fixity Where past and future          are gathered Neither movement from nor towards. Neither ascent nor decline

The Historical Sense 

In Tradition and the Individual Talent, Eliot says that tradition is not the handing down, or following the ways of the ancients blindly. It cannot be inherited. It can only be obtained with great labour. It involves a historical sense which enables a poet to perceive not only the pastness of the past but also its presentness. A creative artist, though he lives in a particular milieu, does not work merely with his own generation in view. He does not take his own age, or the literature of that period only as a separate identity, but acts with the convention that in general the whole literature of Europe from the classical age of the Greeks onwards and in particular the literature of his own country, is to be taken as a harmonious whole. His own creative efforts are not apart from it but a part of it. And writer thus learns to value tradition by acquiring the historical sense, which enables his to feel vividly the times he belongs to, and at the same time, not to lose sight of that timelessness that belongs to the creative art as a whole. It is sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of timeless and of the temporal together. It is what makes a writer traditional. It also makes him most acutely conscious of his place in time: by a right evaluation of what is called tradition, he becomes conscious of his own contemporary. This unity of time is expressed by Eliot in Burnt Norton also:

           

Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past.

Conformity between the old and the new 

Eliot says that no poet or artist of any kind has his full meaning and significance alone. His importance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his kinship with the poets and artists of the past generations. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the poets and writers of the past. This, Eliot says, is a principal of aesthetic, and not merely of historical criticism. The necessity for the individual talent to conform to tradition is not one sided; 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 existing monuments from an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new work of art) among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the from of European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past." (Tradition and the Individual Talent)

The relation of a poet's work to the great works of the past 

The poet who understands the presentness of the past, also understands his responsibilities and difficulties as an artist. Such an artist will fully realise that he must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past. In saying that an artist is finally to be judged by the standards of the past, Eliot does not imply that he is to be pronounced better or worse than the previous poets or that the standards prescribed by the previous critics are to be applied in  judging their works. This really implies that a contemporary work is to be compared with the great works of the past, and each is measured by the other. To conform merely would be for the new  work not really to conform at all. There would be nothing new in it, and it would not be a work of art at all. If a new work of art emerges as successful when compared with and measured by the old masterpieces, it is a clear indication of its value as a work of art. A work may be individual and appear to conform or a work which seems to be individual may conform. It will be a fallacy to classify the works of art into the categories of 'individual' and 'traditional'.

Literature as a continuity--the main current

Eliot points out a significant difference between the past and the present. The difference 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." The poet cannot take the past as something remote from him, static and fixed, the past is not again merely such poets and writers of the previous generations which appeal to a poet on his personal estimates, though for a young poet such preferences  come naturally. The past also does not mean any particular preferred period of literature. To be traditional in Eliot's sense means to be conscious of the main current of art and poetry. Eliot says: "The poet must be very conscious of the main current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. He must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the some. He must be aware that the mind of Europe, the mind of his own country a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind-- is a mind which changes and that this change is a development which abandon nothing- enroute, which does not superannuate either Shakespeare or Homer, or the rock drawing of the Magdalenian draughtsman" (artists of  late paleolithic period). In Dry Salvages Eliot defines the sense of tradition in the following manner:

         The past experience revived in the meaning Is not the experience of one life only But of many generations  Time the destroyer is the preserver

Criticism of Eliot's views

Eliot's idea of tradition and its relation to the individual talent has been criticised by Sean Lucy in a very balanced and cogent manner. He agrees with Eliot that tradition is necessary to art but he  doubts the validity of Eliot's remark that a conscious cultivation of the sense of tradition by the individual creative artist is always necessary. Sean Lucy says Eliot has exaggerated the facts as they are, though he concedes that Eliot might have been impelled to adopt such an attitude "by the danger of literary anarchy which was present in the extreme individualism of the 'spirit of revolt' which infected so much of European art and thought during the 1920s and part of the 1930s". The earlier part of the twentieth century was rather an exceptional period in the history of European thought and culture. It was a period of great revolt against all the, aspects of European life, society and culture. Even the period of the Romantic Revolt was not so radical, because its leaders were opposed or hostile to a particular technique only, and not to everything found in the preceding age. But the early twentieth century was skeptical not only of any one particular system of standard but all the standards and values held good by preceding generation. This exceptional quality of the age made Eliot over emphasise the value of tradition and a conscious cultivation of the sense of tradition by the individual writer. The secret of art is discipline and therefore at a time when all the bonds and restriction on artistic activity were being rejected, Eliot realised the imperative need of emphasising the great value of tradition for the individual writer Sean Lucy, therefore concludes that tradition is necessary to art no doubt, but a conscious cultivation of the sense of tradition is not necessary for the individual writer in all epochs there may be an age when the "society is in a healthy state, developing with the minimum degree of friction, its culture is so much part of its life and growth, and its educational system so closely controlled by the needs of its culture, that the sense of the past is an integral part of all activity, including art. At such times the very fact that a person is an artist implies that he is a traditional artist. In English literature we may call the eighteenth century to be such an age. The writers of the eighteenth century thought that they had reached the pinnacle of civilisation, and wrote with the consciousness of the whole Latin tradition behind them. Therefore their work possesses a homogeneity of its own; and it is for this reason also that Eliot, a classicist bestows so high tributes to the work of Dryden, Pope, and Dr.Johnson.

Bring out clearly the defence of T. S. Eliot for 'Tradition?

Green Land | April 07, 2021 | 0 comments

T.S.Eliot, a classicist in literature, was constantly preoccupied with the theme of tradition, and it is very important both to his criticism and to his creative work. In fact Eliot was basically opposed to the Romantic theory which regarded poetry as the expression of the personality of the poet. The Romantic theory, which had been debased first into ninetyism and then into Georgian bucolics, did not attach any significance to tradition. On the contrary, freedom all from tradition was considered to be very necessary for artistic creation. 

Believing in the natural and fundamental goodness of man, the Romantics, from Rousseau onwards, blamed the social, political, and religious institutions for hampering man's freedom, and thus turning everything good into a source of misery and evil. Rousseau said that "man was by nature good, that it was only bad laws and customs that had suppressed him." According to the Romantic view man was "an infinite reservoir of possibilities" and not as in the classical view a creature "intrinsically limited, but disciplined by order and tradition to something fairly decent." Following the idealistic view of the world as an expression of the Immanent Spirit which pervaded all living things and all objects of all thoughts the Romantics strove to find the expression of the one in their own selves.

In his anti-romantic attitude Eliot was deeply influenced by Ezra pound, Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, and T.E. Hulme. Eliot believes that the human nature is essentially " impure" and finite. He is more influenced by Hulme who rejected the view of man's essential goodness, and asserted that for really great creative work a belief in the Original Sin was indispensable. In his essay on Baudelaire, Eliot quotes with approval the words of Hulme: "In the light of those absolute values man himself is judged to be essentially limited and imperfect. He is endowed with Original Sin. While occasionally he can accomplish acts which partake of perfection, he can never himself be perfect". Hulme, therefore, thinks that poetry must recognise its limitations and that it can in way be a substitute for religion as Arnold and pater tried to prove. Hulme, like Eliot, found the classical view to be " identical with the normal religious attitude ", and both, therefore, wanted to return to orthodox doctrine.

In the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent Eliot says that the Englishmen have a tendency to insist, when they praise a poet upon those aspects of his work in which he least resemble any one else. In these aspects of his e they try to find out what is individual, what is the peculiar essence of that man. They try to find out the difference of that poet with his contemporaries and predecessors. But if we study the poet without bias or prejudice, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality forcefully and vigorously. We find the dead poets in the present poets not in their impressionable period of adolescence, but in period of their full maturity. Thus, according to Eliot, tradition and individual talent go together.

Eliot's Concept of culture 

It will be here to have some idea of Eliot's theory of culture which will greatly help us in understanding properly his theory of tradition. In Notes towards the Definition of Culture Eliot essays that there are three ways of regarding culture; as that of the individual, of a group or class, and of a whole society. These three are , no doubt, interdependent, but the truest and fullest idea of culture is to be found in the third one of them (i. e. the culture of a whole society), because other cultures derive from it. Eliot defines it as the way of life of the whole society. The culture of a whole society comprises of urbanity or civility, learning in all branches, philosophy, and the arts. Culture is something alive and its effects are seen in the whole society. As Eliot describes it as a way of life of the whole society, it is quite clear that it cannot be found complete in any individual or group within that society. For a proper understanding of the culture of any particular society we have to study the culture of that society as a whole, and not of any one particular individual or group within that society. It is for this reason that Eliot does not approve of any attempt by an artist to form himself upon some particular period of the past tradition, or upon some particular favorite authors.

"The theme of the cultural unity of Europe," says Sean Lucy, "runs like a thread through all his (Eliot's) writings. He looks at the culture of Europe as a whole. European culture is a living growth and a unity of the cultures of Greece, Rome, and Christianity. It is still alive and has a profound influence on the present. Eliot's ideas on culture can also be applied to his theory of tradition. In After Strange Gods Eliot defines tradition in the following manner: " Tradition is not solely or even primarily, the maintenance of certain dogmatic beliefs; these belief have come to take their living form in the course of the formation of a tradition. What I mean by tradition involves all those habitual actions, habits and customs from the most significant religious rites to our conventional way of greeting a stranger, which represent the blood kinship of "the same people living in the same place". It is also " a way of feeling and acting which characterise a group throughout generations, and it must largely be unconscious. " Tradition he says, is "the meanest by which the vitality of the past enriches the life of the present.

"What is Tradition?

In all his work Eliot is mainly concerned with the problem of order as it arises in various ways. In Tradition and the Individual Talent he takes up this problem of order by enquiring whether the works of literature coming down to us through the entire Western tradition from a recognisable and definable order and the existence of which is to effect the creative work of the present. Eliot emphasises the presentness of the past order and strives to show that the needs of the present age can only be expressed in the perspective of past tradition. Again the present also has relevance of the past, because the traditional order is modified by the production of a truly great work of literature in the present. Eliot considers tradition as a part of the living culture of the past and working in the order of the present. Tradition is a dynamic force; it does not mean standing still.

              And do not call it fixity Where past and future          are gathered Neither movement from nor towards. Neither ascent nor decline

The Historical Sense 

In Tradition and the Individual Talent, Eliot says that tradition is not the handing down, or following the ways of the ancients blindly. It cannot be inherited. It can only be obtained with great labour. It involves a historical sense which enables a poet to perceive not only the pastness of the past but also its presentness. A creative artist, though he lives in a particular milieu, does not work merely with his own generation in view. He does not take his own age, or the literature of that period only as a separate identity, but acts with the convention that in general the whole literature of Europe from the classical age of the Greeks onwards and in particular the literature of his own country, is to be taken as a harmonious whole. His own creative efforts are not apart from it but a part of it. And writer thus learns to value tradition by acquiring the historical sense, which enables his to feel vividly the times he belongs to, and at the same time, not to lose sight of that timelessness that belongs to the creative art as a whole. It is sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of timeless and of the temporal together. It is what makes a writer traditional. It also makes him most acutely conscious of his place in time: by a right evaluation of what is called tradition, he becomes conscious of his own contemporary. This unity of time is expressed by Eliot in Burnt Norton also:

           

Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past.

Conformity between the old and the new 

Eliot says that no poet or artist of any kind has his full meaning and significance alone. His importance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his kinship with the poets and artists of the past generations. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the poets and writers of the past. This, Eliot says, is a principal of aesthetic, and not merely of historical criticism. The necessity for the individual talent to conform to tradition is not one sided; 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 existing monuments from an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new work of art) among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the from of European, of English literature, will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past." (Tradition and the Individual Talent)

The relation of a poet's work to the great works of the past 

The poet who understands the presentness of the past, also understands his responsibilities and difficulties as an artist. Such an artist will fully realise that he must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past. In saying that an artist is finally to be judged by the standards of the past, Eliot does not imply that he is to be pronounced better or worse than the previous poets or that the standards prescribed by the previous critics are to be applied in  judging their works. This really implies that a contemporary work is to be compared with the great works of the past, and each is measured by the other. To conform merely would be for the new  work not really to conform at all. There would be nothing new in it, and it would not be a work of art at all. If a new work of art emerges as successful when compared with and measured by the old masterpieces, it is a clear indication of its value as a work of art. A work may be individual and appear to conform or a work which seems to be individual may conform. It will be a fallacy to classify the works of art into the categories of 'individual' and 'traditional'.

Literature as a continuity--the main current

Eliot points out a significant difference between the past and the present. The difference 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." The poet cannot take the past as something remote from him, static and fixed, the past is not again merely such poets and writers of the previous generations which appeal to a poet on his personal estimates, though for a young poet such preferences  come naturally. The past also does not mean any particular preferred period of literature. To be traditional in Eliot's sense means to be conscious of the main current of art and poetry. Eliot says: "The poet must be very conscious of the main current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. He must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the some. He must be aware that the mind of Europe, the mind of his own country a mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mind-- is a mind which changes and that this change is a development which abandon nothing- enroute, which does not superannuate either Shakespeare or Homer, or the rock drawing of the Magdalenian draughtsman" (artists of  late paleolithic period). In Dry Salvages Eliot defines the sense of tradition in the following manner:

         The past experience revived in the meaning Is not the experience of one life only But of many generations  Time the destroyer is the preserver

Criticism of Eliot's views

Eliot's idea of tradition and its relation to the individual talent has been criticised by Sean Lucy in a very balanced and cogent manner. He agrees with Eliot that tradition is necessary to art but he  doubts the validity of Eliot's remark that a conscious cultivation of the sense of tradition by the individual creative artist is always necessary. Sean Lucy says Eliot has exaggerated the facts as they are, though he concedes that Eliot might have been impelled to adopt such an attitude "by the danger of literary anarchy which was present in the extreme individualism of the 'spirit of revolt' which infected so much of European art and thought during the 1920s and part of the 1930s". The earlier part of the twentieth century was rather an exceptional period in the history of European thought and culture. It was a period of great revolt against all the, aspects of European life, society and culture. Even the period of the Romantic Revolt was not so radical, because its leaders were opposed or hostile to a particular technique only, and not to everything found in the preceding age. But the early twentieth century was skeptical not only of any one particular system of standard but all the standards and values held good by preceding generation. This exceptional quality of the age made Eliot over emphasise the value of tradition and a conscious cultivation of the sense of tradition by the individual writer. The secret of art is discipline and therefore at a time when all the bonds and restriction on artistic activity were being rejected, Eliot realised the imperative need of emphasising the great value of tradition for the individual writer Sean Lucy, therefore concludes that tradition is necessary to art no doubt, but a conscious cultivation of the sense of tradition is not necessary for the individual writer in all epochs there may be an age when the "society is in a healthy state, developing with the minimum degree of friction, its culture is so much part of its life and growth, and its educational system so closely controlled by the needs of its culture, that the sense of the past is an integral part of all activity, including art. At such times the very fact that a person is an artist implies that he is a traditional artist. In English literature we may call the eighteenth century to be such an age. The writers of the eighteenth century thought that they had reached the pinnacle of civilisation, and wrote with the consciousness of the whole Latin tradition behind them. Therefore their work possesses a homogeneity of its own; and it is for this reason also that Eliot, a classicist bestows so high tributes to the work of Dryden, Pope, and Dr.Johnson.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

T.S. Eliot belongs to the tradition of Dryden, John, Coleridge, and Matthew Arnold in being the poet and the critic at the same time. He was greatly interested in literature and tried to bring criticism and creation in closer contact. He strongly believed that criticism and creation were complementary activities and therefore a good poet could only be a good critic. He exercised a very wide and deep influence on the literary criticism in the present century. He has rendered a great service to literature by reforming taste and by revitalising literature. The most distinguishing quality of Eliot's criticism is its sincerity and freedom from any preconceived standards of judgment. He places before the artist as well as the critic the goal of attaining nothing less than excellence and insists that the critic in order to see the object as it is must take unremitting pains and discipline his powers. He also points out that mature art is created only in a society which is prepared to receive and grasp fresh ideas. He knows that though perfection is rather unattainable, he would, in poetry and criticism, be content with nothing less than that. In literature he was a classicist and supported order and discipline, authority and tradition, and organization and pattern.

There was an anti-romantic tendency in the early parts of the twentieth century, which found its most definite pronouncement in the works of Eliot. He strongly supported the reaction against subjectivism and individualism. In this he was greatly influenced by Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More. T.E. Hulme, who rejected the view of man's essential goodness, and asserted that for really great creative work a belief in the Original Sin was indispensable, also influenced Eliot in his critical views. Like other classicists, Eliot is of opinion that the writer must have faith in some system of writing and that a work of art must conform to the past tradition. But there is a significant difference between him and the neo-classical critics of the eighteenth century. The neo-classicists believed that the writer must follow rules of the ancients and that poetry must be didactic. Eliot's idea of "conformity to tradition" is totally different from this. A work of art must conform to tradition is such a way that it alters the tradition as much as it is directed by it. According to Eliot's conception tradition and the individual talent go together.

The theme of tradition is central both to Eliot's criticism and to his creative work. His instance on the value and importance of tradition for the individual talent is essentially anti-romantic. The romantic theory, which regarded poetry as the expression of the personality of the poet, laid emphasis on inspection and intuition. The romantics believed that the poet should follow his "inner voice" in writing poetry. But inspiration is fitful and unreliable; it is only a matter of chance and accident. In the hands of lesser poets the unrestrained and unlimited freedom is likely to degenerate into chaos and confusion. The romantic theory did not attach any significance to tradition. On the contrary, freedom from all tradition was considered to be very essential for artistic creation.

Eliot's views on the comparative importance of tradition and the individual talent in literature have been explicitly expressed in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. At the very beginning of this essay Eliot deplores the fact that in English literary criticism 'tradition' is used as a phrase of censure. He says that the word 'tradition' has not been given correct interpretation and due weight and importance so far. In English literature and criticism we rarely come across passages which illustrate the right use and meaning of the term 'tradition'. From time to time the English critics have been applying the word in expressing their grief for its absence. They do not make a reference to "the tradition" or to "a tradition"; at most they use the adjective in saying that the poetry is so and so 'traditional' or even 'too traditional'. The word appears rarely and when it does appear, it is used as a phrase of censure. Rarely used in a commendatory sense, the term 'tradition' is at best applied by English critics for vaguely approving a work of art as traditional as preserving in it some antique, out-of date, literary curiosities of old times, which are yet pleasing to the present age. Thus in English criticism, according to Eliot there is a deplorable lack of that critical insight which views a particular literary work or writer in the context of a wider literary tradition. The English literary critic does not give due weight and importance to tradition in evaluating the writers of the past and in appreciating the poets of the present. He uses 'tradition' in a derogatory sense.

Eliot says that the Englishmen have a tendency to insist, when they praise a poet, upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles any one else. In these aspects of his work they try to find out what is individual, what is the peculiar essence of that man. They try to find out the difference of the poet with his contemporaries and predecessors especially with his immediate predecessors, they try to find out something that can be separated in order to be enjoyed. But if we study the poet without bias or prejudice, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality forcefully and vigorously. We find the dead poets in the present poets not in their impressionable period of adolescence, but in the period of their full maturity. Thus, Eliot believes, tradition and the individual talent go together.

In After Strange Gods Eliot defines tradition in the following manner: "Tradition is not solely, or even primarily, the maintenance of certain dogmatic beliefs; these beliefs have come to take their living form in the course of the formation of a tradition." What I mean by tradition involves all those habitual actions, habits and customs, from the most significant religious rites to our conventional way of greeting a stranger, which represent the blood kinship of "the same people living in the same place". It is also " a way of feeling and acting which characterises a group throughout generations, and it must largely be unconscious ". Tradition he says, is " the means by which the vitality of past enriches the life of the present ".

In all his work Eliot is mainly concerned with the problem of order as it arises in various ways. In Tradition and the Individual Talent he takes up this problem of order by enquiring whether the works of literature coming down to us through the entire Western tradition from a recognisable and definable order; and the existence of which is to affect the creative work of the present. Eliot stresses the presentness of the past order, and strives to show that the needs of the present age can only be expressed in the perspective of the past tradition. The present also has relevance to the past, because the traditional order is modified by the production of a truly original work of literature in the present. Eliot considers tradition as a part of the living culture of the past and working in the order of the present. Tradition is a dynamic force; it does not mean standing still. As he says in Burnt Norton:

             And do not call it fixityWhere past and futureare gathered.Neither movement fromnor towards.Neither ascent nor decline.

Again, 

referring to the unity of time he says:Time present and time Past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past.(Burnt Norton)

Tradition does not mean the handing down, or following the ways of the ancients blindly. It cannot be inherited. It can only be obtained with great labour . It involves a historical sense which enables a poet to perceive not only the pastness of the past but also its presentness . A creative artist, though he lives in a particular milieu, does not work merely with his own generation in view. He does not take his own age, or the literature of that period only as a separate identity, but acts with a conviction that in general the whole literature of Europe from the classical age of the Greeks onwards, and in particular the literature of his own country, is to be taken as a harmonious whole. His own creative efforts are not apart from it but a part of it. Eliot firmly believes that no poet or artist has his full meaning and significance alone. His importance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his kinship with the poets and artists of the past generation. The necessity for the individual talent to conform to tradition is not one sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the work of art which preceded it. In Tradition and the Individual Talent Eliot says: "The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervision of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are re-adjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new". This means that " the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past".

The conscious or unconscious cultivation of the sense of tradition is very important both for the poet and the critic. The poet, according to Eliot, must consciously try to make his work form a part of a larger and more important unit than itself, namely the whole literature of Europe to which it belongs. In Tradition and the Individual Talent he says: "What is to be insisted upon is that the poet must develop or procure the consciousness of the past and that he should continue to develop this consciousness throughout his career". He believes that it is the awareness of tradition that sharpens the sensibility, which has a vital part to play in the process of poetic creation.

The other thing, which is to be discussed in this connection is Eliot's impersonal theory of poetry which has a strong bearing on his concept of tradition. Eliot firmly believes that poetry is not the expression of the personality of the poet. He elucidates his impersonal theory by examining, first " the relation of the poet to the past " and secondly "the relation of the poem to its author". The past, Eliot says, is never dead: it lives in the present. " 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 his alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead". Eliot insists on the importance of the relation of the poem to other poems by other authors and suggests the conception of poetry as a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written.

The artistic process, according to Eliot, is a process of depersonalization, the artist's continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. He must surrender himself totally to the creative work. "The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality". He also points out the relation of the poem to its author; the poem, according to him, has no relation to the poet. The difference between the mind of a mature poet and that of an immature one is that the mind of a mature poet is " a more finely perfected medium in which special or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combination ".

It is in this depersonalisation that art may be said to approach to the condition of science. Eliot explains this process of depersonalisation and its relation to the sense of tradition by comparing it with the chemical process - the action which takes place when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide. The analogy is that of the catalyst. He says: " When the two gases previously mentioned (oxygen and sulphur dioxide) are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. The combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless, the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected: has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. It may partly or exclusively operate upon the experience of the man himself; but, the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material ".

The elements of the experience of the poet are of two kinds-emotions and feelings. They are elements which, entering the presence of the poet's mind and acting as a catalyst, go to the making of a work of art. The poet's mind is a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together. Eliot believes that the greatness of a poem does not depend on the greatness or the intensity of the emotions but on the intensity of the artistic process; the pressure under which the fusion takes place. He strongly believes that "the difference between art and the event is always absolute. Eliot illustrates his view by a few examples, among which one is of Keats's Ode to a Nightingale, which contains a number of feelings which have nothing particular to do with the nightingale, but which the nightingale, partly perhaps because of its attractive name, and partly because of its reputation, served to bring together.

Eliot believes that the main concern of the poet is not the expression of personality. He says that " the poet  has, not a 'personality' to express, but a particular medium (the mind), which in only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place in the poetry, and those which became important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality". Again, there is no need for the poet to try to express new human emotions in poetry. The business of the poet, Eliot says, is not to find new emotions, but use the ordinary ones and, in working them up in  poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as will as those familiar to him. The poetic process is a process of concentration, and not of recollection (as Wordsworth thought) of a very great number of experiences. Eliot's final definition of poetry is: "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".

In the last section of the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent Eliot says that the poet's sense of tradition and the impersonality of poetry are complementary things. He tried to divert the interest from the poet to the poetry, for it would conduce to a juster estimation of actual poetry, good or bad. He says that " very few know when there is an expression of significant emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. 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 the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living ". Thus, Eliot concludes, a constant and continual awareness of tradition is very necessary for the poet. Tradition greatly helps the individual talent to produce good poetry. Both are inextricably inter linked and inter dependent.

Examine T.S Eliot's theory of 'Tradition' and "the Individual Talent' ?

Green Land | April 05, 2021 | 0 comments

T.S. Eliot belongs to the tradition of Dryden, John, Coleridge, and Matthew Arnold in being the poet and the critic at the same time. He was greatly interested in literature and tried to bring criticism and creation in closer contact. He strongly believed that criticism and creation were complementary activities and therefore a good poet could only be a good critic. He exercised a very wide and deep influence on the literary criticism in the present century. He has rendered a great service to literature by reforming taste and by revitalising literature. The most distinguishing quality of Eliot's criticism is its sincerity and freedom from any preconceived standards of judgment. He places before the artist as well as the critic the goal of attaining nothing less than excellence and insists that the critic in order to see the object as it is must take unremitting pains and discipline his powers. He also points out that mature art is created only in a society which is prepared to receive and grasp fresh ideas. He knows that though perfection is rather unattainable, he would, in poetry and criticism, be content with nothing less than that. In literature he was a classicist and supported order and discipline, authority and tradition, and organization and pattern.

There was an anti-romantic tendency in the early parts of the twentieth century, which found its most definite pronouncement in the works of Eliot. He strongly supported the reaction against subjectivism and individualism. In this he was greatly influenced by Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More. T.E. Hulme, who rejected the view of man's essential goodness, and asserted that for really great creative work a belief in the Original Sin was indispensable, also influenced Eliot in his critical views. Like other classicists, Eliot is of opinion that the writer must have faith in some system of writing and that a work of art must conform to the past tradition. But there is a significant difference between him and the neo-classical critics of the eighteenth century. The neo-classicists believed that the writer must follow rules of the ancients and that poetry must be didactic. Eliot's idea of "conformity to tradition" is totally different from this. A work of art must conform to tradition is such a way that it alters the tradition as much as it is directed by it. According to Eliot's conception tradition and the individual talent go together.

The theme of tradition is central both to Eliot's criticism and to his creative work. His instance on the value and importance of tradition for the individual talent is essentially anti-romantic. The romantic theory, which regarded poetry as the expression of the personality of the poet, laid emphasis on inspection and intuition. The romantics believed that the poet should follow his "inner voice" in writing poetry. But inspiration is fitful and unreliable; it is only a matter of chance and accident. In the hands of lesser poets the unrestrained and unlimited freedom is likely to degenerate into chaos and confusion. The romantic theory did not attach any significance to tradition. On the contrary, freedom from all tradition was considered to be very essential for artistic creation.

Eliot's views on the comparative importance of tradition and the individual talent in literature have been explicitly expressed in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. At the very beginning of this essay Eliot deplores the fact that in English literary criticism 'tradition' is used as a phrase of censure. He says that the word 'tradition' has not been given correct interpretation and due weight and importance so far. In English literature and criticism we rarely come across passages which illustrate the right use and meaning of the term 'tradition'. From time to time the English critics have been applying the word in expressing their grief for its absence. They do not make a reference to "the tradition" or to "a tradition"; at most they use the adjective in saying that the poetry is so and so 'traditional' or even 'too traditional'. The word appears rarely and when it does appear, it is used as a phrase of censure. Rarely used in a commendatory sense, the term 'tradition' is at best applied by English critics for vaguely approving a work of art as traditional as preserving in it some antique, out-of date, literary curiosities of old times, which are yet pleasing to the present age. Thus in English criticism, according to Eliot there is a deplorable lack of that critical insight which views a particular literary work or writer in the context of a wider literary tradition. The English literary critic does not give due weight and importance to tradition in evaluating the writers of the past and in appreciating the poets of the present. He uses 'tradition' in a derogatory sense.

Eliot says that the Englishmen have a tendency to insist, when they praise a poet, upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles any one else. In these aspects of his work they try to find out what is individual, what is the peculiar essence of that man. They try to find out the difference of the poet with his contemporaries and predecessors especially with his immediate predecessors, they try to find out something that can be separated in order to be enjoyed. But if we study the poet without bias or prejudice, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality forcefully and vigorously. We find the dead poets in the present poets not in their impressionable period of adolescence, but in the period of their full maturity. Thus, Eliot believes, tradition and the individual talent go together.

In After Strange Gods Eliot defines tradition in the following manner: "Tradition is not solely, or even primarily, the maintenance of certain dogmatic beliefs; these beliefs have come to take their living form in the course of the formation of a tradition." What I mean by tradition involves all those habitual actions, habits and customs, from the most significant religious rites to our conventional way of greeting a stranger, which represent the blood kinship of "the same people living in the same place". It is also " a way of feeling and acting which characterises a group throughout generations, and it must largely be unconscious ". Tradition he says, is " the means by which the vitality of past enriches the life of the present ".

In all his work Eliot is mainly concerned with the problem of order as it arises in various ways. In Tradition and the Individual Talent he takes up this problem of order by enquiring whether the works of literature coming down to us through the entire Western tradition from a recognisable and definable order; and the existence of which is to affect the creative work of the present. Eliot stresses the presentness of the past order, and strives to show that the needs of the present age can only be expressed in the perspective of the past tradition. The present also has relevance to the past, because the traditional order is modified by the production of a truly original work of literature in the present. Eliot considers tradition as a part of the living culture of the past and working in the order of the present. Tradition is a dynamic force; it does not mean standing still. As he says in Burnt Norton:

             And do not call it fixityWhere past and futureare gathered.Neither movement fromnor towards.Neither ascent nor decline.

Again, 

referring to the unity of time he says:Time present and time Past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past.(Burnt Norton)

Tradition does not mean the handing down, or following the ways of the ancients blindly. It cannot be inherited. It can only be obtained with great labour . It involves a historical sense which enables a poet to perceive not only the pastness of the past but also its presentness . A creative artist, though he lives in a particular milieu, does not work merely with his own generation in view. He does not take his own age, or the literature of that period only as a separate identity, but acts with a conviction that in general the whole literature of Europe from the classical age of the Greeks onwards, and in particular the literature of his own country, is to be taken as a harmonious whole. His own creative efforts are not apart from it but a part of it. Eliot firmly believes that no poet or artist has his full meaning and significance alone. His importance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his kinship with the poets and artists of the past generation. The necessity for the individual talent to conform to tradition is not one sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the work of art which preceded it. In Tradition and the Individual Talent Eliot says: "The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervision of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are re-adjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new". This means that " the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past".

The conscious or unconscious cultivation of the sense of tradition is very important both for the poet and the critic. The poet, according to Eliot, must consciously try to make his work form a part of a larger and more important unit than itself, namely the whole literature of Europe to which it belongs. In Tradition and the Individual Talent he says: "What is to be insisted upon is that the poet must develop or procure the consciousness of the past and that he should continue to develop this consciousness throughout his career". He believes that it is the awareness of tradition that sharpens the sensibility, which has a vital part to play in the process of poetic creation.

The other thing, which is to be discussed in this connection is Eliot's impersonal theory of poetry which has a strong bearing on his concept of tradition. Eliot firmly believes that poetry is not the expression of the personality of the poet. He elucidates his impersonal theory by examining, first " the relation of the poet to the past " and secondly "the relation of the poem to its author". The past, Eliot says, is never dead: it lives in the present. " 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 his alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead". Eliot insists on the importance of the relation of the poem to other poems by other authors and suggests the conception of poetry as a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written.

The artistic process, according to Eliot, is a process of depersonalization, the artist's continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. He must surrender himself totally to the creative work. "The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality". He also points out the relation of the poem to its author; the poem, according to him, has no relation to the poet. The difference between the mind of a mature poet and that of an immature one is that the mind of a mature poet is " a more finely perfected medium in which special or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combination ".

It is in this depersonalisation that art may be said to approach to the condition of science. Eliot explains this process of depersonalisation and its relation to the sense of tradition by comparing it with the chemical process - the action which takes place when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide. The analogy is that of the catalyst. He says: " When the two gases previously mentioned (oxygen and sulphur dioxide) are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. The combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless, the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected: has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. It may partly or exclusively operate upon the experience of the man himself; but, the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material ".

The elements of the experience of the poet are of two kinds-emotions and feelings. They are elements which, entering the presence of the poet's mind and acting as a catalyst, go to the making of a work of art. The poet's mind is a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together. Eliot believes that the greatness of a poem does not depend on the greatness or the intensity of the emotions but on the intensity of the artistic process; the pressure under which the fusion takes place. He strongly believes that "the difference between art and the event is always absolute. Eliot illustrates his view by a few examples, among which one is of Keats's Ode to a Nightingale, which contains a number of feelings which have nothing particular to do with the nightingale, but which the nightingale, partly perhaps because of its attractive name, and partly because of its reputation, served to bring together.

Eliot believes that the main concern of the poet is not the expression of personality. He says that " the poet  has, not a 'personality' to express, but a particular medium (the mind), which in only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place in the poetry, and those which became important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality". Again, there is no need for the poet to try to express new human emotions in poetry. The business of the poet, Eliot says, is not to find new emotions, but use the ordinary ones and, in working them up in  poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as will as those familiar to him. The poetic process is a process of concentration, and not of recollection (as Wordsworth thought) of a very great number of experiences. Eliot's final definition of poetry is: "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".

In the last section of the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent Eliot says that the poet's sense of tradition and the impersonality of poetry are complementary things. He tried to divert the interest from the poet to the poetry, for it would conduce to a juster estimation of actual poetry, good or bad. He says that " very few know when there is an expression of significant emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. 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 the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living ". Thus, Eliot concludes, a constant and continual awareness of tradition is very necessary for the poet. Tradition greatly helps the individual talent to produce good poetry. Both are inextricably inter linked and inter dependent.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

T.S Eliot is a man of keen intellect capable of developing a philosophical position as well as a new rhythm and intonation, trained in classics, fluent in French and German- expresses his own notion of the historical sense in his celebrated essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. Eliot has often been considered as the most influential figure in contemporary literature who posits the view that tradition is dependent on the full realisation of the historical sense. To Eliot tradition is not a rigid phenomenon, rather, a dynamic force, it involves a historical sense; a sense that enables a poet to perceive that the past is not something isolated from the present, it is also not unrelated to the present. The historical sense is a perception of not only the pastness of the past but also of its presentness. The historical sense implies the presence of a collective mind, which is the consciousness of whole Europe of the past. In order to enhance the essentiality of tradition Eliot  integrates it with historical sense. Historical sense is a perception of time continuity having the sense that the past and present are mere facets of the same organism and by no means two disparate segments.

T.S. Eliot, going to emphasise the historical sense, considers the whole literature as a harmonious whole. Eliot does not administer the work of any artist for any particular  milieu or for a particular generation but for the whole time and whole generation. Similarly any literature should not be identified as a separate identity but its identity is the convention that in general the whole literature of Europe from the classical age of the Greeks onwards and in particular the literature of his own country is to be taken as a symmetrical whole. The historical sense animates literature like a living whole, it inherits its vigour from the past for functioning the formation of the present. The writer or the artist therefore has to belong both to the past and present and creates a work of art that becomes immortal in the future. In fact, the present is inseparable related with the living past and a poet has to remain over conscious not of what is dead but of what is already living. The past and the present act and react each other and the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. According to Eliot "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 artist. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead".

Eliot also says that past is irremediable, because the future can only be built upon the real past. We may call the historical sense is that understanding as nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year.

Eliot holds the opinion that the historical sense is the sense of timeless as well as of the temporal together. There is simultaneous existence and simultaneous order between the timeless whole and temporal whole and thus the historical sense makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaries. Eliot, goes on to say that the effort of any creative artist is not for certain generation or certain age but for all the people of the world or for all the ages. The awareness of the past and the present in literature is an important element in Eliot's conception of tradition. No evaluation of an artist or the work of art is viewed as an isolated, self-sufficient, unrelated to the whole current of literature. The evaluation of the poet and artist is possible only by the process of constant comparison and contrast between other poets and artists and their predecessors. The poet has to keep in mind that literature is a continuous flow and he should continuously develop the consciousness of the past. Eliot enumerates the view in this respect as "But the difference between the present and the 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".

Thus Eliot feels historical sense with a wider vision and by acquiring this historical sense a poet or an artist can overcome his egoism, his regional attraction and above all he can make a new thing. Through the historical sense the personal feeling and impression are to be depersonalised and a new work of art is produced acquiring wider significance and universal appeal. So, Eliot points out that the arrival of a really new work of an individual artist makes us see tradition though its eyes and hence in a new way. The original and the traditional are in a relation of mutual modification that makes the distinction hazy if not meaningless. Eliot asserts that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. This unity of time is expressed by Eliot in Burnt Norton also.

             " Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past".

Elaborate and comment on Eliot's notion concerning historical sense?

Green Land | April 05, 2021 | 0 comments

T.S Eliot is a man of keen intellect capable of developing a philosophical position as well as a new rhythm and intonation, trained in classics, fluent in French and German- expresses his own notion of the historical sense in his celebrated essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. Eliot has often been considered as the most influential figure in contemporary literature who posits the view that tradition is dependent on the full realisation of the historical sense. To Eliot tradition is not a rigid phenomenon, rather, a dynamic force, it involves a historical sense; a sense that enables a poet to perceive that the past is not something isolated from the present, it is also not unrelated to the present. The historical sense is a perception of not only the pastness of the past but also of its presentness. The historical sense implies the presence of a collective mind, which is the consciousness of whole Europe of the past. In order to enhance the essentiality of tradition Eliot  integrates it with historical sense. Historical sense is a perception of time continuity having the sense that the past and present are mere facets of the same organism and by no means two disparate segments.

T.S. Eliot, going to emphasise the historical sense, considers the whole literature as a harmonious whole. Eliot does not administer the work of any artist for any particular  milieu or for a particular generation but for the whole time and whole generation. Similarly any literature should not be identified as a separate identity but its identity is the convention that in general the whole literature of Europe from the classical age of the Greeks onwards and in particular the literature of his own country is to be taken as a symmetrical whole. The historical sense animates literature like a living whole, it inherits its vigour from the past for functioning the formation of the present. The writer or the artist therefore has to belong both to the past and present and creates a work of art that becomes immortal in the future. In fact, the present is inseparable related with the living past and a poet has to remain over conscious not of what is dead but of what is already living. The past and the present act and react each other and the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. According to Eliot "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 artist. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead".

Eliot also says that past is irremediable, because the future can only be built upon the real past. We may call the historical sense is that understanding as nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year.

Eliot holds the opinion that the historical sense is the sense of timeless as well as of the temporal together. There is simultaneous existence and simultaneous order between the timeless whole and temporal whole and thus the historical sense makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaries. Eliot, goes on to say that the effort of any creative artist is not for certain generation or certain age but for all the people of the world or for all the ages. The awareness of the past and the present in literature is an important element in Eliot's conception of tradition. No evaluation of an artist or the work of art is viewed as an isolated, self-sufficient, unrelated to the whole current of literature. The evaluation of the poet and artist is possible only by the process of constant comparison and contrast between other poets and artists and their predecessors. The poet has to keep in mind that literature is a continuous flow and he should continuously develop the consciousness of the past. Eliot enumerates the view in this respect as "But the difference between the present and the 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".

Thus Eliot feels historical sense with a wider vision and by acquiring this historical sense a poet or an artist can overcome his egoism, his regional attraction and above all he can make a new thing. Through the historical sense the personal feeling and impression are to be depersonalised and a new work of art is produced acquiring wider significance and universal appeal. So, Eliot points out that the arrival of a really new work of an individual artist makes us see tradition though its eyes and hence in a new way. The original and the traditional are in a relation of mutual modification that makes the distinction hazy if not meaningless. Eliot asserts that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. This unity of time is expressed by Eliot in Burnt Norton also.

             " Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past".

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

T.S. Eliot is the most influential poet and critic in the Modern Age. He expresses his notion of 'historical sense' in his revolutionary essay," Tradition and Individual Talent". He thinks that tradition depends on the complete realisation of historical sense. Tradition involves a historical sense which enables a poet to perceive the importance of past and present. The historical sense enables him to realism that the past is not something isolated from the present. It is a perception of the pastness of the past and its presentness too. It implies the presence of a collective mind. A man of historical sense feels that the whole literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day including the literature of his own country forms one continuous literary tradition.According to T.S. Eliot, tradition does not mean a blind adherence to the ways of previous generation or generations. This would be mere slavish imitation. It is a mere repetition of what has already been achieved. Novelty is better than repetition. Tradition in the sense of passive repetition is to be discouraged. It is a matter of much wider significance. Tradition in the true sense of the term cannot be inherited. It can only be obtained by hard labour. This labour is the labour of knowing the past writers. It is the critical labour of changing the good from the bad and knowing the good and useful. Tradition can be obtained only by those who have the historical sense. The historical sense involves a perception not only of the pastness of the past but also of its presence.Eliot realises that the past exists in the present. So the past and the present form.one simultaneous order. This historical sense is the sense of the timeless and of the temporal together. It is this historical sense which makes a writer traditional. A writer with the sense of tradition is fully conscious of his own generation. He is completely aware of his place in the present. But he is also acutely conscious of his relationship with the writers of the past. In brief, sense of tradition implies recognition of the continuity of literature. It implies a critical judgement as to which of the writers of the past continue to signify in the present. The knowledge of these significant writers is obtained through a painstaking effort. Tradition represents the accumulated wisdom and experience of ages. So its knowledge is essential for really a great and noble achievement. Historical sense inspires a writer to develop the sense of tradition. This does not also mean that the poet should know only a few poets whom he admires. This is a sign of immaturity and inexperience. A poet should not be content merely to know some particular age or period which he likes. This may be pleasant and delightful. But it will not constitute a sense of tradition. A sense of tradition in the real sense means consciousness  of the main current which does not all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. The poet must possess the critical gift in ample measure. He must also realise that the main literary trends are not determined by the poets alone. Smaller poets are also significant. They are not to be ignored.Historical sense makes a man able to understand that art never improves. But its material is never the same. The mind of Europe may change. But this change does not mean that great writers like Shakespeare and Homer have grown outdated and lost their significance. The great works of art never lose their significance for there is no qualitative improvement in art. There may be refinement and development. But from the viewpoint of the artist, there is no improvement. We cannot say that Shakespeare is better and higher than Eliot. Their works are of different kinds. The material on which they worked was different.The work of a poet in the present is to be compared and contrasted with the works of the past. Thus it is to be judged by the standards of the poet. But this judgement does not mean determining good or bad. It does not mean deciding whether the present work is better than the work of the past. An author in the present is certainly not to be judged by the principles and standards of the past. The comparison is to be made for knowing the facts about the new work of art. It is made for the purposes of analysis. It is done for forming a better understanding of the new. Moreover, this comparison is reciprocal. The poet helps us understand the present throwing light on the past. In this way, we can form.an idea of what is really individual and new. We can sift the tradition from individual elements in a given work of art.To conclude, we may say that Eliot's notion of historical sense in his famous essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent" has opened a horizon for the successive writers. Historical sense makes a writer traditional. It is necessary for literary appreciation and evaluation. It makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time and his own contemporaneity. So the consciousness of the past and present is crying need for a writer. Eliot shows that the past and the present are interrelated in the making and judging of a poem. Thus his theory of conformity between the past and the present is of greater importance.

What is historical sense? How is it important according to Eliot?

Literaturemini | October 17, 2018 | 0 comments

T.S. Eliot is the most influential poet and critic in the Modern Age. He expresses his notion of 'historical sense' in his revolutionary essay," Tradition and Individual Talent". He thinks that tradition depends on the complete realisation of historical sense. Tradition involves a historical sense which enables a poet to perceive the importance of past and present. The historical sense enables him to realism that the past is not something isolated from the present. It is a perception of the pastness of the past and its presentness too. It implies the presence of a collective mind. A man of historical sense feels that the whole literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day including the literature of his own country forms one continuous literary tradition.According to T.S. Eliot, tradition does not mean a blind adherence to the ways of previous generation or generations. This would be mere slavish imitation. It is a mere repetition of what has already been achieved. Novelty is better than repetition. Tradition in the sense of passive repetition is to be discouraged. It is a matter of much wider significance. Tradition in the true sense of the term cannot be inherited. It can only be obtained by hard labour. This labour is the labour of knowing the past writers. It is the critical labour of changing the good from the bad and knowing the good and useful. Tradition can be obtained only by those who have the historical sense. The historical sense involves a perception not only of the pastness of the past but also of its presence.Eliot realises that the past exists in the present. So the past and the present form.one simultaneous order. This historical sense is the sense of the timeless and of the temporal together. It is this historical sense which makes a writer traditional. A writer with the sense of tradition is fully conscious of his own generation. He is completely aware of his place in the present. But he is also acutely conscious of his relationship with the writers of the past. In brief, sense of tradition implies recognition of the continuity of literature. It implies a critical judgement as to which of the writers of the past continue to signify in the present. The knowledge of these significant writers is obtained through a painstaking effort. Tradition represents the accumulated wisdom and experience of ages. So its knowledge is essential for really a great and noble achievement. Historical sense inspires a writer to develop the sense of tradition. This does not also mean that the poet should know only a few poets whom he admires. This is a sign of immaturity and inexperience. A poet should not be content merely to know some particular age or period which he likes. This may be pleasant and delightful. But it will not constitute a sense of tradition. A sense of tradition in the real sense means consciousness  of the main current which does not all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. The poet must possess the critical gift in ample measure. He must also realise that the main literary trends are not determined by the poets alone. Smaller poets are also significant. They are not to be ignored.Historical sense makes a man able to understand that art never improves. But its material is never the same. The mind of Europe may change. But this change does not mean that great writers like Shakespeare and Homer have grown outdated and lost their significance. The great works of art never lose their significance for there is no qualitative improvement in art. There may be refinement and development. But from the viewpoint of the artist, there is no improvement. We cannot say that Shakespeare is better and higher than Eliot. Their works are of different kinds. The material on which they worked was different.The work of a poet in the present is to be compared and contrasted with the works of the past. Thus it is to be judged by the standards of the poet. But this judgement does not mean determining good or bad. It does not mean deciding whether the present work is better than the work of the past. An author in the present is certainly not to be judged by the principles and standards of the past. The comparison is to be made for knowing the facts about the new work of art. It is made for the purposes of analysis. It is done for forming a better understanding of the new. Moreover, this comparison is reciprocal. The poet helps us understand the present throwing light on the past. In this way, we can form.an idea of what is really individual and new. We can sift the tradition from individual elements in a given work of art.To conclude, we may say that Eliot's notion of historical sense in his famous essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent" has opened a horizon for the successive writers. Historical sense makes a writer traditional. It is necessary for literary appreciation and evaluation. It makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time and his own contemporaneity. So the consciousness of the past and present is crying need for a writer. Eliot shows that the past and the present are interrelated in the making and judging of a poem. Thus his theory of conformity between the past and the present is of greater importance.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

T.S. Eliot is one of the greatest critics of English literature. He is often compared with Aristotle. In his time, English criticism was in a chaotic situation. He wishes that English criticism should be ordered and disciplined. This is obvious in his famous critical essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent". In this critical essay, Eliot has given an epoch-making idea of tradition and individual talent. He has also shown the marvelous mixture of these two ideas. According to also shown the marvelous mixture of these two ideas. 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 recolour 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. So here a point is quite clear that the artist must have historical sense. This historical sense is called the sense of tradition. The sense of tradition is not achieved so easily. It is achieved with a painstaking endeavour. A poet must be aware of the pastness of the past. But the blind following is not to be allowed. He should have an authority. He should be conformed to the external authority. Eliot has regarded the whole literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day as a single trend of literature. He declares that the poet should have conformity to the tradition.Eliot's impersonal theory has proved how he has reconciled the tradition with individual talent. In this theory, he has said that a poet's personality must not be reflected into his poetry. The poet should be aloof from his poetry. In this respect, he has given an analogy. In the reaction between sulphur di oxide and oxygen, the platinum fulminet works as a catalyst. After the reaction, sulphurus acid is produced but the catalyst remains unchanged. No trace of catalyst is found in the products. Eliot has compared the poet's mind with this catalyst. Now we may question how a poet's personality can be aloof from his poetry. Actually, the poet must expose the personality of others or readers in his poems. The personality of the poet should be that of the readers. In this respect, Eliot has said that the progress of an artist lies in his continual self-sacrifice Eliot like a classicist has said that unrestricted feelings can never produce ordered literature. Such feelings only produce chaotic literature. Eliot argues that a citizen has to give allegiance to the sovereign state. Similarly, a poet should give his allegiance to an external authority. This is the sense of tradition. He should be conscious of the pastness of the past and its presence. Both the past and the present are modified by each other. As the past is altered by the present, the present is also modified by the past. Thus both the past and the present are reciprocated. A poet must have the knowledge of the contemporary literary trend. Actually, a bad poet is unconscious where he ought to be conscious. He is conscious where he ought to be unconscious.Eliot believes that a good poet most not be scholarly. A good poet must have learned from the past. The conscious reading or acquaintance of the past can make a good poet. In this respect, Eliot has drawn an example. He says that Shakespeare learnt more only from Plutarch that most people could learn from the whole British museum.However, we can say that Eliot has proved his greatness as a literary critic in his essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent". He believes both in tradition and individual talent. Here he has assimilated individual talent of a poet with tradition. He explains artistically the reconcilement between tradition and individual talent. In other words, he reconciles the demands of tradition with those of individual talent. His conception of them makes us clear that tradition and individual talent are closely related to each other.

How does Eliot assimilate individual talent of a poet with tradition?

Literaturemini | October 17, 2018 | 0 comments

T.S. Eliot is one of the greatest critics of English literature. He is often compared with Aristotle. In his time, English criticism was in a chaotic situation. He wishes that English criticism should be ordered and disciplined. This is obvious in his famous critical essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent". In this critical essay, Eliot has given an epoch-making idea of tradition and individual talent. He has also shown the marvelous mixture of these two ideas. According to also shown the marvelous mixture of these two ideas. 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 recolour 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. So here a point is quite clear that the artist must have historical sense. This historical sense is called the sense of tradition. The sense of tradition is not achieved so easily. It is achieved with a painstaking endeavour. A poet must be aware of the pastness of the past. But the blind following is not to be allowed. He should have an authority. He should be conformed to the external authority. Eliot has regarded the whole literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day as a single trend of literature. He declares that the poet should have conformity to the tradition.Eliot's impersonal theory has proved how he has reconciled the tradition with individual talent. In this theory, he has said that a poet's personality must not be reflected into his poetry. The poet should be aloof from his poetry. In this respect, he has given an analogy. In the reaction between sulphur di oxide and oxygen, the platinum fulminet works as a catalyst. After the reaction, sulphurus acid is produced but the catalyst remains unchanged. No trace of catalyst is found in the products. Eliot has compared the poet's mind with this catalyst. Now we may question how a poet's personality can be aloof from his poetry. Actually, the poet must expose the personality of others or readers in his poems. The personality of the poet should be that of the readers. In this respect, Eliot has said that the progress of an artist lies in his continual self-sacrifice Eliot like a classicist has said that unrestricted feelings can never produce ordered literature. Such feelings only produce chaotic literature. Eliot argues that a citizen has to give allegiance to the sovereign state. Similarly, a poet should give his allegiance to an external authority. This is the sense of tradition. He should be conscious of the pastness of the past and its presence. Both the past and the present are modified by each other. As the past is altered by the present, the present is also modified by the past. Thus both the past and the present are reciprocated. A poet must have the knowledge of the contemporary literary trend. Actually, a bad poet is unconscious where he ought to be conscious. He is conscious where he ought to be unconscious.Eliot believes that a good poet most not be scholarly. A good poet must have learned from the past. The conscious reading or acquaintance of the past can make a good poet. In this respect, Eliot has drawn an example. He says that Shakespeare learnt more only from Plutarch that most people could learn from the whole British museum.However, we can say that Eliot has proved his greatness as a literary critic in his essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent". He believes both in tradition and individual talent. Here he has assimilated individual talent of a poet with tradition. He explains artistically the reconcilement between tradition and individual talent. In other words, he reconciles the demands of tradition with those of individual talent. His conception of them makes us clear that tradition and individual talent are closely related to each other.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

Thomas Stearns Eliot is an intellectual giant in the history of modern English literature. He has explained the process of poetic creativity in his essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent". In his theory of poetic process, sensation, feeling, emotion and thought form the subject- matter of poetry. The poet achieves experience by them. Sensibility is a terrible responsiveness. Both personality and tradition are significant in a poetic creation. Of course, personality enlivens sensibility. But Eliot is inclined to preserve individuality. He considers personality as short-lived while individuality as permanent. However, we find some of the main theories of his poetic process in this famous essay. The poet used as a medium, sensibility, the role of emotion and thought are remarkable in this respect.Eliot believes that the poet is a medium of expression. The poet must be objective in his poetic creation. So Eliot rejects the theory of poetry of Wordsworth. He declares that " emotions recollected in tranquility" is an inexact formula. He points out that in the process of poetic composition, there is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor tranquility. In the poetic process, there is only concentration of a number of experiences. Now thing results from this concentration. This process of concentration is neither conscious nor deliberate. It is a passive one. Undoubtedly, there are elements which are conscious and deliberate in the poetic process. There is a difference between a good and a bad poet. A bad poet is conscious where he should be unconscious. Again he is unconscious where he should be conscious. It is this consciousness of the wrong kind which makes a poem personal.. Whereas every mature art must be impersonal.The personality of the poet does not find expression in his poetry. It acts as a catalyst in the process of poetic creativity. The experiences which enter the poetic process may be of two kinds. They are emotions and feelings. Poetry may be composed out of emotions only. It can be written out of feelings only. It may also be composed out of both emotions and feelings.Sensibility enables the poet to respond to the different experiences in a unified manner. It is close to Coleriadge's conception of secondary imagination. It does almost similar function to it. It is synonymous with sensation as Eliot has used. What enables the poet to unify diverse experience is sensibility. Sensibility operates upon thoughts and feelings, emotions and sensations. It is a psychical totality.It seems that in the theory of poetic process, emotion is given place inferior to thought and feelings. In this respect, Eliot says--"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."The emotion of poetry is different from personal emotions of the poet. His personal emotions may be simple or crude. But the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined. It is a mistaken notion that the poet must express new emotions resulting in much eccentricity in poetry. It is not the business of the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotions. But he must impart to them a new significance and a new meaning. It is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions. Even emotions which he has never personally experienced can serve the purpose of poetry. Emotion can best be expressed through an objective correlative.There is a significant role of thought in the process of poetic creativity. Eliot says that the poet who thinks merely can express the emotion equivalent of thought. This view of thought in poetry is perfectly consisted with Eliot's theory of objective correlative Emotion is not to be expressent directly in a poem. It is only expressed through a set of objects, a situation and a chain of events. Similarly, the poet is not concerned with the direct statement of thought. But it is concerned only with an emotional equivalent of thought.However, Eliot has analysed the process of poetic creativity in his essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent" to a great extent. Feelings, sensations, emotions and thoughts are to be regarded as the materials for poetry in his conception of poetic process. Eliot has expressed it in a logical manner. But we may not convince with him from top to bottom. He advocates objectivity in good poem. But we may have many poems without objectivity. They are excellent.

How does Eliot explain the process of poetic creativity in his essay, Tradition and Individual Talent?

Literaturemini | October 16, 2018 | 0 comments

Thomas Stearns Eliot is an intellectual giant in the history of modern English literature. He has explained the process of poetic creativity in his essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent". In his theory of poetic process, sensation, feeling, emotion and thought form the subject- matter of poetry. The poet achieves experience by them. Sensibility is a terrible responsiveness. Both personality and tradition are significant in a poetic creation. Of course, personality enlivens sensibility. But Eliot is inclined to preserve individuality. He considers personality as short-lived while individuality as permanent. However, we find some of the main theories of his poetic process in this famous essay. The poet used as a medium, sensibility, the role of emotion and thought are remarkable in this respect.Eliot believes that the poet is a medium of expression. The poet must be objective in his poetic creation. So Eliot rejects the theory of poetry of Wordsworth. He declares that " emotions recollected in tranquility" is an inexact formula. He points out that in the process of poetic composition, there is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor tranquility. In the poetic process, there is only concentration of a number of experiences. Now thing results from this concentration. This process of concentration is neither conscious nor deliberate. It is a passive one. Undoubtedly, there are elements which are conscious and deliberate in the poetic process. There is a difference between a good and a bad poet. A bad poet is conscious where he should be unconscious. Again he is unconscious where he should be conscious. It is this consciousness of the wrong kind which makes a poem personal.. Whereas every mature art must be impersonal.The personality of the poet does not find expression in his poetry. It acts as a catalyst in the process of poetic creativity. The experiences which enter the poetic process may be of two kinds. They are emotions and feelings. Poetry may be composed out of emotions only. It can be written out of feelings only. It may also be composed out of both emotions and feelings.Sensibility enables the poet to respond to the different experiences in a unified manner. It is close to Coleriadge's conception of secondary imagination. It does almost similar function to it. It is synonymous with sensation as Eliot has used. What enables the poet to unify diverse experience is sensibility. Sensibility operates upon thoughts and feelings, emotions and sensations. It is a psychical totality.It seems that in the theory of poetic process, emotion is given place inferior to thought and feelings. In this respect, Eliot says--"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."The emotion of poetry is different from personal emotions of the poet. His personal emotions may be simple or crude. But the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined. It is a mistaken notion that the poet must express new emotions resulting in much eccentricity in poetry. It is not the business of the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotions. But he must impart to them a new significance and a new meaning. It is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions. Even emotions which he has never personally experienced can serve the purpose of poetry. Emotion can best be expressed through an objective correlative.There is a significant role of thought in the process of poetic creativity. Eliot says that the poet who thinks merely can express the emotion equivalent of thought. This view of thought in poetry is perfectly consisted with Eliot's theory of objective correlative Emotion is not to be expressent directly in a poem. It is only expressed through a set of objects, a situation and a chain of events. Similarly, the poet is not concerned with the direct statement of thought. But it is concerned only with an emotional equivalent of thought.However, Eliot has analysed the process of poetic creativity in his essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent" to a great extent. Feelings, sensations, emotions and thoughts are to be regarded as the materials for poetry in his conception of poetic process. Eliot has expressed it in a logical manner. But we may not convince with him from top to bottom. He advocates objectivity in good poem. But we may have many poems without objectivity. They are excellent.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

Tradition and Individual Talent" is one of the best achievements of T.S. Eliot. It is the outcome of his extensive study and reading. This critical essay bears a special significance and may be the guideline for the budding writers. T.S. Eliot is considered to be the greatest critic of the age. He is the Napoleon of English Literature. He has been compared with Aristotle. He observes that English criticism was in a chaotic situation. However, Eliot wanted to bring a historical change in the field of English literary criticism. He also hoped to mend some wrong concepts and ideas of the writers and artists. In this essay, Eliot has shown some ways and paths for the newcomers in literature. He ventures lessons to the budding writers. Eliot says that 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. So here a point is quite clear that the artist must have historical sense. This historical sense is called the sense of tradition. The sense of tradition is not achieved so easily. It is acquired with a painstaking endeavour. Actually, tradition cannot be inherited. A poet must be aware of the pastness of the past. But the blind following is not to be allowed. Eliot says that novelty or newness is better than repetition. A writer should have an authority. He should be conformed to the external authority. The historical sense is what makes a writer traditional. It also makes the writer most acutely and sharply conscious of his place in his own contemporary period. So the historical sense as well as the fondness of tradition can make a good writer.Eliot has regarded the whole literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day as a single trend of literature. He declares that the poet should have conformity to the tradition. A writer will not be limited within his own literature and culture. He will be acquainted with that of others. He has to make reconciliation between tradition and individual talent.Another lesson is given by Eliot to the budding writer. It is the theory of impersonality in poetry. In the impersonal theory of Eliot, he has said that a poet's personality must not be reflected into his poetry. The poet should be aloof from his writings. In this respect, Eliot has given an analogy. He argues that in the reaction between sulphur dioxide and oxygen, the platinum fulminet works as a catalyst. After the reaction, sulphurus acid is produced but the catalyst remains unchanged. No trace of the catalyst is found in the products. Eliot has compared the poet's mind to a catalyst. Now we may question how a poet's personality can be aloof from his poetry. Actually, the poet must expose the personality of readers in his poems. The personality of the poet should be that of the readers. In this regard, Eliot says--"The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality."In fact, the poet cannot achieve this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done.Wordsworth's theory of poetry is regarded as an inexact formula by Eliot. His definition of poetry is severely attacked and criticism. Eliot says that not the question of emotion but concentration of mind is a must in writing poetry. He believes that a poet's feelings will never come into his poems. It is not the expression of emotion but an escape from emotion. Eliot opines that emotion and feelings are not the same things. They have difference. But Wordsworth has mingled them. According to Eliot, a good poet should be conscious of them.Like a classicist, Eliot has said that uncontrolled feelings can never produce ordered literature. He thinks that such kind of feeling only produces chaotic literature. So a poet or a writer should be conscious of the pastness of the past and also its presence. Both the past and the present are modified by each other. As the past is altered by the present, the present is also modified by the past. Thus both the past and the present are reciprocated. A poet must have the knowledge of the contemporary literary trend. He always should be conscious of his contemporary literary trend. He always should be conscious of his composition. He should not act as a bad poet. A bad poet is usually unconscious where ought to be conscious and conscious where he ought to be unconscious.Eliot says that a good poet should not be the most scholarly. A good poet must have learning from the past. The conscious reading or acquaintance of the past can make him a good poet. In this respect, Eliot has drawn an example. He says that Shakespeare learnt more only from Plutarch that most people could learn from the whole British Museum. Shakespeare is also indebted to Homer, Chaucer, and even Thomas Kyd. He has become Shakespeare only for the extensive study of the past. So a rising writer should follow example. He should learn from it.A critic should criticise the poetry of a poet but not the poet himself. He must criticise honestly and sincerely. In this respect, Eliot says--"Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry."Thus he has shown what a writer should do and should not do. As a teacher of the poets, critics and writers, Eliot has given some lessons to the budding writers.However, Eliot says that a constant and continual awareness of tradition is important and necessary for a poet. He also says that a critic should be sincere in criticism. In this way, he gives some lessons to the budding writers. He advises them to a great extent.

How does Eliot advise the would be writer in his critical essay "Tradition and Individual Talent"

Literaturemini | October 16, 2018 | 0 comments

Tradition and Individual Talent" is one of the best achievements of T.S. Eliot. It is the outcome of his extensive study and reading. This critical essay bears a special significance and may be the guideline for the budding writers. T.S. Eliot is considered to be the greatest critic of the age. He is the Napoleon of English Literature. He has been compared with Aristotle. He observes that English criticism was in a chaotic situation. However, Eliot wanted to bring a historical change in the field of English literary criticism. He also hoped to mend some wrong concepts and ideas of the writers and artists. In this essay, Eliot has shown some ways and paths for the newcomers in literature. He ventures lessons to the budding writers. Eliot says that 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. So here a point is quite clear that the artist must have historical sense. This historical sense is called the sense of tradition. The sense of tradition is not achieved so easily. It is acquired with a painstaking endeavour. Actually, tradition cannot be inherited. A poet must be aware of the pastness of the past. But the blind following is not to be allowed. Eliot says that novelty or newness is better than repetition. A writer should have an authority. He should be conformed to the external authority. The historical sense is what makes a writer traditional. It also makes the writer most acutely and sharply conscious of his place in his own contemporary period. So the historical sense as well as the fondness of tradition can make a good writer.Eliot has regarded the whole literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day as a single trend of literature. He declares that the poet should have conformity to the tradition. A writer will not be limited within his own literature and culture. He will be acquainted with that of others. He has to make reconciliation between tradition and individual talent.Another lesson is given by Eliot to the budding writer. It is the theory of impersonality in poetry. In the impersonal theory of Eliot, he has said that a poet's personality must not be reflected into his poetry. The poet should be aloof from his writings. In this respect, Eliot has given an analogy. He argues that in the reaction between sulphur dioxide and oxygen, the platinum fulminet works as a catalyst. After the reaction, sulphurus acid is produced but the catalyst remains unchanged. No trace of the catalyst is found in the products. Eliot has compared the poet's mind to a catalyst. Now we may question how a poet's personality can be aloof from his poetry. Actually, the poet must expose the personality of readers in his poems. The personality of the poet should be that of the readers. In this regard, Eliot says--"The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality."In fact, the poet cannot achieve this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done.Wordsworth's theory of poetry is regarded as an inexact formula by Eliot. His definition of poetry is severely attacked and criticism. Eliot says that not the question of emotion but concentration of mind is a must in writing poetry. He believes that a poet's feelings will never come into his poems. It is not the expression of emotion but an escape from emotion. Eliot opines that emotion and feelings are not the same things. They have difference. But Wordsworth has mingled them. According to Eliot, a good poet should be conscious of them.Like a classicist, Eliot has said that uncontrolled feelings can never produce ordered literature. He thinks that such kind of feeling only produces chaotic literature. So a poet or a writer should be conscious of the pastness of the past and also its presence. Both the past and the present are modified by each other. As the past is altered by the present, the present is also modified by the past. Thus both the past and the present are reciprocated. A poet must have the knowledge of the contemporary literary trend. He always should be conscious of his contemporary literary trend. He always should be conscious of his composition. He should not act as a bad poet. A bad poet is usually unconscious where ought to be conscious and conscious where he ought to be unconscious.Eliot says that a good poet should not be the most scholarly. A good poet must have learning from the past. The conscious reading or acquaintance of the past can make him a good poet. In this respect, Eliot has drawn an example. He says that Shakespeare learnt more only from Plutarch that most people could learn from the whole British Museum. Shakespeare is also indebted to Homer, Chaucer, and even Thomas Kyd. He has become Shakespeare only for the extensive study of the past. So a rising writer should follow example. He should learn from it.A critic should criticise the poetry of a poet but not the poet himself. He must criticise honestly and sincerely. In this respect, Eliot says--"Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry."Thus he has shown what a writer should do and should not do. As a teacher of the poets, critics and writers, Eliot has given some lessons to the budding writers.However, Eliot says that a constant and continual awareness of tradition is important and necessary for a poet. He also says that a critic should be sincere in criticism. In this way, he gives some lessons to the budding writers. He advises them to a great extent.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

What is Eliot's theory of poetry? How does it differ from Wordsworth's?

Eliot's theory of poetry

T.S. Eliot is the most influential poet and critic in the Modern Age. He has explained the process of poetic creativity in his essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent" . He ventures to give his own theory of poetry while criticising the poetic theory of Wordsworth. He considers Wordsworth's definition of poetry as an inexact formula. His rejection of this theory betrays his attitude as a classic critic. Eliot believes that the poet is a medium of expression. The poet must be objective in his poetic creation. So Eliot rejects the theory of poetry of Wordsworth. He declares that "emotions recollected in tranquility" is an inexact formula. He points out that in the process of poetic composition, there is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor tranquility. In the poetic process, there is only concentration of a number of experiences. 

New thing results from this concentration. This process of concentration is neither conscious nor deliberate. It is a passive one. There are elements which are conscious and deliberate in the poetic process. There is a difference between a good and a bad poet. A bad poet is conscious where he should be unconscious. Again he is unconscious where he should be conscious. It is this consciousness of the wrong kind which makes a poem personal. Whereas every mature art must be impersonal. It seems that in the theory of poetic process, emotion is given place inferior to thought and feelings. This is clearly opposite to Wordsworth's definition of poetry. In this respect, Eliot says-- "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. "The emotion of poetry is different from personal emotion of the poet. His personal emotions may be simple or crude. But the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined. It is the mistaken notion that the poet must express new emotions resulting in much eccentricity in poetry. It is not the business od the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotions. But he must impart to them a new significance and a new meaning. It is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions. Even emoe which he has never personally experienced can serve the purpose of poetry. Emotion can best be expressed through an objective correlative. Eliot next compares the poet's mind to a jar or container in which numberless feelings, emotions etc. are stored. These feelings and emotions remain there in an unorganised and chaotic from. They stay there till all the particles are present together. Thus poetry is an organisation rather than inspiration. The greatness of a poem does not depend upon the greatness or even the intensity of the emotions. This depends upon the intensity of the process of poetic composition. Eliot argues that a chemical reaction takes place under pressure. Similarly, the intensity is needed for the fusion of emotions. The more intense the poetic process, the greater the poem. 

There is always a difference between the artistic emotion and personal emotions of the poet. For example, the famous "Ode to a Nightingale" of Keats contains a number of emotions which have nothing to do with the Nightingale. The difference between art and the event is always absolute. The poet has no personality to express. He is merely a medium in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and expected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man find no place in his poetry. Those which become important in the poetry may have no significance for the man. Eliot thus rejects romantic subjectivism. The personality of the poet does not find expression in his poetry. It acts as a catalyst in the process of poetic creativity. The experiences which enter the poetic process may be of two kinds. They are emotions and feelings. Poetry may be composed out of emotions only. It can be written out of feelings only. It may also be composed out of both emotions and feelings. However, Eliot believes that it is not the business of the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotion but he must impart to them a new significance and a new meaning. It is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions. 

In this point, Eliot has criticised Wordsworth's theory of poetry. He rejects his theory of poetry, "emotion recollected in tranquility". His rejection of this theory betrays his attidude as a classic critic. He has talked about his theory of impersonality. But it is not wholly true. We feel the thrill that Wordsworth feels in "Tintern Abbey". Every man of inner sight may also enjoy it.

What is Eliot's theory of poetry? How does it differ from Wordsworth's?

Literaturemini | October 15, 2018 | 0 comments

Eliot's theory of poetry

T.S. Eliot is the most influential poet and critic in the Modern Age. He has explained the process of poetic creativity in his essay, "Tradition and Individual Talent" . He ventures to give his own theory of poetry while criticising the poetic theory of Wordsworth. He considers Wordsworth's definition of poetry as an inexact formula. His rejection of this theory betrays his attitude as a classic critic. Eliot believes that the poet is a medium of expression. The poet must be objective in his poetic creation. So Eliot rejects the theory of poetry of Wordsworth. He declares that "emotions recollected in tranquility" is an inexact formula. He points out that in the process of poetic composition, there is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor tranquility. In the poetic process, there is only concentration of a number of experiences. 

New thing results from this concentration. This process of concentration is neither conscious nor deliberate. It is a passive one. There are elements which are conscious and deliberate in the poetic process. There is a difference between a good and a bad poet. A bad poet is conscious where he should be unconscious. Again he is unconscious where he should be conscious. It is this consciousness of the wrong kind which makes a poem personal. Whereas every mature art must be impersonal. It seems that in the theory of poetic process, emotion is given place inferior to thought and feelings. This is clearly opposite to Wordsworth's definition of poetry. In this respect, Eliot says-- "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. "The emotion of poetry is different from personal emotion of the poet. His personal emotions may be simple or crude. But the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined. It is the mistaken notion that the poet must express new emotions resulting in much eccentricity in poetry. It is not the business od the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotions. But he must impart to them a new significance and a new meaning. It is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions. Even emoe which he has never personally experienced can serve the purpose of poetry. Emotion can best be expressed through an objective correlative. Eliot next compares the poet's mind to a jar or container in which numberless feelings, emotions etc. are stored. These feelings and emotions remain there in an unorganised and chaotic from. They stay there till all the particles are present together. Thus poetry is an organisation rather than inspiration. The greatness of a poem does not depend upon the greatness or even the intensity of the emotions. This depends upon the intensity of the process of poetic composition. Eliot argues that a chemical reaction takes place under pressure. Similarly, the intensity is needed for the fusion of emotions. The more intense the poetic process, the greater the poem. 

There is always a difference between the artistic emotion and personal emotions of the poet. For example, the famous "Ode to a Nightingale" of Keats contains a number of emotions which have nothing to do with the Nightingale. The difference between art and the event is always absolute. The poet has no personality to express. He is merely a medium in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and expected ways. Impressions and experiences which are important for the man find no place in his poetry. Those which become important in the poetry may have no significance for the man. Eliot thus rejects romantic subjectivism. The personality of the poet does not find expression in his poetry. It acts as a catalyst in the process of poetic creativity. The experiences which enter the poetic process may be of two kinds. They are emotions and feelings. Poetry may be composed out of emotions only. It can be written out of feelings only. It may also be composed out of both emotions and feelings. However, Eliot believes that it is not the business of the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotion but he must impart to them a new significance and a new meaning. It is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions. 

In this point, Eliot has criticised Wordsworth's theory of poetry. He rejects his theory of poetry, "emotion recollected in tranquility". His rejection of this theory betrays his attidude as a classic critic. He has talked about his theory of impersonality. But it is not wholly true. We feel the thrill that Wordsworth feels in "Tintern Abbey". Every man of inner sight may also enjoy it.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

Discuss Eliot's view of poetry as an "escape from emotion"?

Eliot's view of poetry as an "escape from emotion"

Thomas Stearns Eliot is an intellectual giant of English criticism. He has given a very remarkable theory of impersonality in poetry in his revolutionary critical essay, " Tradition and Individual Talent ". Discuss about  escape from emotion. Impersonality means a writer's own escape from emotion should not be reflected into his own poetry. It is not the expression of his personality but an escape from the personality. Just to achieve this quality, the poet must achieve historical sense or the sense of tradition. This historical sense should be achieved through hardship. A poet should not only know about his own tradition but also he should be acquainted with outer tradition. Then he will be able to sacrifice his personality in his poetry. A good poet is always conscious where he ought to be. He is not conscious where he ought not to be. Personality is the feelings or emotions of a poet. Eliot believes that concentration, not emotion is essential in writing poetry. According to Eliot, the personality of a poet should not be expressed through his poetry. He will write poetry on the basis of historical sense or the sense of tradition. But his feelings or his personality must be untouched. Just to clarify this point, Eliot has drawn an analogy. In the reaction between sulphur dioxide and oxygen, platinum filament does the function of a catalyst. After the reaction, we get sulphurous acid. But the shreds of platinum remain unchanged. Besides, sulphurous acid does not get any traits of the catalyst. Eliot wants to say that the poet plays the role of a catalyst in writing poetry. Like the shreds of platinum, the personality of a poet should not be expressed into his poem. In analysing his theory of depersonalisation, Eliot severely attacks Wordsworth's theory of poetry. Wordsworth defines poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it lakes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity".  

Eliot says that the emotion of a poet must be guarded because the unguarded emotion may produce chaotic literature. Moreover, he says that not emotion but concentration of mind is a must in writing good poetry. In this respect, he says-"In fact, the bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious." Thus we find that Eliot has given emphasis on impersonality in writing good poetry. So he rejects Wordsworth's theory of poetry. He regards "emotion recollected in tranquility" as an inexact formula. It seems that in the theory of poetic process, emotion is given place inferior to thought and feelings. This is clearly opposite to Wordsworth's definition of poetry. In this respect, Eliot says--"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. "The emotions of poetry is different from personal emotions of the poet. His personal emotions may be simple or crude. But the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined.  

It is the mistaken notion that the poet must express new emotions resulting in much--19eccentricity in poetry. It is not the business of the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotions. But he must impart to then a new significance and a new meaning. It is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions. Even emotions which he has never personally experienced can serve the purpose of poetry. Emotion can best be expressed through an objective correlative When Eliot deals with a universal appeal, he turns into a classicist. He declares that a poet should have a standard. He argues that a citizen has to give his allegiance to his country. Similarly, an officer should give his allegiance to his authority. So a poet has to give his allegiance to a specific standard. Without a model, no one can produce good literature. Chaotic literature is always produced by the uncontrolled thoughts. Besides, Eliot further says that no poet or no artist has any real value unless we set him among the past poets or artists. So a poet should have a model before him. But Eliot further forbids a poet imitate his predecessor blindly. In this respect, blind imitation can always echo the inner personality of a poet. Eliot says that personality of the poet should not come in his poems. It may seem to us very much contradictory because a poet is never devoid of personality. According to Eliot, personality means the poet's own particular feeling or personal prejudice. He means to say that the feeling which will be reflected in the poems of a poet should be of every man. It should have universal appeal. 

For example, when we study Shakespeare's dramas, we feel that they are not of the particular age or the particular society. They are of every society and every man. They have got universal appeal. Thus we may say that Shakespeare has sacrificed his own personality in the guillotine of the universal appeal. Thus Eliot tries to prove that the emotion of art is impersonal in "Tradition and Individual Talent". He disagrees with the poetic theory of Wordsworth. He does not believe that poetry is a turning loose of emotion. But he considers poetry as an escape from emotion. He discourages the personality of a poet to express. He thinks that the role of a poet is like a catalyst in writing poetry. But we find that Eliot's theory of impersonality is limited to a certain extent. His criticism of Wordsworth's theory of poetry is not wholly true. In this respect, we may feel the thrill that Wordsworth feels in " Tintern Abbey". Every man of inner sight may also enjoy it. But we cannot deny that Eliot's theory of impersonality is of immense value too.

Discuss Eliot's view of poetry as an "escape from emotion"?

Literaturemini | October 14, 2018 | 0 comments

Eliot's view of poetry as an "escape from emotion"

Thomas Stearns Eliot is an intellectual giant of English criticism. He has given a very remarkable theory of impersonality in poetry in his revolutionary critical essay, " Tradition and Individual Talent ". Discuss about  escape from emotion. Impersonality means a writer's own escape from emotion should not be reflected into his own poetry. It is not the expression of his personality but an escape from the personality. Just to achieve this quality, the poet must achieve historical sense or the sense of tradition. This historical sense should be achieved through hardship. A poet should not only know about his own tradition but also he should be acquainted with outer tradition. Then he will be able to sacrifice his personality in his poetry. A good poet is always conscious where he ought to be. He is not conscious where he ought not to be. Personality is the feelings or emotions of a poet. Eliot believes that concentration, not emotion is essential in writing poetry. According to Eliot, the personality of a poet should not be expressed through his poetry. He will write poetry on the basis of historical sense or the sense of tradition. But his feelings or his personality must be untouched. Just to clarify this point, Eliot has drawn an analogy. In the reaction between sulphur dioxide and oxygen, platinum filament does the function of a catalyst. After the reaction, we get sulphurous acid. But the shreds of platinum remain unchanged. Besides, sulphurous acid does not get any traits of the catalyst. Eliot wants to say that the poet plays the role of a catalyst in writing poetry. Like the shreds of platinum, the personality of a poet should not be expressed into his poem. In analysing his theory of depersonalisation, Eliot severely attacks Wordsworth's theory of poetry. Wordsworth defines poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it lakes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity".  

Eliot says that the emotion of a poet must be guarded because the unguarded emotion may produce chaotic literature. Moreover, he says that not emotion but concentration of mind is a must in writing good poetry. In this respect, he says-"In fact, the bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious." Thus we find that Eliot has given emphasis on impersonality in writing good poetry. So he rejects Wordsworth's theory of poetry. He regards "emotion recollected in tranquility" as an inexact formula. It seems that in the theory of poetic process, emotion is given place inferior to thought and feelings. This is clearly opposite to Wordsworth's definition of poetry. In this respect, Eliot says--"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. "The emotions of poetry is different from personal emotions of the poet. His personal emotions may be simple or crude. But the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined.  

It is the mistaken notion that the poet must express new emotions resulting in much--19eccentricity in poetry. It is not the business of the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotions. But he must impart to then a new significance and a new meaning. It is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions. Even emotions which he has never personally experienced can serve the purpose of poetry. Emotion can best be expressed through an objective correlative When Eliot deals with a universal appeal, he turns into a classicist. He declares that a poet should have a standard. He argues that a citizen has to give his allegiance to his country. Similarly, an officer should give his allegiance to his authority. So a poet has to give his allegiance to a specific standard. Without a model, no one can produce good literature. Chaotic literature is always produced by the uncontrolled thoughts. Besides, Eliot further says that no poet or no artist has any real value unless we set him among the past poets or artists. So a poet should have a model before him. But Eliot further forbids a poet imitate his predecessor blindly. In this respect, blind imitation can always echo the inner personality of a poet. Eliot says that personality of the poet should not come in his poems. It may seem to us very much contradictory because a poet is never devoid of personality. According to Eliot, personality means the poet's own particular feeling or personal prejudice. He means to say that the feeling which will be reflected in the poems of a poet should be of every man. It should have universal appeal. 

For example, when we study Shakespeare's dramas, we feel that they are not of the particular age or the particular society. They are of every society and every man. They have got universal appeal. Thus we may say that Shakespeare has sacrificed his own personality in the guillotine of the universal appeal. Thus Eliot tries to prove that the emotion of art is impersonal in "Tradition and Individual Talent". He disagrees with the poetic theory of Wordsworth. He does not believe that poetry is a turning loose of emotion. But he considers poetry as an escape from emotion. He discourages the personality of a poet to express. He thinks that the role of a poet is like a catalyst in writing poetry. But we find that Eliot's theory of impersonality is limited to a certain extent. His criticism of Wordsworth's theory of poetry is not wholly true. In this respect, we may feel the thrill that Wordsworth feels in " Tintern Abbey". Every man of inner sight may also enjoy it. But we cannot deny that Eliot's theory of impersonality is of immense value too.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

What does Eliot mean by "Tradition"? What is its importance to the poet and the artist?

Importance to the poet and the artist

T.S. Eliot is the most influential poet and critic in the Modern Age. He tries to define 'tradition' in his revolutionary essay, " Tradition and Individual Talent". He thinks that tradition depends on the complete realisation of historical sense. Tradition involves a historical sense which enables a poet to perceive the importance of past and present. It cannot be achieved easily. It is obtained through hard labour. It is very important to the poet and the artist. Historical sense makes a writer traditional. A man of historical sense feels that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day including the literature of his own country forms one continuous literary tradition. Eliot says that in English literature and criticism, the word, 'tradition' is scarcely is used. We often apply the word for its absence in order to express our grief. In this respect, Eliot says-- "In English writing, we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploying its absence ."We cannot make a reference to 'the tradition' or to 'a tradition'. We often employ the adjective from of the word. We say that the poetry of so-and-so is 'traditional' or even 'too traditional ". Tradition is generally used as a word of censure. If the contrary happens, it is used in an approbative sense. It applies to the word approved in the same sense as we approve some archeological reconstruction in a pleasing and curious way. Tradition is not considered in a pleasing manner to the Englishman. An English man does not study a creative work in the context of a wider literary tradition. He does not give due weight and consideration to tradition. If tradition is used in a negative way, the present poets are regarded in a worthy manner rather than the past poets. It is not likely to appear in appreciating and evaluating the living and deas poets. Eliot thinks that the prejudice of 'individual talent' proves negligence and indifference to tradition. But the individually talent and tradition go together hand in hand. They are not isolated from each other.

Tradition does not follow the ways of the immediate generations blindly. Such currents soon die. Novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is of greater significance and importance. It cannot be inherited. It can be obtained with great labour. In this respect, Eliot defines 'tradition' in the following way--"Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. "He believes that tradition involves a historical sense. So it becomes a matter of much wider significance. It is not a matter to inherit from our predecessors. Nor it can be easily acquired. If anyone wants to have it, he must have to labour hard. To obtain it, one have the historical sense. It means that a poet or a writer must know the past writers. The historical sense involves a perception not only of the pastness of the past but also of its presence. A poet or a writer has to have a conception about the literature beginning from Homer down to his own time. Therefore, to acquire such a wide consciousness of history, one requires great labour. Thus tradition can only be attained with a painstaking and hard labour. Eliot does not define 'tradition' as a mere adherence to the past or as the slavish imitation of the great poets of the past. A poet is not necessary to frieghten in this respect. Of course, he must have vast knowledge to be a great poet. But it often seems to be impossible. Many critics might have opposed this theory. They think that such great labour will ultimately deaden the sensibility of the artists or poets. 

But T.S. Eliot wants to say that the poet should continually develop his awareness of the past undergoing this labour. Historical sense inspires a writer to develop the sense of tradition. This does not also mean that the poet should know only a few poets whom he admires. This is a sign of immaturity and inexperience. A poet should not be content merely to know some particular age or period which he likes. This may be pleasant and delightful. But it will not constitute a sense of tradition. A sense of tradition in the real sense means consciousness of the main current which does not all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. The poet must possess the critical gift in ample measure. He must also realise that the main literary trends are not determined by the poets alone. Smaller poets are also significant. They are not to be ignored. However, we know that tradition is a historical scheme made up of formal, stylistic and ideological attributes common to a large number of works over long time. It generally implies a casual connection linking individual works. But Eliot considers tradition as a gift of historical sense. Tradition in the widest sense signifies consciousness of the past. It implies a recognition of the continuity of literature. It has greater significance and importance to the poet and the artist who want to exercise aesthetic arts.

What does Eliot mean by "Tradition"? What is its importance to the poet and the artist?

Literaturemini | October 14, 2018 | 0 comments

Importance to the poet and the artist

T.S. Eliot is the most influential poet and critic in the Modern Age. He tries to define 'tradition' in his revolutionary essay, " Tradition and Individual Talent". He thinks that tradition depends on the complete realisation of historical sense. Tradition involves a historical sense which enables a poet to perceive the importance of past and present. It cannot be achieved easily. It is obtained through hard labour. It is very important to the poet and the artist. Historical sense makes a writer traditional. A man of historical sense feels that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day including the literature of his own country forms one continuous literary tradition. Eliot says that in English literature and criticism, the word, 'tradition' is scarcely is used. We often apply the word for its absence in order to express our grief. In this respect, Eliot says-- "In English writing, we seldom speak of tradition, though we occasionally apply its name in deploying its absence ."We cannot make a reference to 'the tradition' or to 'a tradition'. We often employ the adjective from of the word. We say that the poetry of so-and-so is 'traditional' or even 'too traditional ". Tradition is generally used as a word of censure. If the contrary happens, it is used in an approbative sense. It applies to the word approved in the same sense as we approve some archeological reconstruction in a pleasing and curious way. Tradition is not considered in a pleasing manner to the Englishman. An English man does not study a creative work in the context of a wider literary tradition. He does not give due weight and consideration to tradition. If tradition is used in a negative way, the present poets are regarded in a worthy manner rather than the past poets. It is not likely to appear in appreciating and evaluating the living and deas poets. Eliot thinks that the prejudice of 'individual talent' proves negligence and indifference to tradition. But the individually talent and tradition go together hand in hand. They are not isolated from each other.

Tradition does not follow the ways of the immediate generations blindly. Such currents soon die. Novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is of greater significance and importance. It cannot be inherited. It can be obtained with great labour. In this respect, Eliot defines 'tradition' in the following way--"Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. "He believes that tradition involves a historical sense. So it becomes a matter of much wider significance. It is not a matter to inherit from our predecessors. Nor it can be easily acquired. If anyone wants to have it, he must have to labour hard. To obtain it, one have the historical sense. It means that a poet or a writer must know the past writers. The historical sense involves a perception not only of the pastness of the past but also of its presence. A poet or a writer has to have a conception about the literature beginning from Homer down to his own time. Therefore, to acquire such a wide consciousness of history, one requires great labour. Thus tradition can only be attained with a painstaking and hard labour. Eliot does not define 'tradition' as a mere adherence to the past or as the slavish imitation of the great poets of the past. A poet is not necessary to frieghten in this respect. Of course, he must have vast knowledge to be a great poet. But it often seems to be impossible. Many critics might have opposed this theory. They think that such great labour will ultimately deaden the sensibility of the artists or poets. 

But T.S. Eliot wants to say that the poet should continually develop his awareness of the past undergoing this labour. Historical sense inspires a writer to develop the sense of tradition. This does not also mean that the poet should know only a few poets whom he admires. This is a sign of immaturity and inexperience. A poet should not be content merely to know some particular age or period which he likes. This may be pleasant and delightful. But it will not constitute a sense of tradition. A sense of tradition in the real sense means consciousness of the main current which does not all flow invariably through the most distinguished reputations. The poet must possess the critical gift in ample measure. He must also realise that the main literary trends are not determined by the poets alone. Smaller poets are also significant. They are not to be ignored. However, we know that tradition is a historical scheme made up of formal, stylistic and ideological attributes common to a large number of works over long time. It generally implies a casual connection linking individual works. But Eliot considers tradition as a gift of historical sense. Tradition in the widest sense signifies consciousness of the past. It implies a recognition of the continuity of literature. It has greater significance and importance to the poet and the artist who want to exercise aesthetic arts.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

Write a critical note on Eliot's classicism?

A critical note on Eliot's classicism

Thomas Stearns Eliot is often called the English Aristotle. He is also called the Napoleon of English criticism. He finds that English criticism was in a chaotic situation. He wishes that English criticism should be ordered and disciplined. Eliot's classicism!! According to F.R. Leavis , Eliot has not only refined the conception and method of English criticism but also put into currency decisive reorganising and reorientating ideas and valuations. Actually, Eliot himself declared in 1928, he was a royalist in politics, an Anglo-Catholic in religion and a classicist in literature. But this declaration raised an immediate hue and cry. It obviously proves and establishes Eliot as a classicist in literature. The Romantic method of criticism seems to Eliot as a sort of haphazard and disordered criticism. Romantic criticism lacks order and discipline. Eliot is shocked at this and ventures to bring order in criticism. Romantic criticism does not adhere to any standard. It depends on the writer's personal or individual talent: But Eliot declares that criticism must be ordered and it must have a standard. Without a rudder, a ship may be wrecked. In the same manner, criticism can never be ordered or disciplined without a standard .Eliot as a classicist believes in the allegiance to a particular standard. He argues that a citizen has to pay his allegiance to his state. Similarly, a classicist must be alleged to a sound standard. Without a standard, no sound literature is produced. Uncontrolled emotions or impulses always produce chaotic literature. Eliot considers the whole European literature from Homer to the Modern Age as a single tradition literature . According to Eliot, a classicist must have historical sense. He must know about his antiquity and his contemporaneity. This historical sense is known as tradition. But the sense of tradition can never be achieved automatically or without any endeavour. It is achieved through hard labour. A good poet should study his own literary poets or writers. He should also study the poets and writers of the other lands. Though many people censure tradition, they can never avoid it. Sometimes many modern poets boastfully say that they know more than the ancient poets. Actually, they know what the ancient poets were. Moreover, even the most individual part of a writer's writing was touched more vigorously and more powerfully than the modern writer. So none can avid antiquity. We may cite an example in this connection. Shakespeare achieves many things from Homer, Seneca, Chaucer and even Thomas Kyd.

Eliot's theory of impersonality also establishes himself as a classicist. While giving his impersonal theory, Eliot has severely criticised Wordsworth's theory of poetry. Wordsworth defines poetry in the following way-- "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. "In this respect, Eliot argues that not the question of emotion but concentration of mind is a must in writing poetry. He believes that a poet's feelings will never come into his poems. It is not the expression of emotion but an escape from emotion. In order to analyse his theory of impersonality, Eliot has drawn an analogy. He compares the personality of a poet to a shred of platinum. In the reaction between sulphur dioxide and oxygen, platinum filament is used as a catalyst. After the reaction, sulpheurus acid is produced. But platinum remains unchanged. 

Moreover, no feature of platinum comes into the product. Again without platinum, this reaction cannot even go on. So the personality of a poet is like a catalyst. It will not be exposed through his writing. But his product will be nourished by it. But this theory invokes a volley of criticism. It is contradictory even with Eliot. According to his theory of 'unification of sensibility', it is said that thoughts and feelings should be fusioned together. Eliot does not regard Browning as a great poet as his poems do not have the unification of sensibility. Actually, it goes to the theory of 'dissociation of sensibility'. Thus Eliot himself fails to maintain his impersonal theory. In conclusion, we may say that Eliot's impersonal theory has limitations. Yet it proves him to be a classicist. His advocacy in favour of the sense of tradition may lend weight to the view that Eliot is a classicist. Actually, there is no poet-critic in England literature achieving a permanent seat among eminent Dryden, Johnson, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold except Eliot. Eliot is obviously a prolific and voluminous classicist. But in some cases, he cannot surpass the boundary of romanticism.

Write a critical note on Eliot's classicism?

Literaturemini | October 13, 2018 | 0 comments

A critical note on Eliot's classicism

Thomas Stearns Eliot is often called the English Aristotle. He is also called the Napoleon of English criticism. He finds that English criticism was in a chaotic situation. He wishes that English criticism should be ordered and disciplined. Eliot's classicism!! According to F.R. Leavis , Eliot has not only refined the conception and method of English criticism but also put into currency decisive reorganising and reorientating ideas and valuations. Actually, Eliot himself declared in 1928, he was a royalist in politics, an Anglo-Catholic in religion and a classicist in literature. But this declaration raised an immediate hue and cry. It obviously proves and establishes Eliot as a classicist in literature. The Romantic method of criticism seems to Eliot as a sort of haphazard and disordered criticism. Romantic criticism lacks order and discipline. Eliot is shocked at this and ventures to bring order in criticism. Romantic criticism does not adhere to any standard. It depends on the writer's personal or individual talent: But Eliot declares that criticism must be ordered and it must have a standard. Without a rudder, a ship may be wrecked. In the same manner, criticism can never be ordered or disciplined without a standard .Eliot as a classicist believes in the allegiance to a particular standard. He argues that a citizen has to pay his allegiance to his state. Similarly, a classicist must be alleged to a sound standard. Without a standard, no sound literature is produced. Uncontrolled emotions or impulses always produce chaotic literature. Eliot considers the whole European literature from Homer to the Modern Age as a single tradition literature . According to Eliot, a classicist must have historical sense. He must know about his antiquity and his contemporaneity. This historical sense is known as tradition. But the sense of tradition can never be achieved automatically or without any endeavour. It is achieved through hard labour. A good poet should study his own literary poets or writers. He should also study the poets and writers of the other lands. Though many people censure tradition, they can never avoid it. Sometimes many modern poets boastfully say that they know more than the ancient poets. Actually, they know what the ancient poets were. Moreover, even the most individual part of a writer's writing was touched more vigorously and more powerfully than the modern writer. So none can avid antiquity. We may cite an example in this connection. Shakespeare achieves many things from Homer, Seneca, Chaucer and even Thomas Kyd.

Eliot's theory of impersonality also establishes himself as a classicist. While giving his impersonal theory, Eliot has severely criticised Wordsworth's theory of poetry. Wordsworth defines poetry in the following way-- "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility. "In this respect, Eliot argues that not the question of emotion but concentration of mind is a must in writing poetry. He believes that a poet's feelings will never come into his poems. It is not the expression of emotion but an escape from emotion. In order to analyse his theory of impersonality, Eliot has drawn an analogy. He compares the personality of a poet to a shred of platinum. In the reaction between sulphur dioxide and oxygen, platinum filament is used as a catalyst. After the reaction, sulpheurus acid is produced. But platinum remains unchanged. 

Moreover, no feature of platinum comes into the product. Again without platinum, this reaction cannot even go on. So the personality of a poet is like a catalyst. It will not be exposed through his writing. But his product will be nourished by it. But this theory invokes a volley of criticism. It is contradictory even with Eliot. According to his theory of 'unification of sensibility', it is said that thoughts and feelings should be fusioned together. Eliot does not regard Browning as a great poet as his poems do not have the unification of sensibility. Actually, it goes to the theory of 'dissociation of sensibility'. Thus Eliot himself fails to maintain his impersonal theory. In conclusion, we may say that Eliot's impersonal theory has limitations. Yet it proves him to be a classicist. His advocacy in favour of the sense of tradition may lend weight to the view that Eliot is a classicist. Actually, there is no poet-critic in England literature achieving a permanent seat among eminent Dryden, Johnson, Coleridge, Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold except Eliot. Eliot is obviously a prolific and voluminous classicist. But in some cases, he cannot surpass the boundary of romanticism.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

T.S. Eliot as a Classic Poet

T.S. Eliot the celebrated modern poet-critic signifies the importance of the integration of past with present in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. This essay is propounded in his reputed writing The Sacred Wood which established his fame as a critic in the world. The idea of reassessing the past in terms of the present and in terms of the whole of the past gives the reader something new, something arresting, something intellectual and something vital literary conception. T.S. Eliot is influenced by past literature like Greek and Rome and also the poets like Fitzgerald, Donne, Symons, Laforgue, Dante, Baudelaire, Irving Babbit, George Santbutyana, Roshia Joyce, Bergson, Ezra pound, Middleton Murray and others. Eliot's sense of past and tradition are indispensable but these are not to be followed blindly by the present writers or literature. Past should be considered as a matter of wider significance and the timid adherence of it should positively be discouraged. In literature past is not only evaluated for its pastness but of its present, it is not only confined into one generation but the continuation for unlimited times. The past writings and writers in a sense are the criterion for the present writers and writings. Eliot advocates that the deficiencies of past should be excluded and the merits of past should be counted. The significance and appreciation of present writers or artists should be judged and measured with the appreciation and significance of past writers and artists.

T.S. Eliot as a Classic poet  in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent elucidates his theory by examining first, the relation of the poet to the past and secondly the relation of the poem to its author. According to Eliot the past is never dead ; it lives in the present: "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 can not value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead". Again he says, and if we approach a poet with an open mind, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors assert their immortality most vigorously. The dead poets of a country live in the present and we may further state that the poets of one country may live in the poets of another country. The English poets are indebted to classical poets of Greek and Rome and the present Bengali poets are also indebted to past writers. Throughout the whole career of a poet he must develop or procure the consciousness of the past, so there is conformity between the old and the new. The past is altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. The experiment modernist Eliot believes that every age should revalue the literature of the past according to its own standards. From time to time every hundred years or so, it is desirable that some critics shall appear to review the past of our literature, and set the poets and the poems in a new order. This is what he himself has tried to achieve in his career. He has given fresh interpretation of the works of Elizabethan dramatists, the metaphysical poets, the Carolina poets, Milton, the poets of the eighteenth century, the Romantic, Arnold and so on. We can mark in this connection that there is significant difference lies between the theory of neo-classical writers of following the ancients and Eliot's sense of the past.

Eliot's prescription of relation with the past acquires new significance and becomes a living part of the poetic experience transcribed in the poetry. Not only does past clarify the relation between symbol and object, reduce the need for elaboration, and add a dimension to the poem but it is itself altered by relationship and so shown to be a vital force. The present as Eliot means to say, should be judged, not imputed or cut by them. This judgement does not indicate the principal and canons of the critics of the past. It is a judgement and comparison in which two things are measured by each other. To conform merely would be for the new work not really to conform at all. There would be nothing new in it, and it would not be a work of art at all. And we do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fittings in is a test of its value- a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity. The poet must be fully aware of the clear fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same. The difference between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past awareness, of itself cannot show. Some one said that the dead writers were remote from us because we know so much more than they did. In short, it can be said that they are that which we know. The tendency of finding basic differences of a poet with his contemporaries and predecessors is though pleasure for the finders but such tendency is utterly refuted by T.S. Eliot.

In short, in Eliot's sense that the past and the present are mere facets of the same organism and by no means two disparate segments. Eliot's sense of past in relation with present involves his historical sense: and the historical sense involves a perception, the perception of co-relation between past and present: "The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order". Eliot says that a poet should not consider the past as a lump, an indiscriminate bolus, nor can he from himself wholly on one or two private admirations, nor he can form himself wholly upon one preferred period. Eliot further combines the relation of past and present by saying that if we approach a poet without the prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. Thou this essay tradition and the Individual Talent of T.S. Eliot shows the relevancy of past with the present and thus these two times make a integrated whole in the conception of the poet.

T.S. Eliot as a Classic Poet

Literaturemini | August 06, 2018 | 0 comments

T.S. Eliot as a Classic Poet

T.S. Eliot the celebrated modern poet-critic signifies the importance of the integration of past with present in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent. This essay is propounded in his reputed writing The Sacred Wood which established his fame as a critic in the world. The idea of reassessing the past in terms of the present and in terms of the whole of the past gives the reader something new, something arresting, something intellectual and something vital literary conception. T.S. Eliot is influenced by past literature like Greek and Rome and also the poets like Fitzgerald, Donne, Symons, Laforgue, Dante, Baudelaire, Irving Babbit, George Santbutyana, Roshia Joyce, Bergson, Ezra pound, Middleton Murray and others. Eliot's sense of past and tradition are indispensable but these are not to be followed blindly by the present writers or literature. Past should be considered as a matter of wider significance and the timid adherence of it should positively be discouraged. In literature past is not only evaluated for its pastness but of its present, it is not only confined into one generation but the continuation for unlimited times. The past writings and writers in a sense are the criterion for the present writers and writings. Eliot advocates that the deficiencies of past should be excluded and the merits of past should be counted. The significance and appreciation of present writers or artists should be judged and measured with the appreciation and significance of past writers and artists.

T.S. Eliot as a Classic poet  in his essay Tradition and the Individual Talent elucidates his theory by examining first, the relation of the poet to the past and secondly the relation of the poem to its author. According to Eliot the past is never dead ; it lives in the present: "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 can not value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead". Again he says, and if we approach a poet with an open mind, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors assert their immortality most vigorously. The dead poets of a country live in the present and we may further state that the poets of one country may live in the poets of another country. The English poets are indebted to classical poets of Greek and Rome and the present Bengali poets are also indebted to past writers. Throughout the whole career of a poet he must develop or procure the consciousness of the past, so there is conformity between the old and the new. The past is altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. The experiment modernist Eliot believes that every age should revalue the literature of the past according to its own standards. From time to time every hundred years or so, it is desirable that some critics shall appear to review the past of our literature, and set the poets and the poems in a new order. This is what he himself has tried to achieve in his career. He has given fresh interpretation of the works of Elizabethan dramatists, the metaphysical poets, the Carolina poets, Milton, the poets of the eighteenth century, the Romantic, Arnold and so on. We can mark in this connection that there is significant difference lies between the theory of neo-classical writers of following the ancients and Eliot's sense of the past.

Eliot's prescription of relation with the past acquires new significance and becomes a living part of the poetic experience transcribed in the poetry. Not only does past clarify the relation between symbol and object, reduce the need for elaboration, and add a dimension to the poem but it is itself altered by relationship and so shown to be a vital force. The present as Eliot means to say, should be judged, not imputed or cut by them. This judgement does not indicate the principal and canons of the critics of the past. It is a judgement and comparison in which two things are measured by each other. To conform merely would be for the new work not really to conform at all. There would be nothing new in it, and it would not be a work of art at all. And we do not quite say that the new is more valuable because it fits in; but its fittings in is a test of its value- a test, it is true, which can only be slowly and cautiously applied, for we are none of us infallible judges of conformity. The poet must be fully aware of the clear fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same. The difference between the present and the past is that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the past awareness, of itself cannot show. Some one said that the dead writers were remote from us because we know so much more than they did. In short, it can be said that they are that which we know. The tendency of finding basic differences of a poet with his contemporaries and predecessors is though pleasure for the finders but such tendency is utterly refuted by T.S. Eliot.

In short, in Eliot's sense that the past and the present are mere facets of the same organism and by no means two disparate segments. Eliot's sense of past in relation with present involves his historical sense: and the historical sense involves a perception, the perception of co-relation between past and present: "The historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order". Eliot says that a poet should not consider the past as a lump, an indiscriminate bolus, nor can he from himself wholly on one or two private admirations, nor he can form himself wholly upon one preferred period. Eliot further combines the relation of past and present by saying that if we approach a poet without the prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. Thou this essay tradition and the Individual Talent of T.S. Eliot shows the relevancy of past with the present and thus these two times make a integrated whole in the conception of the poet.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

Discuss in details the theory of impersonality in T.S. Eliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent?

The theory of impersonality in T.S. Eliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent

Eliot's impersonal conception of art and the fullest expression of his Classicist attitude towards art and poetry is essentially given by him in his essay tradition and the Individual Talent. Eliot opposes the Romantic conception by advancing his theory of the impersonality in art and opines that the process of depersonalisation is the process of art's creativity. Eliot particularly objected to the great Romantics as well as Victorians who exaggerated the need to express the human personality and subjective feeling so much so that poetry in their hands became a kind of self-worship. The time has come to react against such preponderance of the personality and the emotionality in poetry and to reinvigorate with objective and impersonal attitude. In Tradition and the Individual Talent Eliot spells out what he thinks the ideal of poetry should be. He stresses the ant-Romantic conception of the poetry by saying that, the artistic process is a process of depersonalisation and the artist will surrender himself as he is at the moment which is more valuable. He must surrender himself totally to the creative work: "The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality". This conception of poetry and the poet, is not new in the history of English literature's revolutionised poetry in the 20th century but comes from much earlier times.

Eliot elucidates his theory of impersonality by examining first, the relation of the poet to the past and secondly the relation of the poem to its author. The past, Eliot says, is never dead; it lives in the present: " 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". Above all, the poet or artist has to work in the long established tradition of the literature to which he belongs. We cannot value the poet alone, we must set him for contrast and comparison among the dead poet of his language because- If we approach a poet with an open mind, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his works may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors assert their immortality most vigorously. Therefore, it is quite natural that an individual is significant only so far as he belongs and contributes to a tradition and he is as a person of less importance than as a member of the cumulation. His subjective and personal theory are transmuted beyond recognition so that they enter into new combination, achieve new significance.

In the next part of the theory he examines the relation of the poet to the poem; the poem according to him, has no relation to the poet. The difference, between the mind of a mature poet and, that of an immature one is that of a mature poet has more finely perfected medium in which special, or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combinations. According to Eliot the poet and the poem are two separate things and that the feeling, or emotion, or vision resulting from the poem is something different from the feeling, emotion, vision in the mind of the poet. The art emotion is different from personal emotion. A successful artist is he, who can generalise emotion in the reader's mind while he, himself seems to be unaffected by any emotion. In other words the poet should be passive and impersonal I.e. depersonalised in the experience he describes in the poem.

But this depersonalisation process has to be explained and Eliot brings the analogy of chemical reaction to explain it when oxygen and sulphur-di-oxide are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they from sulphurus acid. This combination takes place only when platinum is present, although the new acid contains no trace of platinum. Platinum is the catalyst that helps the process of chemical reaction, but it itself is apparently unaffected; has remained inert, neutral and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum, it's presence may be necessary for partly or exclusively to operate for the combination of the experience in order to give birth to a piece of poetry. Eliot puts it beautifully:   "......     the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates, the more perfectly will be the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material". Eliot believes that the greatness of the poet does not depend on the greatness of the intensity of the emotions but on the intensity of the artistic process; the pressure under which the fusion takes place. He says that the business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and in working them up in poetry, to express feeling which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him. Eliot rejects Wordsworth's definition of poetry as " emotion recollected in tranquillity ". It is neither emotion; nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning tranquility. The poetic process is a process of concentration, and not recollection of a very great number of experiences, and this concentration, is not conscious or deliberate.

When T.S. Eliot says that 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, he emphasises the same theory of impersonality in art. The emotion of art is impersonal. It has its life in the poem and not in the history of poets. So, honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry. The poet's biography is not to be studied, the structure of the poem and its evocative powers are important. The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to from a new compound are presented together. A poet's work is deliberate and conscious and a poet cannot reach impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. The past and present fuse in his work into a new compound and there is complete depersonalisation of his art.

Discuss in details the theory of impersonality in T.S. Eliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent?

Literaturemini | August 05, 2018 | 3comments

The theory of impersonality in T.S. Eliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent

Eliot's impersonal conception of art and the fullest expression of his Classicist attitude towards art and poetry is essentially given by him in his essay tradition and the Individual Talent. Eliot opposes the Romantic conception by advancing his theory of the impersonality in art and opines that the process of depersonalisation is the process of art's creativity. Eliot particularly objected to the great Romantics as well as Victorians who exaggerated the need to express the human personality and subjective feeling so much so that poetry in their hands became a kind of self-worship. The time has come to react against such preponderance of the personality and the emotionality in poetry and to reinvigorate with objective and impersonal attitude. In Tradition and the Individual Talent Eliot spells out what he thinks the ideal of poetry should be. He stresses the ant-Romantic conception of the poetry by saying that, the artistic process is a process of depersonalisation and the artist will surrender himself as he is at the moment which is more valuable. He must surrender himself totally to the creative work: "The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality". This conception of poetry and the poet, is not new in the history of English literature's revolutionised poetry in the 20th century but comes from much earlier times.

Eliot elucidates his theory of impersonality by examining first, the relation of the poet to the past and secondly the relation of the poem to its author. The past, Eliot says, is never dead; it lives in the present: " 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". Above all, the poet or artist has to work in the long established tradition of the literature to which he belongs. We cannot value the poet alone, we must set him for contrast and comparison among the dead poet of his language because- If we approach a poet with an open mind, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his works may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors assert their immortality most vigorously. Therefore, it is quite natural that an individual is significant only so far as he belongs and contributes to a tradition and he is as a person of less importance than as a member of the cumulation. His subjective and personal theory are transmuted beyond recognition so that they enter into new combination, achieve new significance.

In the next part of the theory he examines the relation of the poet to the poem; the poem according to him, has no relation to the poet. The difference, between the mind of a mature poet and, that of an immature one is that of a mature poet has more finely perfected medium in which special, or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combinations. According to Eliot the poet and the poem are two separate things and that the feeling, or emotion, or vision resulting from the poem is something different from the feeling, emotion, vision in the mind of the poet. The art emotion is different from personal emotion. A successful artist is he, who can generalise emotion in the reader's mind while he, himself seems to be unaffected by any emotion. In other words the poet should be passive and impersonal I.e. depersonalised in the experience he describes in the poem.

But this depersonalisation process has to be explained and Eliot brings the analogy of chemical reaction to explain it when oxygen and sulphur-di-oxide are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they from sulphurus acid. This combination takes place only when platinum is present, although the new acid contains no trace of platinum. Platinum is the catalyst that helps the process of chemical reaction, but it itself is apparently unaffected; has remained inert, neutral and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum, it's presence may be necessary for partly or exclusively to operate for the combination of the experience in order to give birth to a piece of poetry. Eliot puts it beautifully:   "......     the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates, the more perfectly will be the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material". Eliot believes that the greatness of the poet does not depend on the greatness of the intensity of the emotions but on the intensity of the artistic process; the pressure under which the fusion takes place. He says that the business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and in working them up in poetry, to express feeling which are not in actual emotions at all. And emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him. Eliot rejects Wordsworth's definition of poetry as " emotion recollected in tranquillity ". It is neither emotion; nor recollection, nor without distortion of meaning tranquility. The poetic process is a process of concentration, and not recollection of a very great number of experiences, and this concentration, is not conscious or deliberate.

When T.S. Eliot says that 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, he emphasises the same theory of impersonality in art. The emotion of art is impersonal. It has its life in the poem and not in the history of poets. So, honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry. The poet's biography is not to be studied, the structure of the poem and its evocative powers are important. The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to from a new compound are presented together. A poet's work is deliberate and conscious and a poet cannot reach impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. The past and present fuse in his work into a new compound and there is complete depersonalisation of his art.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent

Write a note on Eliot as a classicist in criticism?

Eliot as a classicist in criticism

T.S. Eliot is considered to be the greatest critic of the age; he is the Napoleon of English Literature and has been compared with Aristotle. Leavis observed: "How many critics are there who have made any difference to one--improved one's apparatus, one's equipment, one's efficiency as reader? And he gives Eliot the place as one of the few in the whole history of literary criticism. He affirms that Eliot " has not only refined the conception and methods of criticism, he has put into currency decisive reorganising and reorientating ideas and valuations. "

Eliot's criticism has evoked a lot of criticism both for and against Eliot. Smith parks remarks:" In so far as the importance of a literary figure may be gauged by controversy centred about him, T.S.Eliot must be regarded as the outstanding writer of his half-century". Wimsatt also holds more or less the same view. He says that " when T.S.Eliot announced in 1928 that he was a Royalist in politics, an Anglo Catholic in religion and a Classicist in literature, the reaction was immediate and noisy. The revelation of his political and religious position elicited most of the cat-calls and solemn protests, but his profession of classicism drew its share too, mingled with expressions of honest bewilderment ".

" In English Literature as well as English criticism there is a sound division between classicism and romanticism. Classicism follows the principle of allegiance to Greek and Roman writers; romanticism on the other hand believes in individual liberty and as individual liberty is ingrained in English character, classicism in England can have no standing whatever. Classicism aims at order and beauty. Eliot also wants order in Criticism but he finds that English criticism is "no better than a Sunday park of contending and contentious orators, who have not even arrived at the articulation of their differences". The end of criticism being 'the elucidation of works of art and the correction of taste', here, one would suppose, was a place for quite cooperative labour', with each critic endeavouring to compose his difference with as many of his fellows as possible, in the common pursuit of true judgement. George Watson writers:

Eliot made English criticism look different, but in no simple sense. He offered it a new range of rhetorical possibilities, confirmed it in its increasing contempt for historical processes, and yet reshaped its notion of period by a handful of brilliant intuitions. It is not to be expected that so except and professional an observer of poetry should allow his achievement to be more nearly classified than this."

"Eliot a true classicist like Aristotle and does not follow the Neo-classicist. His theory of impersonal poetry may be criticised as unpractical but is true that the untrammelled emotions can bring about only chaotic literature. Though he has vehemently condemned the romantic school of poetry and discarded idealism, humanism and every thing that glorified man, we can note that whatever he has written is a genuine over-flow of his heat. His critical ideas about the poets may sometimes be wrong but they are at least sincere and honest. The great example of this intellectual honesty lies in his revaluation of Milton, by shifting responsibility from him for setting in " dissociation of sensibility ".

Eliot believes that the right approach to criticism is the classical. 'Men, ' he says, 'cannot get on without giving allegiance to something outside themselves'. As the citizen has to give it to his government and the believer to his church, so the critic has to give it to same common criterion of rightness. But those who stand for individual liberty in art listen to their Inner Voice only. With no other guide than it they seek to 'interpret' an author or his work. But how to know that what it says is right. There is no external evidence to confirm it. The result often is that instead of facts about the author or the work, which he alone can prove what each really is, one is supplied with the critic's opinion or fancy: 'Instead of insight, you get a fiction'. Fact-finding therefore-elucidation and not mere interpretation-is the function of criticism. And this is best done when the critic has something outside himself to guider him some standard of perfection to judge a work by, based upon 'tradition and the accumulated wisdom of time'.

His approach has also to be similarly objective. To be able to put his finger right at the acts about a work, he must have first, a 'highly developed sense of fact' , such as will preclude the imposition of his own opinion on it. Secondly, 'he should have as his tools comparison and analysis' , the former to see among other things, how the work modifies past tradition and is itself modified by it, and the later to see it as it really is. 'And any book, any essay, any note.......which produces a fact even of the lowest order about a work of art is a better piece of work than nine-tenths of the most pretentious critical journalism, in journals or in books'.

Write a note on Eliot as a classicist in criticism?

Literaturemini | August 04, 2018 | 0 comments

Eliot as a classicist in criticism

T.S. Eliot is considered to be the greatest critic of the age; he is the Napoleon of English Literature and has been compared with Aristotle. Leavis observed: "How many critics are there who have made any difference to one--improved one's apparatus, one's equipment, one's efficiency as reader? And he gives Eliot the place as one of the few in the whole history of literary criticism. He affirms that Eliot " has not only refined the conception and methods of criticism, he has put into currency decisive reorganising and reorientating ideas and valuations. "

Eliot's criticism has evoked a lot of criticism both for and against Eliot. Smith parks remarks:" In so far as the importance of a literary figure may be gauged by controversy centred about him, T.S.Eliot must be regarded as the outstanding writer of his half-century". Wimsatt also holds more or less the same view. He says that " when T.S.Eliot announced in 1928 that he was a Royalist in politics, an Anglo Catholic in religion and a Classicist in literature, the reaction was immediate and noisy. The revelation of his political and religious position elicited most of the cat-calls and solemn protests, but his profession of classicism drew its share too, mingled with expressions of honest bewilderment ".

" In English Literature as well as English criticism there is a sound division between classicism and romanticism. Classicism follows the principle of allegiance to Greek and Roman writers; romanticism on the other hand believes in individual liberty and as individual liberty is ingrained in English character, classicism in England can have no standing whatever. Classicism aims at order and beauty. Eliot also wants order in Criticism but he finds that English criticism is "no better than a Sunday park of contending and contentious orators, who have not even arrived at the articulation of their differences". The end of criticism being 'the elucidation of works of art and the correction of taste', here, one would suppose, was a place for quite cooperative labour', with each critic endeavouring to compose his difference with as many of his fellows as possible, in the common pursuit of true judgement. George Watson writers:

Eliot made English criticism look different, but in no simple sense. He offered it a new range of rhetorical possibilities, confirmed it in its increasing contempt for historical processes, and yet reshaped its notion of period by a handful of brilliant intuitions. It is not to be expected that so except and professional an observer of poetry should allow his achievement to be more nearly classified than this."

"Eliot a true classicist like Aristotle and does not follow the Neo-classicist. His theory of impersonal poetry may be criticised as unpractical but is true that the untrammelled emotions can bring about only chaotic literature. Though he has vehemently condemned the romantic school of poetry and discarded idealism, humanism and every thing that glorified man, we can note that whatever he has written is a genuine over-flow of his heat. His critical ideas about the poets may sometimes be wrong but they are at least sincere and honest. The great example of this intellectual honesty lies in his revaluation of Milton, by shifting responsibility from him for setting in " dissociation of sensibility ".

Eliot believes that the right approach to criticism is the classical. 'Men, ' he says, 'cannot get on without giving allegiance to something outside themselves'. As the citizen has to give it to his government and the believer to his church, so the critic has to give it to same common criterion of rightness. But those who stand for individual liberty in art listen to their Inner Voice only. With no other guide than it they seek to 'interpret' an author or his work. But how to know that what it says is right. There is no external evidence to confirm it. The result often is that instead of facts about the author or the work, which he alone can prove what each really is, one is supplied with the critic's opinion or fancy: 'Instead of insight, you get a fiction'. Fact-finding therefore-elucidation and not mere interpretation-is the function of criticism. And this is best done when the critic has something outside himself to guider him some standard of perfection to judge a work by, based upon 'tradition and the accumulated wisdom of time'.

His approach has also to be similarly objective. To be able to put his finger right at the acts about a work, he must have first, a 'highly developed sense of fact' , such as will preclude the imposition of his own opinion on it. Secondly, 'he should have as his tools comparison and analysis' , the former to see among other things, how the work modifies past tradition and is itself modified by it, and the later to see it as it really is. 'And any book, any essay, any note.......which produces a fact even of the lowest order about a work of art is a better piece of work than nine-tenths of the most pretentious critical journalism, in journals or in books'.

T.S. Eliot , Tradition and the Individual Talent