Tradition and individual talent

This is a short description of the essay of T.S.Eliot, tradition and individual talent.

1. 1
T.S.ELIOT
Mustheena . K
B.ED ENGLISH
KSTC

2. TRADITION AND THE INDIVIDUAL
TALENT
T.S.ELIOT

3. .SELLIOE II SILI.E III L Three parts of this essay- Tradition and individual talent
TRADITION
AND
INDIVIDUAL
TALENT
The concept of
tradition
The concept of
tradition
The concept of
tradition

4. THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT
(1888 -1965 )
British poet - playwright – essayist –
publisher – social and literary critic.
One of the twentieth century’s major poet .
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

5. CONTRIBUTIONS :
Objective Correlation
Theory of Impersonality
Concept of Tradition
Disassociation of sensibility
ESSAYS :
Traditional and Individual Talent (1919)
 Hamlet and His Problems (1920)
 Metaphysical Poets (1921)
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

6. Introduction :
• “Tradition and Individual Talent ” (1919) is an essay
written by the poet and literary critic T. S. Eliot.
• The essay was first published in ‘The Egoist ’ (1919) and
later in Eliot’s first book of criticism , “The Sacred Wood
”(1920).
• Tradition and Individual Talent is one of the more well
known work that Eliot produced in his critic capacity .
• It formulates Eliot’s influential conception of the
relationship between the poet and the literary tradition
which proceeds him .
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

7. TRADITIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL TALENTTRADITIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT (1919)
This essay is divided into three parts . That are :
Part one : The Concept of “ Tradition ”
Part two : The Theory of Impersonal Poetry
Part three : The Conclusion or Summing up.
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

8. The Concept of “Tradition” :
 Eliot presents his conception of tradition and the definition of poet and
poetry in relation to it.
 For Eliot ,the term “tradition” is imbued with a special and complex
character.
 It represents a “simultaneous order” , by which Eliot means a historical
timelessness – a fusion of past and present , and at the same time , a
sense of present temporality.
 Eliot claims that this “historical sense” is not only a resemblance of
traditional works but an awareness and understanding of their relation
to his poetry.
 The historical sense involves a perception , not only the pastness of
past , but of its presence.
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

9.  The difference between present and past is that , the conscious
present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent which the
past’s awareness of itself cannot show.
 When a poet engages in a new work he realizes an aesthetic “ideal
order” , as it has been established by the literary tradition that has
come before him.
 As such , the act of artistic creation does not take place in a vacuum.
 The inclusion of new work alters the way in which the past is seen ,
elements of past that are noted and realized.
 The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice , a continual
extinction of personality.
 This leads to Eliot’s so called “Impersonality Theory” of poetry.
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

10. The Theory of Impersonal Poetry:
 Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the
poet but upon the poetry.
 Eliot compares the poet’s mind to a catalyst ,
- in which the reactants are feelings and emotion that are
synthesized to create an artistic image that captures these same
feelings and emotion.
- While the mind of poet is necessary for production , it emerges
unaffected by the process.

- The artist stores feelings and emotions , and properly unites
them into a specific combination ,which is the artistic product.
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

11.  The poet has, not a “personality” to express , but a particular medium
, which is only a medium and not a personality , in which impression
and experience combine in peculiar and unexpected ways.

- Impression and experiences which are important for the man may
not take place in the poetry , and those which become important in the
poetry , may play quite an ignorable part in the man , the personality.
 It is not his personal emotions , the emotions provoked by particular
event in his life , that the poet is in any way remarkable or interesting .
- His particular emotions may be simple , crude or flat.
- Great work do not express the personal emotion of the poet .
-And the poet does not reveal his own unique and novel emotions,
but rather , by drawing an ordinary ones and channeling them through
the intensity of poetry.
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

12.  According to Eliot ‘poetry is not a turning loose of emotion , but an
escape from emotion ; it is not the expression of personality , but an
escape from personality’.
- But ,of course, only those who have personality and emotions
know what it means to want to escape from these things.

 Since , successful poetry is impersonal and , therefore , exists
independent of its poet , it outlives the poet and can incorporate into
the timeless “ideal order” of the “living” literary tradition.
 ‘Talent’ , especially in the arts , is a genius ,that one is born
with. Instead talent is acquired through a careful study of
poetry.
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

13. Conclusion :

 Tradition and Individual Talent (1919) is an essay
written by T.S.Eliot.
 According to him , the emotion of art is impersonal.
 And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without
surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done.
 And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless
he lives in what is not merely the present , but the present
moment of past , unless he is conscious , not of what is
dead , but of what is already living.
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT