T S Eliot

967 Words4 Pages
T. S. Eliot's“Tradition and the Individual Talent” T. S. Eliot Summary In T. S. Eliot’s essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” he proposes what he feels are the proper method’s for a new artist to assimilate themselves into the literary tradition that has come before them. T. S. Eliot is mainly concerned with what he describes as the tradition of poetry. In Eliot’s opinion, a poet is not an individual separate from the rest of literary history. A poet cannot in a sense make original art without being conscious of the entire past of literature, and how his art relates to that past. For Eliot, the past is still a dynamic entity that shapes the way poetry should be written and interpreted. The essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” begins with Eliot alluding to the way “tradition” is commonly regarded in English literature as being somewhat absent. Eliot feels that English literature lacks a certain formalized aspect that is prevalent in French literature. Eliot then discusses common conceptions of talent, as being discussed in terms of how different one poet is from another. Eliot says that we should not value poets who are different from their immediate predecessors. In Eliot’s opinion, many of the best traits found in a poet are things that they have learned from their poetic ancestors; implicit things that are not easily distinguishable in poetic style. Eliot emphasizes the importance of a historical view of tradition, and expresses that this can only be obtained through rigorous work. It appears that Eliot would prefer that poets have a firm understanding every canonical piece of literature ever written prior to attempting to make poetry their own. A poet should additionally be aware of his place in the timeline of poetry, because this will give him allow him to understand that literature is both timeless and temporal. Eliot then begins his
Open Document