Paper no.7:-Literary theory and criticism - Eliot’s concept of tradition And individual talent.

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH MAHARAJAH KRISHNAKUMARSINHJI BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

Eliot’s concept of tradition  And individual talent. 

Semester:-M.A SEM 2 

Paper no.6:-Literary  theory and criticism  ROLL NO:-6

ENROLLMENT NO:- PG15101006

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Introduction:-

Born	Thomas Stearns Eliot 26 September 1888 St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Died	4 January 1965 (aged 76) Kensington, London, England
Occupation	Poet, dramatist, literary critic, and editor
Citizenship	American by birth; British from 1927
Education	AB in philosophy
Period	1905–1965
Literary movement	Modernism
Notable works	The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), The Waste Land (1922), Four Quartets(1944)
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Literature (1948),Order of Merit (1948)

Thomas Stearns Eliot OM  "one of the twentieth century's major poets”. Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement.

Literary

Eliot also made significant contributions to the field of literary criticism, strongly influencing the school of New Criticism. While somewhat self-deprecating and minimizing of his work—he once said his criticism was merely a "by-product" of his "private poetry-workshop"—Eliot is considered by some to be one of the greatest literary critics of the twentieth century.

 The critic William Epson once said, "I do not know for certain how much of my own mind [Eliot] invented, let alone how much of it is a reaction against him or indeed a consequence of misreading him. He is a very penetrating influence, perhaps not unlike the east wind."

In his critical essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent", Eliot argues that art must be understood not in a vacuum, but in the context of previous pieces of art. "In a peculiar sense [an artist or poet] ... must inevitably be judged by the standards of the past." This essay was an important influence over the New Criticism by introducing the idea that the value of a work of art must be viewed in the context of the artist's previous works, a "simultaneous order" of works (i.e., "tradition"). Eliot himself employed this concept on many of his works, especially on his long-poem The Waste Land.

                             

Tradition and individual talent

T.s. Eliot’s “tradition and individual talent” was published in 1919 in the egoist – the times literary supplement. Later, the essay was published in the sacred wood: essays on poetry and criticism in 1920/2. This essay is described by David lodge as the most celebrated critical essay in the English of the 20^thcentury. The essay is divided into three main sections:

1)the first part gives us concept of tradition.

2)the second part is exemplifies his theory of depersonalization and poetry

3)and third part he conclude the debate by saying that the poet’s sense of tradition and impersonality of poetry are complementry things.

At the outset of the essay, Eliot asserts that the word ‘tradition’ is not a very favourable term with the English who generally utilize the same as a term of censure. The English do not possess an orientation towards criticism as the French do, they praise a poet for those aspects of the work that are individualistic.

For Eliot, Tradition has a three-fold significance.

Firstly, tradition cannot be inherited and involves a great deal of labour and erudition.

Secondly, it involves the historical sense which involves apperception not only of the pastness of the past, but also of its presence.

Thirdly the historical sense enables a writer to write not only with his own generation in mind, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature from Homer down to the literature of his own country forms a continuous literary tradition.

Part 1:- concept of tradition

Eliot begins the essay by pointing out that the word ‘tradition’ is generally regarded as a word of censure. It is a word disagreeable to the English ears. When the English praise a poet, they praise him for those-aspects of his work which are ‘individual’ and original. This brings Eliot to a consideration of the value and significance of tradition. Tradition does not mean a blind adherence to the ways of the previous generation or generations. This would be mere slavish imitation, a mere repetition of what has already been achieved, and

“novelty is better than repetition.”

To him knowledge of tradition plays vital role in the development of personal talent. He writes,

“Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves the historical sense.” This means:

“the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; 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 Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.”

The close relationship and interdependence of the past and the present:

Eliot express his views as follow

“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 him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of  asthetic, not merely historical criticism”

The relationship of a poet’s work to the great works of the past:

                      Eliot says that there is a distinction between knowledge and pedantry.

“Some can absorb knowledge; the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential histories from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum”.

He also then finds is that shakespeare seem to be unexceptinal because if  he says that everyone has to be very well read every creative artist and then coming down to the modern reader they also have to be very active readers very well than what about some luminaries like shakespeare. If we look at shakespeare biography, we find that there is no mention that shakespeare went to any unuversity for example ,marlow his contemporary was university wits.shakespeare there is no mention by literary historian.arnold mention that critic play very important role in criticism .critic provides fresh ideas to the authors. 

Part - 2

His theory of Depersonalization:

    He starts the second part of his essay with: ‘‘Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry’’.

   The artist or the poet adopts the process of depersonalization, which is ‘‘a continual surrender of him as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.’’ There still remain to define this process of depersonalization and its relation to sense of tradition.

·      

  THE PROCESS OF DEPERSONALISATION:-

Eliot explains this process of depersonalization and its relation to the sense of tradition by comparing it to a 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 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 be the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material.

                       

Part – 3

       In the last section of this essay, Eliot says that the poet’s sense of tradition and the impersonality of poetry are complementary things. Eliot writes: ‘‘to divert interest from the poet to the poetry is a laudable aim: for it would conduce to a jester estimation of actual poetry, good and bad.’’ Finally he ends his essay with: ‘‘very few know when there is expression of significant emotion, 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.’’