Name: Bhatt Dhara
Roll No: 02
M.A. SEM II
Assignment topic: Tradition and Individual Talent:T.S.Eliot
Submitted to: Dr. Dilip Barad
Department of English,
Bhavnagar University,
Bhavnagar.
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT 1
INTRODUCTION :
T.s. eliot was most towering and dominating man of letters of the 20th century. He was a versatile genius who during his long span of productive activity achieved distinction as a poet, play wright, journalist and critic. Eliot stands in long line of poet crities biginning with johnson and inculding such names as dryden,jonson,coleridage and matthew arnold such critics know the mysteries of thei own art and so can speack with force and conviction. Eliot’s critical pronouncements first published largely in the form of articles and eassays in numberous peridicals and jourals of the day i have now been collected in the following book:
- THE USE OF POETY AND THE USE OF CRITIDSM (1933)
- THE IDEA OF A CHRISTION SOCIETY (1939)
- NTES TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF CULTURE (1948)
- SELECTED EASSAYS , THIRD EDITION (1951)
- ON POETRY AND POETS. (1957)
- TO CRITICISE THE CRITIC (1965)
“TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT”
Poetry and drama , the function of criticism. The english mataphysical poets, the frontiers of criticlsm etc. Are among his more popular essays in litrary criticlsm.
TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT:
Critical commentary manifesto of eliot’s critical creed.
The essay “ tradition and individual talent” was first published in 1919 in the times literary supplement, as a critical article. The essay may be regarded as an unofficial manifesto of eliot’s critical creed, for it contains all those critical priciples from which his criticism has been derived ever slince. The seed which have been sown here come to fryition in his subsequent essays. It is a declaration of eliot’s critical creed and these principles are the basis of all his subsequent criticism.
-ITS THREE PARTS :-
# THE EASSAY IS DIVIDED INTO THREE PARTS.
# The first part gives us eliot’s concept of tradition, and in the second part is developed his theory of the impersonality of poetry. The short third part is in the nature of a conclusion, or summing up of the whole discussion.
- TRADITION : WAYS ON WHICH IT CAN BE ACQUIRED
For eliot, tradition is a matter of much wider significance. Tradition in the ture sence of the trem cannot be inherited, it can only be obtained by hard labour. This this labour is the labours of the knowing the past writers. It is the critical labour of shifting the good and useful. Tradition can be obtained only by those who have the histroical sense.
# The historical sense involves a preception “ not only of the pastness of the part, but also of ots presense. One who has the histroic sense feels that the whole of the literture of europ from romar down to his own day, including the literature of his own century, forms one continuous literary tradition.
# He realises thea past exists in present, and the past and present form one simultaneous order. This historica sense is the sense of timeless and the temporal, as well as of the timeless and the temporal together. It is this historic sense which makes a writer traditional. A writer with the sense of tradition is fully conscius of his own genration, of his place in the present, but he is also acutely conseious of his relationship with the writer of the past.
- DYNAMIC CONCEPTION OF TRADITION :
Emphasising future the value of tradition, eliot points out that no writers has his value and significance in isolation to judge the work of a poet or an artist, we must compare and contrast his work with the work of poet and aritist in the past. Such comparison and contrast is essential for forming an idea a new the real worth and significance of a new writer and his work. Eilot’s conception of tradition is a dynamic one.
According to his view, tradition is not anything fixed and ststic, it is constantly changing, growing and becoming different from what it is a writer in the present must seek gudinece from the past, he must conform to the literary tradition, but just as the past directs and gudies the present, so the present alters and modifies the past when a ne work of art is created, if it is a really new and original the whole literary tradition is modified though ever so silghtly.
- ITS FUNCTION :-
# The work of a poet in the present is to be compared and contrasted with works of the past, and judged by the standards of the past. But this judgement dose not mean determining good or bad it dose not mean deciding whether the present work is better or worse then works of the past an author in the present is certainly only to be judged by the priciples and standard of the past the comparison is to be made for knowing the facts, all he facts, about the new work of art. The comparison is made for the purposes of analysis, and for forming a better understanding of the new.
# The past helps us to understand the present, and he throws light on the past. It is this way along that we can form an idea of what is really individual and new. It is by comparison along that we can sift the traditional from individual elements in a given work of art.
- SENCE OF TRADITION :-
# Eliot now explains future what he means by a sense of tradition. The sense of tradition dose not mean that the poet should try to know the past as whole,take it to be lump or mass without any discrimination. Such a ciurse is impossinle as well as undersirable.
# A sense of tradition in the real sense means consciusness, “ of the main current, which does not at all flow invariably through the most distinquished reputation”
# In other words, to know the tradition, the poet must judge critically what are the main trands and what are not. He must cnfine himself to the main trands to the exclusion of all that is incidental or topical.
# The poet must also realise that art never improves, though its ,aterial is never the same. The great works of art never lose their significance, for there is no qualitative improvement in art. There may be refinment, there may be development. But from the point of view of the artist there is no improvement.
- IMPRESONALITY OF POETRY :-
# The artist must continually surrender himself to something which is more valueable then himeself , i.e. the ilteraly tradition. he must allow his poetic sensibility to be shaped and modified by the past. he must continue to acuire the sense of tradition throughout his career in the beginning, his self, his individuality, may assert itslef , but as power mature there must be greater and greater extinction of personality.he must acaurie greater and greater objectivity his emotions and passion must be deper sonalised: he must be as impresonal and objective as a sceintifist. the presonality of the artist is not important : the important thing is his sense of ‘tradition’ a good poem is a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written.
# Thus the poet’s personality is merely a medium, having the same significance as catalytic agent, or a recepatabtacle in whice chemical reactions take place. that is why the poet hold that , “ honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is driect not upon the poet but uopn the poetry.”
- THE POETICS PROCESS :-
# In the second part of the essay eliot develops furture his theory of the impersonality of poetry. He compares ths mind of the poet to a catalyst and the process of a chemical reaction, hust as chemical reactions take place in the presence of a catalyst along, so also the poet’s mind is the catalytic agent for combining different emotions into something new suppose there is a jar containing oxygen and sulphre dioxide. These two gases combine to form sulphureous acid when a fine filament of platinum is introduced into the jar. The
Combination takes place only in the presence of the place of platium, but the metal ifself dose not undergo any change, it remains insert, neutural and un affected. The mind of the poet is like the cataytic agent. It is necessary for combinations of emotions and experiences to take place, but itself dose not undergo any change during the process of poetic combination.
# In the case of a young and immature poet, his mind , his personal emotions and experincess, may find some experssion in his composition, but ,says eliot,” the more perfact the artist, the more completely separste in him will be the man suffer and the mind which creates”.
# T.s. eliot here distinguisher between emotions and feeling , but he dose not state what this difference is .
“ Nowhere else in his writings”says a.g. george,
“is this distinction maintained: nither dose he adeauately distinguish between the meaning of the two words”
# The distinction should , therefore , be ignored more as it has bearing on his impersonal theory of poetry.
- POETRY AS ORGNASATION:-
# Eliot next compares the poet’s mind to a jar or receptable in which are stored numberless feeling, emotions etc. Which remain there is an organised and chaotic form till
“all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together”.
Thus poetry is organisation rather then inspiration imperssion and experience which are important in for the man way find no place in his poetry, and those which become important in the poetry amy have no significance for the man.
# Eliot’s rejects words woth’s theory of poetry. Having its origin “emotions recollected in tranquality”. And points out that in the process of poetic composition there is neither emotion, nor recollection for tranquality. In the poetic process there is only concentration of a number of experincess, and anew thing results from concentration. And this process of concentration is neither conscious nor deliberate : it is a passice one.
# The difference between a good and a bad poet is that a bad is conscious and unconscious where he should be conscious. It is this consciouness of the wrong kind which makes a poem personal, whereas mature art must be impersonal, but eliot dose not tell us when a poet should be conscious, and when not. The point has been left vague and interminate.
- POETRY AS ESCAPE FROM PERSONALITY :-
Eliot conclude:
“poetry is not a turing loose of emotion, but as escape from emotion: it is not the expression of personality,but an escape from personality”.
Thus, eloit dose not deny personality or emotion to the poet only , the must depersonalise his emotions. There should be exitinotion of his personality this impersonamlity can be achived only when the poet surrenders himself completely to the work that is to be done and the poet can know what is to be done , only if he acquires a sense of traditon, the historic sense, which makes him conscious, not only of the present, but alos of the present movement of the past, not only of what is dead, but of what is already living.
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