■ A critical essay written by poet and literary critic T. S.
Eliot
■ first published in The Egoist (1919) and later in Eliot's first
book of criticism, "The Sacred Wood" (1920).
■ While Eliot is most often known for his poetry, he also
contributed to the field of literary criticism as a cultural critic.
■ The essay presents Eliot's influential conception of the
relationship between the poet and preceding literary traditions.
■ This essay is divided into three parts:
1) first the concept of "Tradition,"
2) then the Theory of Impersonal Poetry
3) and finally the conclusion
■ Eliot presents his conception of tradition and the definition of
the poet and poetry in relation to it.
■ He wishes to correct the fact that, as he perceives it, "in
English writing we seldom speak of tradition, though we
occasionally apply its name in deploring its absence.
■ He says that, though the English tradition generally upholds
the belief that art progresses through change i.e. a separation
from tradition but literary excellence is instead recognised only
when they conform to the tradition.
■ Eliot, a classicist, felt that the true incorporation of tradition
into literature was unrecognised, that tradition, a word that
"seldom appears except in a phrase of censure," was actually a
thus-far unrealised element of literary criticism.
■ 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 i.e. a poet must embody "the whole of the literature
of Europe from Homer," while, simultaneously, expressing their
contemporary environment.
■ Eliot challenges the common perception that a poet's
greatness and individuality lie in their departure from their
predecessors; he argues that "the most individual parts of his
[the poet's] work may be those in which the dead poets, his
ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously."
■ Eliot claims that this "historical sense" is not only a
resemblance to traditional works but an awareness and
understanding of their relation to his poetry.
■ This fidelity to tradition, however, does not require the great
poet to forfeit novelty in an act of surrender to repetition.
■ Rather, Eliot has a much more dynamic and progressive
conception of the poetic process: novelty is possible only
through tapping into tradition. When a poet engages in the
creation of new work, they realise an aesthetic "ideal order," as it
has been established by the literary tradition that has come
before them.
■ Therefore the act of artistic creation does not take place in a
vacuum. The introduction of a new work alters the cohesion of
this existing order, and causes a readjustment of the old to
accommodate the new.
■ This inclusion of the new work alters the way in which the
past is seen; elements of the past that are noted and realised.
■ In Eliot's own words, "What happens when a new work of art
is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the
works of art that preceded it." Eliot refers to this organic
tradition, this developing canon, as the "mind of Europe."
■ They compare the poet to a catalyst in a chemical reaction, in
which the reactants are feelings and emotions that are
synthesised to create an artistic image that captures and relays
these same feelings and emotions. While the mind of the poet
is necessary for the production, it emerges unaffected by the
process just like a catalyst.
■ The artist stores feelings and emotions and properly unites
them into a specific combination, which is the artistic product.
■ What lends greatness to a work of art are not the feelings and
emotions themselves, but the nature of the artistic process by
which they are synthesised.
■ The artist is responsible for creating "the pressure, so to
speak, under which the fusion takes place." And, it is the
intensity of fusion that renders art great.
■ In this view, Eliot rejects the theory that art expresses
metaphysical unity in the soul of the poet. The poet is a
depersonalised vessel, a mere medium.
Depersonalisation
■ Great works do not express the personal emotion of the poet
i.e. The poet does not reveal their own unique and novel
emotions, but rather, by drawing on ordinary ones and
channelling them through the intensity of poetry, they express
feelings that are universal and surpass, altogether, experienced
emotion.
■ This is what Eliot intends when he discusses poetry as an
"escape from emotion."
■ 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.
■ Another essay 'Hamlet and His Problems' found in Selected
Essays relates to this notion of the impersonal poet.
Eliot's idea of Talent:
■ The implications here separate Eliot's idea of talent from the
conventional definition (just as his idea of Tradition is separate
from the conventional definition).
■ Whereas the conventional definition of talent, especially in the
arts, is a genius that one is born with but for Eliot,talent is
acquired through a careful study of poetry, claiming that
Tradition, "cannot be inherited, and if you want it, you must
obtain it by great labour."
■ Eliot asserts that it is absolutely necessary for the poet to
study, to have an understanding of the poets before them, and
to be well versed enough that they can understand and
incorporate the "mind of Europe" into their poetry.
