Tradition and the Individual Talent — T. 8. Eliot The Author - Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888, in St.Louis, Missouri, as the seventh and youngest child of Henry Ware Eliot and Charlotte Champe Eliot, and grandson of William Greenfield Eliot. By common consensus he is considered to be one of the most profound and influential pe rsonalities as far as literature and criticism are concerned. His poem ‘The Love Song of Alfred J.Prufrock’ (#915), first published in Poetry, exhaled an unprecedented artistie sensibility that inflicted a severe cultural shock in every sense of the word. This new ethos found its consummate expression in the =| erudite and obscure lyric ‘The Waste Land’, published in The | Criterion in October 1922 and in The Dial (New York) in November 1922. The poem has subsequently been interpreted by Frank Kermode as “an imperial epic’ and as “an image of imperial catastrophe”. As Robert E. Knoll comments ‘The Waste Land’ is the most controversial and the most influential poem of the last century. His other major poetic compositions include Ash Wednesday and Four Quartets, d latter being considered his last great work. His verse plays Murder in the Cathedral (1935), The Family Reunion (1939), 7 Cocktail Party (1953) and The Elder Statesman (1958). It 1948 that Order of Merit and Nobel Prize for Lit conferred on him. In 1964, just before his death, Eliot v US Medal of Freedom. January 4 of the following } ji of Eliot. His ashes were interred as he hi Parish Church of East Coker, f Orelusing sentimental idealizations sate evasions and slippages, and by inte culture”. ‘The changes he brought about into ori re perhaps more substantial than his contributions tg e. If Eliot is “a great modern poet for the reason that he " translated the sad accidents of his own life into poetry in a way that ~ miraculously contained the exultation and despair of a generation", 4 ; J.C.C.Mays says, his main critical accomplishments are the concepts of Tradition, Impersonality, Objective Correlative and the "like articulated in the semninal works such as The Sacred Wood and After Strange Gods which undoubtedly evince streaks of a new school ¥ ‘of thought. Along with |.A.Richatrds Eliot is counted as an anticipator of New Criticism. New Criticism = Though the term New Criticism had its beginnings in the 1920s _ and reached its zenith in the decades that closely followed to dominate the American critical scenario till the late 1960s, the term had well been in currency much earlier. The Schlegel brothers, during the first half of the nineteenth century called themselves “neue ‘Kritiker’ (New Critic) and Benedetto Croce, when he did not want to luse the pronoun ‘I’ referred to his views as‘ la nuova critic’ (the new crite). Joel E Springarn, the historian of Renaissance criticism, took this term from Croce when he expounded Croce’s theories in a little book entitled The New Criticism in 1911. He used the term to describe a new trend in Scholarship and the application of extra- literary, Statistical, stylometrical devices. E.E. Burgum edited an 4 with the title New Criticismin 1930. And finally John Crowe the founder of Kenyon Review, wrote The New Criticism, ‘Which established the term in popular use, By the time of its ‘the theory and methodology of New Criticism had fairly d and begun to be practised extensively. Far Ok found fault with Eliot, Richards, Em ‘itwas time fora new “ontologir ding Fiction ( 1943) jointly re crucial in the academic establishment of Nev America. A date such as 1923 when Allan Tate spoke of a* of philosophic criticism” can generally be consi earliest stirrings of NewCriticism in the USA. New Criticism is not a monolithic entity. The major New have at no point agreed upon a single methodology or principles and thus the notion that it represents a coterie or ev school is basically mistaken. With the evidence of disagre among the critics, the only feasible Strategy to form a framework to encompass and describe New Criticism is to appro the diverse streams inductively i.e., to identify and pinpoint the features found common in these critical strands and to generalise. New Criticism strongly argues from a sound premise that ne coherent body of knowledge can be attained and sustained unless it defines its object. For the New Critics this object is the individual work of art clearly set off from the intention of the author its psychological and moral effects upon the reader. fundamentally oriented towards textual analysis and conce On verbal complexities as well as ambiguities, they see a lite as self-contained, self-referential and autonomous. They overcome the traditional demarcation between form’ and ‘cor upholding the organistic view of art i.e., the belief that thes @ work cannot (and should not) be divorced from meaning-- tk dictum ‘heresy of paraphrase’. For them the essential co any work of literature are words, images and symbols ri character, thought and plot. Naturally they appreciated.st such a misinterpreta ine insight--we must try to See a wor a ‘New Criticism is primarily formal, none of the N hy for the mechanistic technical views of ere overwhelming] ed with the meaning of a work of art, the attitude, the ton the feelings and even with the ultimate implied world view conveyed, unlike the Formalists who were preoccupied with the purely linguistic a ‘concepts like ‘defamiliarisation' and ‘| iterariness’. The New Critics wei formalists only in so far as they insisted on the organization of a wor which prevents its becoming a simple message . Brooks and Warren” wri : “Poetry gives us knowledge. It is a knowledge of ourselves in. felation to the world of experience, and to that world considered not statistically, but in terms of human purposes and values” As we have already understood, the New Critics were united in their opposition to the prevailing methods, doctrines and views of academic English literary scholarship which was excessively’ concerned with history in the shape of constant reference to biography of the author, the intention behind a work and the social ‘Conditions or milieu in which a work of art is produced. However the ejection of academic historical scholarship must not be interpreted @s an absolute rejection of the historicity of poetry. Cleanth Brooks — ‘has, in many contexts, mostly in interpreting seventeenth-century poems, shown that the critic “needs the help of the historian-- all the ‘help he can get’. Brooks and other New Critics reinterpreted ‘evaluated the whole history of English poetry. The books of Wint the same more dogmatically with a different emphasis. TI the New Critics deny neither history nor literary his inst the Practice of dragging history, ee poems. They held that Would ultimately impede ng. Therefore it is in the =‘publ that Eliot's rej | based as a thinker, a disciplined intelligence notably "rigorous, penetrating and sustained thought. Though thi considered to be his single most important essay, Eliot himself hel another view. For him ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ was “perhaps the most juvenile and certainly defaced to appear in print” However he would not write it off like that!!--" My earliest critical essays come to seem to me the products of my immaturity, though I do not repudiate ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’”. Contemplation on tradition is perhaps the prominent motif in the gamut of Eliotic critical thought. To quote Peter Brooks, “ Eliot wished to absorb the fragmentary and the contigent which Baudelaire had identified as the sign of modernity into the unities of a self-correcting tradition and the eternal’, Eliot's best and important criticism has an immediate relation to his technical problems as a poet who was confronted with the Promethean task of “altering expression”. ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ is typical in this respect and is the classic statement of Eliot's critical theory. As a bold experimental writer yet to find his feet, Eliot had at first found it difficult even to publish his verse and to earn critical or popular favour. Naturally he was acutely alive to the fact that ‘traditional’ ways of reading and interpretation of poetry only hindered the popularization of his generation of writers. He therefore looked for a way that artists could be judged, but not crushed or destroyed, by the standards of the past. And he found the assurance in his highly personal conception of — tradition as we can understand from the essay. Argument of ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ In England people are indifferent to and contempt tradition. They tend to rate poets according to the deg they distinguish themselves from their predecessorshould be very conscious of the main currents or ; particular period. He must be aware of the fact jot improve but the material of art undergoes constant chay the poet needs is not an exhaustively factual and aco formation of each and every incident of the past, but an o fey _ knowledge and awareness. In developing this awareness, the pe gradually loses his personality to the more valuable tradition. Th the progress of an artist becomes a continuous self-sacrifice g extinction of personality. True criticism should concentrate on the poem, not on the poet. A poem has relations with preceding poems. The mind of a poet i place where various emotions enter into new combinations. His mind is like a catalyst which enhances the pace of a chemical reaction. Catalyst never undergoes change. The more perfect the poet, the more Completely separate in him the man who suffers and the mind t Creates. The mind of the poet becomes machine like in that it remains neutral while digesting and tra nsmuting passions into. poetry. It is the intensity of the artistic process (.e., emotions” entering into new combinations in the poet's mind), not the personal - feelings, which decides the sublimity and greatness of the poem. the poet has to express through the poem is not a personality butt effect or result of a medium. The business of a poet is not to find motions but to use the ordinary ones and to express artistic feelit which need not be emotions we experience in real life. So po Not a flow of “emotions recollected in tranquility” as Words\ lared but a detached technical concentration. This concent Mot consciously or out of deliberation i.e., the emotions fi le Poet's mind unconscigusly. But the act of wri ing Spontaneous overflow”. A certain degree of craft is e ore to write a poem involves two pi © the other conscious i.e., unconsci of bad poets thirThe essay purports to shift critical focus fror 0 Tne eon expressed in a poem is not to be sought identified in the events in the poet's life. A poet can elevate “this level of impersonality only by surrendering himself to the does. But to achieve this goal he should acquire & comprehensive view of the past, tradition and present. Textual topics 4. Importance of T.S.Eliot With the exception of his fellow expatriate Ezra Pound, no modern writer of English has rivalled Eliot in his influence on: the" development of modern literature and criticism. Authors suchas James Joyce, Wallace Stevens or Ernest Hemingway had relatively little interest in literary criticism; and E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf and ~ DH Lawrence, despite their critical acumen and insights into cultural issues, did not devote much of their talent to it. Ezra Pound alone matched Eliot's ambition to influence literary opinion in England and America through both his art and criticism. But Pound succumbed to the temptation, which only troubled Eliot , of becoming a social and political pundit rather than a detached cultural critic. With this evident — edge over Pound, Eliot tried to give new life to English criticism by the - detailed and meticulous reexamination of the quality and function Poetry beginning with The Sacred Wood. By criticizing Rom: Milton and the Miltonic tradition, he enabled the modern reat see and appreciate with fresh eyes marginalised figures Metaphysical poets. The widely debated concepts like 7 Impersonality, cultural criticism, objective correlative Sensibility are his main contributions to the ever-expal _ critical theory. When John Haywood admiringly s ___ think of* a critic who has been more widely. 3 time" than Eliot, it reallynt verfully and beneficially expressed. Bergson's nol memory and intuition have been recognized in the fl ness of Eliot's early poems. Royce, Bradley and Ru: en cogently involved to explain, the Eliotic Notions such ition, poetic impersonality, the objective correlative, analyti precision and critical objectivity. Equally decisive is the influence g “Indian aesthetics and Unitarianism. 3. Significance of ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ is the classic statement Of Eliot’s critical theory. It is simultaneously a seminal statement and ‘amplification of his most important critical concepts such as Tradition and Impersonality. Often described as the “single most important essay’ of Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent’ signals the advent of New Criticism. 4. Possible influences on ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ (Not from the text) Some critical concepts of Eliot have their origin in his erudition in the Idealist philosophy, the application of which is coloured by a quaint combination of fascination and revulsion in his case. Eliot's blistering Anti-tomanticism is largely the expression of indignation towards the ind of subjective idealism (mentalism or subjectivism) that we find in peat pre Persuasion almost literally justifies Eliot's hostile a oa |S a short cut to strangeness without re- led to Pater 4 : isciples only back upon themselves”. He 's in uence the cult of personality that he castigates. ea pranlia unity of soul "is directed against this ee *t Words, the 'mpersonality theory of poetry” Neories preached by Pater, and is a vehe entil... by whic IRE RS ', a view preached by Evangelicalist ady effort, true spiritual generation reliéd on hui aa faa solely to divine intervention. Eliot his grandfather's values and vocabulary in arguing that acquiring tradition demands the same conscious labour that Unitarians insisted upon for generation. Whether religious generation or poetic creation, *inspiration” (a pass-word of Romantics) raised the suspicion of something quick, cheap and temporary. 5 Assessed in the light of Indian aesthetics, Impersonality theory ceases to be innovative. The story of Valmiki, whose ‘bhava’ got transformed into ‘rasa’, exemplifies the way in which personal emotions transcend mundane limits and become universal, and shows the escape of personality rather than its expression. The truth that poetry, whose sine qua non is aesthetic delight, cannot be a mere turning loose of emotion has been vouchsafed by the poets like Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti as well as by critics like Anandavarthan and Abhinavagupta, Thus Eliot indirectly confirms the Indian theory that — there is no aesthetic emotion in life though there are all personal emotions, corresponding to the aesthetic emotions in literature. There is a view that parts of Eliot's critical theory is influenced by Hulme’s doctrine of original sin. That is, the sense of the First Sin is embedded by the negation of self ; being impersonal simply means to shrug off every responsibility. But many scholars opine that it is farfetched to bring in this belief to explain the New Criticism's emphasis on impersonality. 5. Eliot's conception of tradition _Inits conventional sense ‘tradition’ is a mere“ handling down ancient values and customs, and might connote an unhealthy: for past generations, But Eliot's ‘tradition’ radically differs from: the neoclassicists who blindly adhered to old norms, For hi simple inherited thing. |t involves a historical sense whic ‘exhaustively factual and accurate information of ea an overall awareness and kno ort,manner that it must alter the past as much as present is Contro| _ by the past. Poetry cannot exist ina vacuum. On the contrary, it living whole of all the poetry that has ever been produced. It is or relation to these old poems that a new one is read, appreciated assessed. However, this is a double-edged or mutually influencj process. To elaborate, at any point of time, we have a pre’ hierarchal delineation and equilibrium of works. When a genuine wo arrives, the definition and concept of this state is redefined any reformulated. By accommodating the new work the past is altered: justlike the past directs the reception and judgement of the new work. For example consider the case of English drama. Our perception of, the English drama was greatly influenced by Shakespeare. When someone like Bernad Shaw stormed in, the whole standard was, reset. With the advent of the Absurdists like Beckett, the canon was” again changed. This is a perennial process. According to J.C.C. Mays, | Eliotis coincidently explaining the effect of The Love Song of Alfred J. Pruffrock’ here. The individual Parts of any connection are affected by the supervention of a wholly new elem and to change the New’ workofart oo.__ Eliot's historical sense implies a process of constant additio complication. The progression towards more knowledge teleologically oriented but simply corresponds to the fact that the d authors are what we know. The past insists on being prest demands to be claimed as his by whoever to be taken as a seriot artist, and not merely an adolescent pouring out his feelings. Sucha theory is founded upon a phenomenological subject without ruling — out the agency of the unconscious. 9. Impersonality theory in art Impersonality in art, as postulated by Eliot, can be shown to have affiliations with many theories (refer to Textual Topic 4 ). It was in the essay ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ that Eliot unveiled his belligerently antiromantic Impersonality theory. According to him, the poet and his individual talent owe much to past and should surrender to the more valuable tradition. No poet or artist has his complete meaning away from the all encompassing tradition. This idea can be elucidated by means of an example. If we consider some bricks as different poets having individual existence and qualities, a pillarmade up of these will be the tradition. Though the pillar is enduring, itis nothing but a systematic array of bricks, the components. Itcomes” ~ into being only when the individual components lose their individual’ existence. That is, as long as the bricks remain separate, like ideal condition of poets as advocated by the Romantics, tl il does not (and cannot) materialize. Along with the acquisition ‘historical sense’ the progress of an artist becomes a col extinction of personality. By rendering an individual experi emotion in the form of poetry, the poet universalizes that emo himself gets diminished in the process. The mind of a poi ormedium where various emotions enter into new cor mind is like a catalyst which enhances the _ feaction, remaining itself unaffected, The m hir5 of a poet is not to use of the ordinary emotions and to. of them. These new poetic feelings e actual emotions in life, Poetry is not the sponital powerful emotions recollected in tranquility " but ; technical concentration. i Bad poets’ according to Eliot 4 ‘According to Eliot poetry is never a “spontaneous overflow of emotions recollected in tranquility” as Wordsworth declares, © ‘but the outcome of a detached technical concentration. This ~ ion does not occur consciously i.e., emotions find their place: ‘the poet's mind unconsciously ; but the writing of a poem is not _ Spontaneous. A certain degree of artistic craft is essential for that “That is, writing poetry is a twofold process--the unconscious input of materials (emotions and personal experiences) and the conscious ‘output of product (poem). Bad poets are those in whose case this ‘Operation is in the reverse order. They are conscious of the _ experiences (i.c., material of poetry) but are unconscious in writing ‘the poem. For them poetry is nothing but a spontaneous overflow of ‘Powerful emotions. The emotions are “powerful” but the actualactof writing is not ‘intense’ (‘It is the intensity of the artistic process that makes 2 poem Sublime” according to Eliot) and conscious. By dintof this practice the poem becomes a feeble expression of rude emotions destitute of concrete imagery and strength. Fe The analogy of the catalystInfact each and every line of ‘Tradition and the Individ can be read as a heavy indictment against Romantic influences behind this bend of mind see Textual Topic Romantics poetry was a means of expressing personality. held originality in high esteem and tried to identify how a differentiates himself from his predecessors. But as a self-proclaimed Classicist, Eliot argues that if we approach any poet without a slanted mind, it will definitely transpire that not only the best but also the most ~ individual part of his work are those greatly influenced by past writers. Eliot’s dictum that “no poet, no artist of any kind has his complete meaning alone” also shows his desire to refute the Romantic claims of individuality. If poetry was blood turned into ink, the supreme means: of self expression for the Romantics, Eliot is vociferous in arguing that to become a poet it is imperative to lose one’s personality. For him a personal mind has no role in poetic composition and poetry is nota pouring of emotions (refer to Textual Topic 9). This attitude is directly reflected in his concept of criticism too :“ Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation are directed not upon the poem but upon the poetry”. 13 ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ as an anticipator of New Criticism Generally speaking, New Criticism focuses on the linguistic and stylistic configurations of a poem (refer to New Criticism). ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ obviously points to this staple | New Criticism. According to Eliot, “Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation are directed not upon the poem but upon the poetr The ideas such as there is no connection between the poem ani Poet's personality are very crucial to New Criticism. 14. Problems in Eliot's conception of tradition Eliot's conception of tradition has been criticized by what he means i-edut a deliberate programme of self-e t on many parts unexplained in his characteristic ons for Eliot's status z ‘in spite of all these shortcomings and pitfalls ‘Tradition and “Individual Talent’ deserves a fair deal as a milestone in a “career which can be described as a heroic effort to free himself ‘the nineteenth century Idealism and Romanticism, as J.Hillis Mil “comments. Eliot tolled to materialize his ideas. The concepts ¢ Mragition and impersonality were his chief tools in grabbing that g ‘Much of his thinking shows itself in the technical aspects of his Poetry. like the use of personae and masks. The characters of Prufrock and Gerontion are devised to achieve impersonality which transcends the ‘borders of caste and creed. In‘The Waste Land’ he tries to be totally ‘impersonal through the profuse borrowings, adaptations and Parody of lines from seven languages and through the shrewd manipulation 9f time. As Edmund Wilson noted Eliot is living half the time in the haunted wilderness of the medieval legend and the other half inthe despite the intrinsic contradictions "Sustaining his status. Annotations __ 1.“His significance, his appreciation, is the a i is i Ppreciation of 4 to the dead poets and artists”the: f liot highlights the proper 0 to the degree at which they distinguish and themselves from their predecessors. But an impartial explicitly reveals the fact that any serious mature poet is influenced and shaped by the anterior poets. That is, a poet is a part in the long chain of tradition. It is only in relation to th i poets, all literature already produced, that a new poet is read, appreciated and assessed. This does not, however, imply that” tradition is something inherently obtained or to be blindly imitated; on the contrary, it is a strenuous assimilation of historical sense. This doctrine can easily be read as a heavy indictment against the ideas preached and practised by the Romantics who believed in personality and the assertion of individual self in poetry Eliot radically opposes this perspective. As Timothy Materer says, the intense conviction of this tenet is reflected in Eliot's own claim: of affinity with Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, and with nineteenth: century French poets rather than with his “immediate predecessors” -the Victorian and Georgian poets. Though in a different dimension, the concept of chain figures in the work of Mauss, Levi-Strauss and above all Derrida. Equally winsome is the implication that origina isa myth, as postulated by the postructuralist-postmodernist t fraught with incompleteness and scepticism. 2.“ The existing monuments form an ideal order themselves, which is modified by the new ( the really net of art among them” i Introduction + xpressing his staunch views « lis upon the dello‘and judgement of the new work. For e se of English drama. Our perception of the Englis yreatly influenced by Shakespeare. When someone aw stormed in, the whole standard was reset. With ‘According to J.C.C. Mays , Eliot is coincidently explaining tf “of The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock’ here. The individua tS Of any connection are affected by the supervention of a whol #lement. This poem is originary in the way it prompt: Past is altere is directed by the past 2" Topic 1,3,4.6,8 Sensitive Appreciation is di i iscuss rected not up the central issues j no