Paper :-7 Literary criticism - 2 assignment

• Paper: 7 Literary Theory and criticism –
• Name :- Hitixa Goswami
• Class :- M. A. Sam 2
• Roll No :- 8
• Enrollment No :- 2069108420200013
• Subject :- Literary Theory and criticism – 2
• Assignment Topic :- T. S. Eliot’s tradition and individual talent
• Email :- hitixagoswami28@gamil
• Submitted to :- S.B.GARDI Department of English Bhavnagar University
• World :- 1447

Introduction

                          Essay ‘Tradition and individual talent ‘was written by T. S. Eliot. He is a famous critic. Tradition and individual talent is an attack on certain critical views in Romanticism particularly up on the idea that a poem is primarily an expression of the personality of the poet.

T. S. Eliot

                         Thomas streams Eliot was born on September 1888, 4 January 1965. ‘One of the twentieth century’s major poets’. Was also an essayist, publisher, playwright, and literary and social critic Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25,setting working, and marrying there. He became a British subject in 1927 at the age of 39, renouncing his American passport. 

                               Eliot attracted wide’s pared attention for his poem “The love song of J. Alfred prufrock “which was seen as a masterpiece of the modernist movement. If was followed by some of the best known poems in the English language, including the waste land, “The Hollow men “, As Wednesday “, and four Quotes plays, particularly murder in the cathedral and The cocktail party. He was awarded the Nobel prize in literature in 1948,” for his outstanding pioneer contribution to present day poetry.”

                                T. S. Eliot’s“tradition and individual talent” was published in 1919 in The Egoist the – the times of literary supplement. Later, the essay on poetry and criticism in 1920. This essay is described by David Lodge as the most celebrated critical essay in the English of the 20th century. The essay is divided into three main sections. 

 The first is Eliot’s concept of tradition. 

The second is theory of depersonalization and poetry.

In the third part he concludes the debate by saying that the poet’s sense of tradition and the  impersonality of poetry are complementary things.

                                     Now I am explaining the three parts of the essay. The essay is a challenge to the conversations of early twentieth century literary criticism. Eliot’s most concise statement of his thesis comes at the start of the December installment. “Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry”. This is one of the central paradoxes of Eliot’s writing. 

      

1. The concept of Tradition. 

                           In first part Eliot speaks about tradition, He says: “seldom, perhaps, does the word appear except in a phase of censure”. Eliot’s critical writing offers intellectual insight into the work of literature or art. He says that poem requires a mental exercise should be happen in the minds of the readers. The word ‘Tradition’ and ‘Individual talent’ gives some clues to us about his work and what is it about. 

                            Eliot says that the meaning is within the text not out of the text. So it is related to reconstruction. Someone in the starting point of the essay he writes that ‘criticism is as inevitable as breathing’, but almost in the some breath that ‘we should be none the worse for criticizing our own minds in their work of criticism’. He explain the concept of tradition what we had adopted it in normal course or in easier way. It is somewhere connected to the reconstruction because if the reader will read the text of the poems then he will interpret it in their way of understanding the thing. 

     

                             Eliot says about English men’s attitude towards French literature. Englishmen have a habit to feel proud on themselves. That is the proud for their creativity and more for their ‘less’ critically. In French there is a mass of critical writing. Eliot compares English with French that they have habit of critical method and English have habit of ‘conclusion’. 

He says:

              “Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor. It involves in the first place, the historical sense”.

2. The Theory of Depersonalization 

                          In this he defines the process of depersonalization and its relation to the tradition. He gives the example of two gases oxygen and Sulphur dioxide. Through this example he wants to say that if poet wants to write a poem then he doesn’t have and history or background or any feeling then the writing process will be stooped. He start with “Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry”. Process is A Continual Surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. 

                              New criticism is important this part begins with the sentences, “Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry” like poetry but not poet and person this thing he wants to say in this part. Here he says that appreciate work rather than the person. He believes that poetry is depersonalized of poet. This idea is opposite idea then the romanticism. Because Romanticism believes that whatever there is in poem is the feeling of poet. 

                                There are two elements which are experience of poet feelings and emotions. It shows the relation between the poem and poet. He farther says that “the poet has not a ‘ personality’ to express but particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impression and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways. Impressions and those which become important for the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality”.

                                 Where he should be conscious and he became conscious where he must be unconscious. When a poet escapes from his personality, then and then the great poem comes out. A poet must not show his emotion in poetry. Eliot says:

 “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotions; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. 

He concludes the debate by saying that the poet’s sense of tradition and the impersonality of poetry are complementary things. 

   
3. In third part he concludes the debate by saying that the poet’s sense of tradition and the impersonality of poetry are complementary things. 

                     “To divert interest from the poet to the poetry is a laudable aim: for it would conclude to a jester estimation of actual poetry, good and bad”. Family he ends his essay with:” very few know when ether is expression of significant emotion, emotion which has its life in the poem and not in the history of the poet. 

                  By this statement, he says to that admire a poem ‘with poet’s skill and his name is easiest thing. The harder is to know technical skill or art of the poem. But the hardest thing is to find the significant emotions from the poem, which separates the poet from the poem. And a poet must know that to reach at the level of impersonality. He first has to sacrifices himself and has to surrender himself totally to that work. The radar must know that after giving birth of the work of art, the connection between that art and artists is ended. 

                           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 teach this impersonality without surrounding himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know 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”. 

Conclusion 

                       We can say Eliot‘s idea of ‘Tradition and individual talent’ is similar with new criticism. This is somewhat ironic, since he latter criticized their excruciatingly detailed analysis of texts. The new critics resemble Eliot in their close analysis of particular passages and poems we can say that Tradition and individual talent both the thing is important in poet’s life. Without any of this he will not able to survive in long history of literature. 

    

Work cited

Kevin, Dettmar. A HUNDRED YEARS OF T.S,ELIOT'S " TRADITION AND THE INNDIVIDUAL TALNT". 27 Octomber 2019. March 2020 <https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-hundred-years-of-t-s-eliots-tradition-and-the-individual-talent>.

Dr, Tearle, Oliver. A Short Analysis of T.S.Eliot's 'Tradition amd Individual Telant. 2018. March 2020 <https://interestingliterature.com/2017/02/a-short-analysis-of-t-s-eliots-tradition-and-the-individual-talent/>.

     
                                     Thank you..