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A Critical Reading of T. S. Eliot's 'Tradition and the

Article · December 2017

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Mariwan Hasan
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9
T.S. ELIOT’S “TRADITION AND THE INDIVIDUAL TALENT”
Mariwan Nasradeen Hasan Barzinji

The aim of this essay is to explore the meaning of the most well-known essay,
“Tradition and the Individual Talent” by T.S. Eliot generally. This essay also looks at
different viewpoints about this controversial essay as some critics assert that Eliot has
written this essay to justify his own shortcomings, but they neglect the fact that Eliot
not only writes an essay; he also saves the life of many writers who have been criticised
by certain critics while evaluating their works for they connected the poetry to/with the
poet, but Eliot taught them how to look at these two as two different things, however,
some other critics praise it as it is a basis for new critics to know how to evaluate any
work. The researcher sums up the findings at the end of this essay.
Eliot’s essay is one of the most successful essays written in the twentieth century
and of which different interpretations are available. It was first published as an
anonymous work in “The Egoist, a London literary review, in September and December
1919”, (Murphy, 2007: 405). This essay is a major “contributor” to the rise of modernism
and “hegemony”, (Reeves, 2006: 107) and Das considers it “a milestone in the field of
literary criticism in the twentieth century” (Das, 2005: 229). Eliot’s aim in writing his
most famous essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” is to emphasise the significance
of the link of a poem by a poet to other poems by other authors, which was called
“literary history” but in recent times termed “intertextuality” (Adams, 1971: 1).
The essay consists of three sections, in the first part of the essay T.S. Eliot gives a
definition of tradition and looks at the connection of any poem by any poet to other
poetry written by other writers that constitute “a literary tradition”. In section two of the
essay, Eliot examines the link between the poem and the poet. In the end, Eliot specifies
the shortcomings and purpose of the essay, in other words; Eliot changes his emphasis
from the author to the written work. No doubt this essay is a principle for the new
critics to rely on in building up their theories of criticism (Das, 2005: 229).
It is very rare to talk about tradition in English writings, although its name from
time to time, is applied to deplore its absence. One cannot mention the word “the
tradition” or to “a tradition”; mostly, the adjective is used instead one is saying the
poetry of this writer and or that writer is “traditional” or very “traditional”. The word
might rarely appear except in a disapproving phrase. On the contrary, it is ambiguously
approving, carrying the meaning, as to the masterpiece accepted, of some acceptable
renewal archaeologically. It is hard to change this term concordant with English
speakers barring this interesting mention to the comforting archaeological science
(Tradition and the Individual Talent).
T.S. Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent” 57

No doubt this word does not seem to be seen in one’s evaluations of the existing
writers; dead and living. It is noticed that each separate nation and race has both
creative and critical turn of thinking, which belong to itself. This becomes clearer of
its negative aspects and limitations of its dangerous customs more than those of its
creative intellect. One may know or may think that he knows, from the great amount
of critical writing that is emerged in the French language the critical ways and
approaches or custom among the French people; one then, might conclude that people
are so unconscious that those who are from France, are more criticised than the
English, and might even pride to themselves slightly in a way that the French are not
more spontaneous. The French may perhaps are, and the English must know that
criticism is unchangeable like breathing (Tradition and the Individual Talent). The
word tradition has a wider meaning than the past or the present alone, but is the
amalgamation of the two as well as the immediate and new information that poets can
achieve as he explains in After Strange Gods, Traditions are not solely, or even primarily
the maintenance of certain dogmatic beliefs; these beliefs have come to take their
living form in the course of the formation of a tradition. What I mean by tradition
involves all those habitual actions, habits and customs from the most significant religious
rites to our conventional way of greeting a stranger, which represents the blood kinship
of ‘the same people living in the same place’ (Das, 2005: 230).
The significance of tradition is in such a way that Eliot warns readers and critics to
perceive that tradition does not merely mean imitation of the previous writers as it is
not something easy that every writer can do it; it needs great labour. Eliot explicates
the meaning of tradition, which includes the “historical sense” of the amalgamation of
the past and the present. So, when a writer intends to write he takes the history of
European literature, from Homer to the present time of writing on his work, into
consideration to enable him to produce a piece of literary work (Das, 2005: 231). One
of the things that is taken into account when praising a poet, by the critics is the
degree of resemblance to others and according to it, the least his work resembles
other’s works, the best it becomes and on the contrary, and it is called originality,
(Tradition and the Individual Talent).
Eliot also makes differentiation between individual talent and tradition. Some critics
dwell on the notion that it is individual talent that can constitute the tradition, but it
should not be forgotten that these two, “tradition”and “the individual talent” are closely
related to each other; one can complete the other, in other words; each of the two is
dependent upon the other. Even those writers who reject the influence of tradition on the
time that they comprise any piece of literary work, unknowingly, use certain words and
expressions as well as ideas from the dead poets of the previous ages.
In the process of evaluating the poet’s work, critics pretend to discover individual
aspects to the work and to explore the unusual “essence” of the writer. Critics become
satisfied by the work if they find the work not similar to the previous works, especially
from the works of the previous ages; critics strive to see the work precisely to find
something isolated and different to appear interesting; this is, on the one hand (Tradition
and the Individual Talent).
 58 Where The River Flows: A Study of T.S. Eliot's Criticism

On the other hand, if critics intend to evaluate a poet without this prejudice, they
shall often discover that both the best and even the most individual approaches of the
poet’s work might be those parts in which the late poets, his ancestors, declared their
immortality very enthusiastically.
Yet if the only form of tradition, of teaching, consisted in pursuing the ways of the
present generation in front of the critics in a random or fearful devotion to its
achievements, “tradition” with no doubt must be dejected. Critics have noticed many
similar normal currents disappeared in the “sand” quickly; and newness is preferable
reiteration. Tradition has a much wider importance, but it is not hereditary, and when
one wants it, he must strive to gain it by unlimited effort.
The greatest writers, Eliot argues, write from a sense of history. This sense of
history, which one may call approximately necessary to someone who would stay to
be a poet outside his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense includes an insight, not
merely about the past, nevertheless, of its being there; the historical sense requires a
writer to write not only with his own generation in his skeleton, but with an
understanding that the entire European literature from Homer and within it, the entire
literature of his own country has a concurrent existence and composes a similar order
at the same time. This documented appreciation, which is a sense of the lack of time
and of the “temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together”, turns a literary
figure “traditional”. Furthermore, it is what, that makes a writer most intensely become
aware of his place in time, and of the living writers of his period (Tradition and the
Individual Talent).
Poets, artists of any type, can have a complete meaning with the previous ancestors.
His weight, his indebtedness is the appreciation of his link to the dead poets and artists.
One cannot appreciate any writer independently he must be set, for “contrast and
comparison”, amongst the dead writers. This is considered as the aesthetics of literary
works, not only historical criticism. The obligation that he shall follow, that he shall
adhere, “is not one-sided”; whatever takes place in the time of creating a new work of
art is something that occurs synchronously to all the works of art, which took precedence.
The existing buildings mould a perfect order among themselves, which is adjusted by
the commencement of the new artistic works amongst them. The existing order is
perfect before the arrival of a new work; for order to continue after the supervening of
novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations,
proportions, significance of every work of art towards the all, are revaluated and this is
agreement between the “old and the new”. Whoever person has confirmed this notion
of order, of the design of European, of English literature, will not find it incredible that
the past should be replaced by the present to the extent the present is led by the past.
Moreover, the poet who is familiar to this will be familiar with considerable hardships
and responsibilities (Tradition and the Individual Talent).
Surprisingly, he will be conscious also that he must certainly be judged by the
principles from the past. The word judged is used, not amputated, by them; not
judged to be similar to them in goodness or in being worse or even better than, the
T.S. Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent” 59

dead; and surely not judged by the standards of dead critics. It is two things, a judgment
and a comparison, and the two are measured by each other (Tradition and the Individual
Talent). The point of view that Eliot is facing difficulty to oppose is probably connected
to “the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity to the soul” (Tradition and the
Individual Talent). Eliot asserts that the poet does not have a “personality” to express,
but he has a particular medium, which is not even connected to personality, in which
ideas and experiences mix in strange and unpredicted methods (Tradition and the
Individual Talent).
The essay also suggests pondering at the edge of metaphysics or occultism, and
confines itself to such realistic conclusions as can be practiced by the person in
command who is absorbed in poetry. To deviate hobby from the poet to the poetry is
an admirable aspiration; as it would contribute to a “juster” evaluation of actual poetry,
which is to be either good or bad or both. The majority of people who value what one
can express of heartfelt strong feeling in poetry, and the minority of people, is seen
who can value scientific brilliance. However, very few know when there is the
expression of significant emotion, emotion, which has its life to the poem and not in
the history of the poet. The emotion of art is not personal. As a result, the poet cannot
obtain the sense of impersonality without succumbing himself completely to the work
to be implemented. Moreover, he may not be able to understand what is to be done
except if he experiences what is not only the present, but the past as well, but if he is
aware, not of those who are dead and those who already living.). Furthermore,
Meerpohl Marion states that Eliot believes that the past is always a continuous help for
the present authors to understand the present situations in both literature and the
community (Meerpohl, 2004: 15).
Eliot strove to consider the text as the Bible of the scholar rather than the poet as
the work can carry the ideas of the author. Eliot is right when he states that critics
must concentrate on the text for analysis rather than the writer because the text
represents the writer; that is the reason the writer’s biography should be separated
from the text when analysing it as this would be helpful in keeping the impersonality
of the work. The reason Eliot considers the impersonality of poetry as an important
method in writing to follow – is too much concentration of the Romantic and Georgian
poets as William Wordsworth believed that poetry stems from a very powerful feeling
and emotion of the poet spontaneously (Wordsworth, 1984: 598). Eliot was different
from the other critics or poets as he was not pursuing a new trend of writing without
knowing what it is. Eliot benefited from the works written over the past time, for his
own works, and tradition is certainly one of those rich sources that one can rely on.
To conclude, Eliot believes that a critic must have his emotions impersonalised.
This impersonality can be obtained via surrendering himself completely to the work
that is to be done. The poet can be conscious of these things if he acquires a sense of
tradition. A single author can contribute to the tradition when, for example, the poet
becomes personal but his treatment of writing should not be subjective. Thus, it can
draw the attention of all.
 60 Where The River Flows: A Study of T.S. Eliot's Criticism

The poet must not surrender to anything less important than himself. He must
surrender to something of a great value which is the tradition because there is nothing
that Eliot has benefited from more than the past and tradition. The other writers share
the same process in their writings, but it is hard to confess that one is writing of the
influence of the culture of the previous dead poets. Some authors think that they are
back-warded if they still in their period follow culture and even their predecessors as
they may have forgotten that the greatness and the value of literary works or any
other works, is not based on the period, but it is rather dependent on the merit and the
quality of the work that the writer could present in all his power and strength.
Furthermore, there are many new writers who think that culture is no longer valuable
or the past was only important for the past time; their works are not as good as those
works that allude to the culture or the past events and even their works cannot turn
them immortal, but as it is seen that the status of the dead poets or authors is called
death in life, not, on the contrary, life in death. Culture is a strong castle for writers
and authors, and it can serve writers in the same way if they want to, in their writings.
Moreover, culture and the individual talent are not two separated things; they are
strongly linked as an individual’s life is mainly amongst the culture, and that is why
can leave an influence on him.
The essay is very significant because it emphasises on the value of culture, which
is almost forgotten by many writers and even critics while evaluating any literary
work or composing any piece of literature. According to Eliot’s view, no work of art
can stand alone without having a basis from the previous works by previous authors.

Woks Cited
1. Das, Kumar. Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, 5th Ed. New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers & Distributors. 2005.
2. Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Critical Theory Since Plato.
Ed. Hazard Adams. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. pp. 761-764.
3. —————. Selected Essays, 3rd. Ed. London: Faber & Faber Limited. 1999.
4. Meerpohl, Marion, T.S. Eliot’s Response to Matthew Arnold in His Early Essays,
Seminar Paper, Norderstedt: GRIN Verlag. 2004.
5. Murphy. Russell, Critical Companion to T.S. Eliot: A Literary Reference to His
Life and Work, New York: Info Base Publishing. 2007.
6. Waugh, Patricia. Ed. Literary Theory and Criticism: An Oxford Guide, Oxford:
Oxford University Press. 2006.
7. Gill, Stephen. William Wordsworth, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1984.

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