eliot's "Tradition and Individual Talent"

"No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone."

Eliot's Tradition and Individual Talent showcases the meanings of the terms tradition and individual talent, and how it is perceived by those who create art (poetry). According to Eliot, tradition is not separate from individual talent as tradition speaks and carries with it the immortal voices of the past and the individual absorbs this only to create something new; yet something that fits into the line of tradition.

Eliot talks about how criticism is indispensable as it helps us to understand the texts and lead us to an intellectual engagement with these texts. A constructive criticism is one where a poet's work is judged by the intensity of artistic process present in it rather than by considering the biography of the poet. When this type of a criticism is done, we tend to see that no poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. This is to say that tradition is not an imitation of something which already exists, but it is a key to create novelty keeping in mind the historic sense.

The historic sense constitutes to the assertion of the mind of Europe - meaning the great minds of the past, on the individual. Thus, the new works carry in them, somewhere, the voices of the great minds of the past. Tradition is inseparable from individual talent for literature lives in continuity. Eliot tells that the tradition cannot be inherited but must be obtained by great labour.

Eliot calls the poetic mind to be a catalyst that helps in accelerating the rate of a reaction and yet it remains unchanged towards the end. Such should be the poetic mind as well for it should hold the past in its bones and create something new; and yet does not work to show the poet anywhere in the poetry that is produced. By saying this, Eliot emphasizes on the concept of the pastness of the present. Just as how the past directs the present, similarly, the present must conform to the past. Only then, will the new work be anything different from the old, yet fitting in to the whole stream of tradition.

In order to obtain this high standard, one must go through a continual surrender of himself. Eliot terms this as the poetic depersonalization. New ideas and aspects must be learnt only to add to the already existing information in the mind; and this sort of an attitude can be cultivated when one has an unprejudiced mind while assessing the poetic works (art works). It is not a single work of art of an artist that gives an actual estimation of the artist and his work; it is to consider several of works in comparison and to set him (the artist) in comparison and contrast with his predecessors. This judgment is a constructive one and it ameliorates the artist, and certainly not degrade him or amputate him (only metaphorically).

The meaning that an art work gives is something that is new yet it shows the conformity to the old. Eliot emphasizes on the concept of the artistic process where the artist must be capable of creating something new, with keeping in mind the essence of not the dead artists of the past but of the living essence of the past.