Literary Criticism 2

        

         Assignment 

Name :  Rupa Bambhaniya B

Enrollment no:    2069108420200002

Paper No : 7 

Topic  : Traditional and individual Talent.

Submitted by : Smt S.B. Gardhi Department of English

Email Id : rupabambhniya166@gmail.

 Words : 

     *   Traditional and individual Talent : 

 Introduction: 

Eliot is also an important figure in 20th century drama. His work has influenced several important 20 th century playwrights. And Eliot also made significant contributions as an editor and publisher.

Eliot’s career as a poet can be divided into three periods—the first coinciding with his studies in Boston and Paris and culminating in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” in 1911; the second coinciding with World War I and with the financial and marital stress of his early years in London, and culminating in The Waste Land in 1922; and the third coinciding with his angst at the economic depression and the rise of Nazism and culminating in the wartime Four Quartets in 1943.

This essay is divided into three parts: first the concept of "Tradition," then the Theory of Impersonal Poetry, 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."

First : 

The concept of Traditional.

Tradition and the Individual Talent’ (1919) sees Eliot defending the role of tradition in helping new writers to be modern. This is one of the central paradoxes of Eliot’s writing – indeed, of much modernism – that in order to move forward it often looks to the past, even more directly and more pointedly than previous poets had. This theory of tradition also highlights Eliot’s anti-Romanticism. Unlike the Romantics’ idea of original creation and inspiration, Eliot’s concept of tradition foregrounds how important older writers are to contemporary writers: Homer and Dante are Eliot’s contemporaries because they inform his work as much as those alive in the twentieth century do.

Eliot argues that a great poem always asserts and that the poet must develop a sense of the pastness of the past. There is great importance of tradition in the present poem. Tradition should not be inherited but should be obtained by great labor. Past should be altered by present as much as the present is directed by past.

Hamlet and His problem Objective Correlative

In the essay “Hamlet and his problem" Eliot argues that the play Hamlet and the Character Hamlet both are problematic. He says that Hamlet is an artistic failure, because it has not any objective correlative. Here in this play, Shakespeare could not balance between fact and feelings. External situation is needed to express the feelings of character. But in Hamlet, there is no relation between external situation and the feeling of Hamlet.

The madness of Hamlet has not proper relation with his mother's guilt. There are no clear events that are matching with expressed emotion. Matching of events with expressed emotion is what Eliot calls objective correlative.

But, in Hamlet, Hamlet goes mad due to his mother’s elopement. This elopement is very minor issue to go mad. So here is not objective correlative. Hamlet lacks objective correlative. Objective refers to situation, events, condition and objective correlative means the proper relationship between situation and expression of feelings. Thus Hamlet is an artistic failure. 

Eliot attempts to do two things in this essay: he first redefines “tradition” by emphasizing the importance of history to writing and understanding poetry, and he then argues that poetry should be essentially “impersonal,” that is separate and distinct from the personality of its writer.

Eliot begins the essay by pointing out that the word ‘tradition’ is generally regarded as a word of censure. It is a word disagreeable to the English ears. When the English praise a poet, they praise him for those-aspects of his work which are ‘individual’ and original. It is supposed that his chief merit lies in such parts. This undue stress on individuality shows that the English have an uncritical turn of mind. They praise the poet for the wrong thing. If they examine the matter critically with an unprejudiced mind, they will realise that the best and the most individual part of a poet’s work is that which shows the maximum influence of the writers of the past. To quote his own words: “Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice, we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual part of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.’

Second: 

The Theory of Impersnal  poery.

Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the

poet but upon the poetry.Eliot compares the poeť's mind to a catalyst,-in which the reactants are feelings and emotion that are

synthesized to create an artistic image that captures these same

feelings and emotion.- While the mind of poet is necessary for production, it emerges

unaffected by the process.-The artist stores feelings and enmotions, and properly unites

them into a specific combination , which is the artistic product.

The poet has, nota "personality" to express, buta particular mediumn

, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impression

and experience combine in peculiar and unexpected ways.Impression and experiences which are important for the man may

not take place in the poetry, and those which become important in the

poetry , may play quite an ignorable part in the man, the personality.It is not his personal emotions, the emotions provoked by particular

event in his life, that the poet is in any way remarkable or interesting- His particular emotions may be simple, crude or flat

- Great work do not express the personal emotion of the poet .

-And the poet does not reveal his own unique and novel emotions,but rather , by drawing an ordinary ones and channeling them throug

the intensity of poetry.

According to Eliot 'poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an

escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an

escape from personality.But ,of course, only those who have personality and emotions

know what it means to want to escape from these thingsSince, successful poetry is impersonal and, therefore, exists

independent of its poet, it outli ves the poet and can incorporate into

the timeless "ideal order" of the "living" literary tradition. Talent, especially in the arts, is a genius ,that one is born

with. Instead talent is acquired through a careful study of

poetry.

Conclusion:

Tradition and Individual Talent (1919) is an essay

written by T.S.Eliot. Acording to him, the emotion of art is impersonal.And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without

surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done.And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless

he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present

moment of past, unless he is conscious, not of what is

dead, but of what is already living.