Tradition and the Individual TalentWhat is significance of tradition and individual talent?Who is T.S Eliot?T.S Eliot was a poet playwright and publisher. He was the most seminal critics of 20th century. Carlo Linati, Italian critic, found his poetry to be irrational, incomprehensible a magnificent puzzle, and in his poetic endeavors a deliberate critical purpose. Eliots literary criticism is an expression of his poetic credo. He shows a disinterested critical faculty and intelligence in analyzing a work of art. His critical works may be grouped under the following headings:a) theoretical criticism dealing with the principles of literature,b) descriptive and practical criticism dealing with the works of individual writers and evaluation of their achievements, andc) theological essays.Tradition and Individual TalentTradition and Individual Talent has been one of his extraordinarily influential critical works. It was first published in 1922 in Sacred Woods. It contains all those critical principles from which criticism has been derived ever since. Eliot is of the opinion that the writer must have faith in some system of writing. According to Eliots conception tradition and the individual talent go together.In this essay, Eliot has primarily dealt with his concepts of1. Tradition and Historical sense2. Interdependence of the past and the present3. Impersonality in art in general and poetry in particularDictionary Meaning TraditionAccording to Oxford Advanced Leaners Dictionary, the word Tradition means a belief or custom or way of doing something that has been existed for a long time among particular group of people. Redefining the term Tradition by Eliot The word tradition generally regarded as a word of censure. The critics praise a poet for those aspects of his work in which he least resembles anyone else.Traditiondoes not mean a blind following previousgenerations. Eliot says that it would be slavish imitation and mere repetition of what has already been achieved. He is in the opinion that novelty is better than repetition. Who can obtain Tradition?For Eliot, Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited. It can only be obtained by hard labour. This labour is to know the past writers. It is thecriticallabour that tells what is good and useful. Traditioncan beobtainedonly by those who have the historical sense.What is Historical Sense?. The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but also of its presence: One who has the historic sense feels that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer down to his own day, including the literature of his own country, forms one continuous literarytradition He realizes that the past exists in the present and the past and the present make a simultaneous order. This historical sense is timeless and temporal. It is the historical sense that makes a writer traditional. What does historical sense do? It thus makes a writer fully conscious of : his own generation, his place in the present, his relationship with the writers of the past.The value of a writerA poet has value if he conforms or fits in to the tradition. Further, Eliot points out that no writer has his value and significancein isolation. To judge the work of a poet or anartist, we must compare and contrasthis workwith the works of poets andartistin the past. Tradition as a dynamic conceptEliots conception oftraditionis a dynamic one. According to his view,traditionis not fixed and static; it is constantly changing, growing, and becoming different from what it is.A writer in the present must seek guidance from the past. so the present alters and modifies the past. When a new work of art is created, if it is really new and original, the whole literarytraditionis modified slightly. The relationship between the past and the present is not one-sided; it is a reciprocal relationship. Every great poet like Virgil, Dante, or Shakespeare, adds something to the literarytraditionout of which the future poetry will be written.The Function ofTraditionThe function of tradition is not to find out good or bad in literary work. It does not mean deciding whether the present work is better or worse than works of the past. The comparison is to be made to know the facts, all the facts or techniques, about the new work of art. The comparison is made for the purposes of analysis, and for forming a better understanding of the new work. The function of tradition is reciprocal.Works of Art: Their PermanenceThe poet must also realize that art never improves, though its material is never the same. The mind of Europe may change, but this change does not mean that great writers like Shakespeare and Homer have grown outdated and lost theirsignificance. The great works of art never lose theirsignificance.Criticism of Eliots conception of tradition T.S. Eliot is conscious of the criticism on his theory of tradition. It will be said about his theory, a ridiculous amount of erudition. Awareness of the Past: The Poets Duty to Acquire ItKnowledge does not merely mean bookish knowledge, and the capacity for acquiring knowledge differs from person to person. Some can absorb knowledge easily, while others must sweat for it. It is the duty of every poet to acquire knowledge to the best of his ability. Such awareness of tradition sharpens poetic creation.Theory of ImpersonalThe artist must continually surrender himself i.e. the literary tradition. He must allow his poetic sensibility to be shaped and modified by the past. How a great poet made? The role of the poet as an artistIn the beginning, his self, his individuality, may stress itself, but as his powers mature there must be greater and greater objectives and the death of personality.His emotions and passions must be depersonalized. The personality of the artist is not important; the important thing is his sense of tradition. He must forget his personal joys and sorrows, and he absorbed in acquiring a sense of tradition and expressing it in his poetry. Thus, the poets personality is merely a medium, having the same significance as a catalytic agent, or a receptacle in which chemical reactions take place.

The Poetic Process: The Analogy of the Catalyst In the second part of the essay, Eliot develops further his theory of the impersonality of poetry. He compares the mind of the poet to a catalyst and the process of poetic creation to the process of a chemical reaction. Just as chemical reactions take place in the presence of a catalyst alone, so it same happens with the poets mind. The mind of the poet is like the catalytic agent. The mind of the poet is constantly forming emotions and experiences into new wholes, but the new combination does not contain even a hint of the poets mind, just as the newly formed sulphurous acid does not contain any sign of platinum. Eliot says, .the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates. So, the personality of the poet does not find expression in his poetry; it acts like a catalytic agent in the process of poetic composition.Emotions and FeelingsThe experiences which enter the poetic process, says Eliot, may be of two kinds. They are emotions and feelings. The emotion of poetry is different from the personal emotions of the poet. His personal emotions may be simple or crude, but the emotion of his poetry may be complex and refined. It is not the business of the poet to find new emotions. He may express only ordinary emotions, but he must convey to them a new significance and a new meaning. And it is not necessary that they should be his personal emotions.Eliot rejects Wordsworths theory of poetry having, its origin in emotions recollected in tranquillity, and points out that in the process of poetic composition there is neither emotion, nor recollection, nor tranquillity.The difference between a good and a bad poet is that a bad poet is conscious where he should be unconscious and unconscious where he should be conscious. But Eliot does not tell us when a poet should be conscious, and when not. The point has been left vague and indeterminate.Poetry, an Escape from Personality and Personal EmotionsEliot does not deny personality or emotion to the poet. Only, he must depersonalise his emotions. There should be an extinction of his personality. This impersonality can be achieved only when poet surrenders himself completely to the work. As he says The emotion of art is impersonality.