20th century has produced some of the greatest writers who changed the course of literature writers that went on the pursuit of pushing the language to its limits such as James choice and the writers like kka who made that absurdity of life in which anything can happen at random and only sometimes or perhaps never happy ending and the writer who tried to capture his whole life in a work of fiction such as Marcel prush the list is somewhat long but all in all these writers are collectively called
modernists who rejected traditional narrative structure and focused on more fragmented writing in search of subjective reality aboring the first person writing the Embrace stream of Consciousness instead of beautifully articulated story they opted for ambiguity and wagness in short it would not be wrong to say that this modernist writers tried to break away from the traditional literary value and it was during this time in 1919 TS Elliot who himself was a modernist wrote an essay of remarkable
importance on the Traditions that even after a century litera reads and appreciates so hello and welcome to lrus I'm yesir Rohit and in this video we will be looking into TS Elliot's essay tradition and individual Talent the essay was first published in literally magin called the egoist in 1919 and has considerably impacted the development and shaping of new CRI ISM Elliot has divided the essay in three parts which obviously he has not named but for the better understanding of ourselves we can s
ay that the first part deals with tradition the second part deals with impersonality of Art and the last part is the conclusion Elliot Begins the essay with the fact that the word tradition is seldom used to praise or to refer to a writer and if it is used it is almost always used in a sconul manner as the Poetry of so and so is too traditional only in an archaeological sense the word tradition is used in an affirmation the archaeological metaphor is used to imply that people generally find the
idea of something from the past or of a historical significance comforting therefore in this sense the word tradition may sound agreeable but the same is not the case in our appreciation of living or dead writers OT writes when we praise a poet upon those aspects of his work in which he least resembles anyone else in these aspects or parts of his work we pretend to find what is individual what is the peculiar essence of the man that is to say we appreciate only the part which is not influenced b
y the predecessors and it is that isolated part with which we are more entertained and satisfied but against this critical tendency Elliot argues that if we approach a poet without this Prejudice we shall often find that not only the best but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the Dead Poets his ancestors assert their immortality most vigorously for aliot the word tradition does not have a simple dictionary meaning of passing down or inheriting values and Customs to the
Next Generation which then follows it unintelligibly rather OT writes it cannot be inherited and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor for which Elliot suggests that the poet must write with a historical sense that is to say writing should not be done with the one's own generation in mind rather it should be done with a feeling that the whole of literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultan
eous order though aliot has clearly mentioned the whole of Europe I would rather take it as an idea that the poet must have an understanding of literally Traditions from the very beginning to the time of its own life for Elliot himself was a pretty much influenced by the Indian traditions in simple words historical sense is a fusion of past and present no art can have a complete meaning alone in isolation they are subjected to contrast and comparison with the Dead Poets this should be done not w
ith the point of view of historical criticism which was kind of prevalent During the period but rather from the aesthetic standpoint to find the ideal order all the exist exting literature forms an ideal order and when the new work of art is introduced it is modified and readjusted the existing monuments writes Elliot form an ideal order among themselves which is modified by the introduction of the new the really new work of art among them Elliot further adds past should be altered by the presen
t as much as the present is directed by the past it may sound stupid but to better understand understand this we may take an example of Charles Dickens though he was one of the most celebrated writers of the Victorian era majorly his writing lacks the moral ambiguity his characters are either bad or good there is no in between now when we compare it with Irish madog the SE the sea a book came after about two centuries we can assert that maduk has managed to portray the more realistic characters
by showing moral ambiguity and therefore the new ideal order is created it this is also the major reason why modern readers are gravitated towards great expectation more than any other writings of deacons aliot further clarifies the meaning of an artist's connection with the past that it should not be limited to a certain period or one or two poets and also that it does not mean historical facts rather the artist should know the mind of Europe that is to say the artist must have the consciousnes
s of the past and the greater sensitivity of of historical awareness Elliot States some can absorb knowledge the more tardi must sweat for it Shakespeare acquired more essential history from plutar than most men could from the whole British museum this shows a greater historical awareness of Shakespeare than many others therefore Elliot insists artists upon developing the historical consciousness throughout the career and this continuous process will lead the artist to merge its own personality
with the tradition and ultimately to the impersonal art to explain impersonal art aliot gives an analogy of catalyst when oxygen and sulfur dioxide are mixed in the presence of filament of platinium sulfuric acid is formed but this newly formed sulfuric acid does not contain any tress of platinium alot compares the mind of the poet or the mind of a mature poet I it with a shred of platinium as platinium remains unaffected the poet mind must remain unaffected from the creation therefore the poet
is but a medium which channelizes the tradition an artist's mind is a place where all the emotions feelings images phrases are stored and remains there until all the elements required to produce the work are collected and once collected they are combined together which culminates in the formation of a new work of art Elliot emphasizes on the way in which emotion ions and feelings are fused together to form a piece of art it does not matter how strong or intense those emotions are OT states it is
not the greatness the intensity of the emotions of the components but the intensity of the artistic process the pressure so to speak under which the fusion takes place that counts Eliot does not entertain the idea of poetry as an expression of poet's own experiences and emotions and also so he asserts that the job of the poet is not to find the new emotion rather to use the ordinary ones and in working them up into poetry to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all that is to sa
y to take the ordinary feelings and turn them into poetry expressing emotions that might not actually be felt in real life Elliot rejects the Romantic idea of emotion collected in Tranquility because poetry is not about remembering emotions calmly but it is about concentrating on lot of experiences that happen naturally without any conscious planning and this natural phenomena makes poetry or a work of art impersonal poetry is not about expressing emotions but escaping from it it is not the expr
ession of personality but an escape from personality in the final paragraph of the essay Elliot says that he does not intend to focus on practical advice for the people who admire poetry but his intention is to divert interest from the poet to the Poetry doing so will help in better understanding of the good and the bad poetry though many people can appreciate expressions of sincere emotion in verse few can tell when there is an expression of significant emotion that exists within the poem itsel
f rather than in the poet's biography the emotion of art is impers to achieve this impersonal quality the poet must surrender themselves to their work they need to be aware not just of the current moment but also of the past and not just what's gone but what's still alive in the [Music] past
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