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Old 10-16-2002, 05:59 PM   #1
Random Female
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Default Tradition and Eliot's Stupid Idea

Feel free to critique grammar-wise. Don't you dare fuck with my main ideas as I'm too exhausted to incorporate anything major anymore.

Elisa Hedrick
10/16/02
English 501
Professor Rother

Tradition and Eliot’s Stupid Idea
In his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” author T.S. Eliot defines two essential roles the poet must fulfill in order to create good poetry. The importance of the poet’s comprehension and appreciation of the literary tradition throughout history is convincingly explained in the first part of the essay. Eliot then attempts to explain the importance of the poet as a medium who must sacrifice his own sense of self including his personal emotions and feelings in pursuit of a purer poetic outcome.

Eliot’s argument that “tradition” has unnecessarily negative connotations is as relevant and pertinent today as it was when he wrote. He cautions that people often have an uniformed definition of the word, and that this leads them to focus too heavily on the part of a poetic work which is different from that of the past. As he concisely states, “We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet’s difference from his predecessors[...] we endeavour to find something that can be isolated in order to be enjoyed (499A).” However, Eliot believes that in this process, there is too much emphasis on originality having to do the extent to which something differs from works that have come before. Consequently, the best elements of the art could be overlooked for being “too traditional.” This idea is relevant to the state of art itself today: in cinema, music, sculpture, etc. Our culture places too high a value in originality and is often even wiling to overlook deficiencies in areas which tradition could have assisted so long as that the element of originality is present. This mistake, according to Eliot, is the result of a cultural misperception of the word “tradition.” Eliot acknowledges that if tradition were limited to “following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to success (499A)” that this should, of course, be criticized. But tradition is much more than this. Eliot explains that it involves the indispensable recognition and use of the historical sense, which is essential to any mature poet. He states, however crudely, that “[...]the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence[...](499B)”

Eliot insists that the influence of these traditional elements will not overshadow the contemporary element of the poetry. He states that the blending of tradition and originality is necessary if the poet is to become part of the evolving art form of great poetry. “The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided[...] The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new work of art among them (499B).” His wordy explanation insists that the poet must use these elements within his work in combination with whatever new element he introduces or else he will not obtain his own place among the heralded traditional. “[...]the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but 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 simultaneous order (500A).” This is obviously no small undertaking, but this standard ensures a stronger and more refined end product.

In the second part of his essay, Eliot attempts much less effectively to explain what he feels is another aspect of the poet’s role. He argues that the poet must only consider emotions and feelings as they relate to the subject of the poem itself and must not let his own personality interfere with being a medium. He uses the analogy of a catalyst (the poet’s mind), bringing the two essential poetic elements (emotions and feelings) together in a unique artistic fusion. The poet should therefore be a “perfected medium in which special, or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combinations (501A).” Eliot goes on to say that there is no standard formula that specifies how much emotion or feeling should be used in order to create a perfect poem. “It may be formed out of one emotion, or may be a combination of several[...](501A) Since Eliot gives the reader no unique definition of the differences between emotion and feeling, the reader is to assume that he is using commonly accepted definitions of these words in which “feelings” imply a broader range of impressions and subjective states of thought than “emotions,” which are more intensely experienced feelings such as love, rage or passion.

Eliot employs a number of examples to illustrate this point. First, he uses the example of Dante’s Inferno to illustrate that feelings can be attached to a particular image in a poem without the use of emotion. Despite the fact that there is emotion felt by the characters in the quatrain specified, this emotion is not experienced by the reader. Eliot continues with examples from Dante, the Paolo and Francesca episode and the voyage of Ulysses, which he concludes have a similar effect. The characters themselves are engulfed in great emotion, but the reader merely experiences more generalized feelings. In contrast, Eliot mentions Agamemnon and Othello to illustrate that the strong emotions expressed artistically are also felt by the reader.

The analogy of the poet as a catalyst for emotions and feelings is inconsistent with the examples given. In Eliot’s illustration of the oxygen, sulfur dioxide and platinum fusion, the formation can only take place if all elements are present. Unfortunately, immediately after using this analogy, he disproves the necessity that all three elements are required for great poetry. “Or great poetry may be made without the direct use of any emotion whatever: composed out of feelings solely. (501A)” He goes on to give the example of Dante to illustrate his point, but instead of getting a strong emotion from the quatrain referenced, the reader gets a nebulous line of reasoning that *******s the unintelligible phrase, “a feeling attached to an image (501A).”

In an attempt to further clarify his point, Eliot uses an example which, ironically, confuses rather than enlightens the reader. He quotes a poem which utilizes a combination of equally intense positive and negative emotions. He explains that the balance between the contrasting emotions is too dramatic for the scene at hand and that therefore these emotions are not the “dominant tone” of the passage. However, he loses the reader when he describes that “[...]the whole effect, the dominant tone, is due to the fact that a number of floating feelings, having an affinity to this emotion by no means superficially evident, have combined with it to give us a new art emotion (502A).” The concepts of “floating feelings” and “new art emotion” are terms peculiar to Eliot and go undefined. This particular sentence seems to be at the root of Eliot’s attempt to further clarify the place of emotion and feeling, but these ambiguous phrases leave the reader unenlightened and frustrated.

Another way Eliot distinguishes between emotions and feelings is the way in which he compares the relevance of the poet’s personal emotions and feelings to the emotions and feelings which are conveyed through the poem itself. He maintains consistently throughout the essay that the effective poet must refrain from allowing his own emotions and experiences to affect the outcome of the poem. “Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality (502A).” He feels that the mature poet must separate his work from any impressions of his own personality and should abstain from injecting his own social commentary or opinions. Eliot cautions younger and more impetuous poets that they should avoid at all costs being too “personal,” which can happen when a poet is being too cognizant of his own emotions and allows them to seep into his work. “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion (502B).” This has the possibility of mutating the poem’s individual purpose and thereby diluting its meaning. Eliot concludes that it is not the greatness of the personality or the extent to which the poet has experienced feelings or emotions that signifies the potential for success or failure. It is the poet’s ability to sacrifice a sense of self and personality in order to serve the poem as a medium.

Eliot’s belief that the good poet must separate his personal emotions from the poem itself in order to serve as an effective medium seems unreasonable if not impossible. He says that “The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality (500B).” How can one separate personal emotions, past experiences and personality from the creative process? Is not everything we do influenced by them? It is one thing to say that the poet must still the distracting emotions and thoughts that would prevent the flow of creativity at the moment. It is another to expect that the poet can somehow obliterate a sense of self in the creative process, and yet this seems to be what Eliot is proposing. “[...]emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him (502B).” Can one’s objective reasoning and observation substitute for actual experience in the effort to convey emotion and feeling through a poem?

“The Tradition of the Individual Talent” is a challenging discussion of the role of the poet. Author T.S. Eliot’s arguments ******* several ideas that could be beneficial to the artistic community when incorporated. However, Eliot lacks clarity when he attempts to explain his belief that the sacrifice of the poet’s personal individuality is essential to the creation of an effective and meaningful work.

 
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Old 10-16-2002, 06:04 PM   #2
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tl, dr

 
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Old 10-16-2002, 06:08 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally posted by sickbadthing
tl, dr
i admit that I am a nitwit sometimes. i have no idea what that is supposed to mean.

 
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Old 10-16-2002, 06:12 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally posted by Random Female
i admit that I am a nitwit sometimes. i have no idea what that is supposed to mean.
It just means I'm an asshole.

Sorry.

TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ

 
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Old 10-16-2002, 06:14 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally posted by sickbadthing


It just means I'm an asshole.

Sorry.

TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ
It's ok. i should've known that one, though.

 
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Old 10-16-2002, 06:27 PM   #6
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Tradition!!!
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Old 10-16-2002, 08:41 PM   #7
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HAHAHA mark thanks for posting that! I needed.

 
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