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LMRossi - Tradition and Individual Talent
[author: Luca Rossi - postdate: 2008-01-05]
[attachs vedi file allegato ]

 

 

Text: T.S.Eliot, Tradition and Individual Talent (1920)

Task: Analyse The structure of T.S. Eliot's essay.

 

Tradition and Individual talent is organized into three sequences:

 

Thesis: Poetry and every artistic production are strictly connected to their own tradition.

 

Argumentations: With the word "tradition" Eliot refers to the "historical sense", that compels poets to write considering "not only the pastness of the past, but of its presence". The perception is not inheritable: it could only be obtained by great labour.

 

Conclusions: We cannot value a poet alone, because his artistic core gains complete significance only considering the tradition he belongs to.

The content (main idea and supporting argumentations).

 

The main idea of the essay is that poets and artists of every art  are in relation with their traditions: T.S. Eliot points out that tradition is not a blind or timid adherence to local mores, as a matter of fact it is not inheritable, but it is a perception of the present in its pastness. Moreover, such perception is timeless and - to be more precise-  it compels poets to write not just for themselves but for the whole humanity, intending literature as impersonal.

 

Summarizing: T.S. Eliot  wants to introduce the conception of the historical sense: a perception which leads the poet not to re - writing traditional works but to a deeper and fuller comprehension and awareness of them.

 

My opinion

In my opinion a common past as well as tradition is the mainstay of poet's creativity. But I wish to add that creativity means destruction of the old patterns established in our culture. So we can only understand the works of our ancestors as long as we understand them in relation to our present.