Tradition and the Individual Talent

Notes about the Second Part of the Excerpt

The second part of the excerpt begins with a very relevant statement which expresses T.S. Eliot’s point of view which seems to anticipate intertextuality. The statement provides a procedure; the meaning if a poet, T.S. Eliot seems to say, depends largely on his relationship with the “dead poets”

Contrast and comparison are two reference points to evaluate a work of art; this is T.S. Eliot’s aesthetic principle. In addition he says this principle is not only an historical principle.

The essay continues with a further statement that allows a better and more precise evaluation of an artist and his/her production.

When a new work of art enters the artistic circuit it allows a new vision of the circuit which includes the new and the old. This happens because T.S. Eliot believed in the concept of simultaneity which includes also a simultaneous order.