Tradition and the Individual Talent

T.S. Eliot's critical work is due to the new approach which he adopted in 20th century English literature. His essay deals with the value of tradition. In his essay Eliot says that poets who wrote before him are in close relationship with the work of contemporary poets. The essay is organized into two parts:

The first part deals with the common approach of people to poetry "with satisfaction upon the poet's difference from his predecessors". In addition common reader,"in order to be enjoyed" are looking for something new. But indeed this is a prejudice because the most important parts are those in which "the dead poets asserts their immortality most vigorously". "Novelty is better than tradition", according to T.S. Eliot, ‘tradition' should be discouraged if its only form consisted in following the immediate early generation, so similar productions were lost in the sand. In other words, they should write keeping in mind the whole literature of the past. "Tradition is a matter of much wider significance". It involves the historical sense, a perception of the presence and of the past: a writer should put in his literary productions the whole literary feeling of Europe from Homer to now. With "historical sense" Eliot means the sense of timeless. This sense makes a writer traditional and at the same time conscious of his space and time.

The second part of the essay is very relevant thanks to the statement which expresses T.S. Eliot's point of view which seems to anticipate intertextuality. Eliot seems to say that the meaning of the poet 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 that 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 productions. When a new work of art enters in art circles, it allows a new vision of the circle which includes the new and the old. This happens because T.S. Eliot believed in the concept of SIMULTANEITY which included also a simultaneous order.