Tradition and the Individual Talent: Part 1 Summary & Analysis

Eliot remarks that the English often don’t speak of tradition. Occasionally they will speak of the absence of tradition in writing; more often they will use it as an adjective to say that something is “traditional.” And, when it is used like this, it is often negative, or at least gently critical. It is only a pleasing word when it refers to an “archeological reconstruction.” 

Eliot points out that the English never use the word “tradition” to praise either living or dead writers. Every group of people has its own distinct way of criticizing. Every group is blind to the prejudices of its way of criticizing in the same way that it is blind to the flaws in its way of being creative. For instance, the French have produced so much critical writing that the English tend to think the French are more critical than themselves, and “less spontaneous.” However, Eliot points out that being critical is “as inevitable as breathing,” and that it would be beneficial for a reader to put into words the feelings and thoughts they naturally have while reading anything.

Eliot remarks that, when the English praise some poet, they tend to base their praise on the ways in which the poet is totally unique. They look for the poet’s individuality, and the ways in which the poet stands out from ancestors. In this way they only allow themselves to enjoy something when it is isolated. However, Eliot claims that, if readers remove this prejudice, they’ll find that the best parts of a poet’s work are the ones that emulate ancestors. In these parts where readers find the immortality of the dead poets, the current poet actually appears to be individual and mature.

However, Eliot cautions that tradition would be discouraged if it simply meant imitating the successes of one’s immediate ancestors. He still asserts that something new is much better than something imitated.  No, the kind of tradition he’s talking about is much broader, cannot be inherited, and is only achieved through great effort. For anyone who wishes to be a lifelong poet, it is necessary for them to have what Eliot calls the “historical sense.”  

By “historical sense,” Eliot means the sense that conceives of the past as in the past but also present. The poet who has this sense writes with the entire history of writing—from Homer to modern writers—in mind and believes that ancient writing and contemporary writing have a “simultaneous existence” and a “simultaneous order.” Eliot here defines a traditional writer as someone able to sense the temporal and the timeless together; the traditional writer is also aware of their contemporary place in time.

Eliot asserts that no poet has any meaning in isolation. Readers can only appreciate a poet when comparing and contrasting them historically and aesthetically to the dead poets. This conforming of a poet’s work to the past goes both ways: when new art is made, the order of the whole is slightly modified. As a result, the relationships of individual pieces of art to the whole history of art are modified, because the whole has been modified by the new piece. The poet is aware of their responsibility when they know that the past conforms to the present in the same way that the past directs the present.

Eliot says that the poet also knows that they are judged by the past. Again, this goes both ways: the past and the present works are “measured by each other.” However, to really conform, the work must be new—must be a work of art. Readers test the work’s value by seeing if it fits in, but they must do this cautiously, because no one can really identify conformity. However, if a work seems to conform, it is probably new and individual too, and vice versa.

Eliot instructs the traditional poet, when keeping the past in mind, not to view it indiscriminately, or with preference to certain people or periods. Instead, the poet must keep in mind the whole flow of history. While the traditional poet knows that Europe’s “mind” is constantly changing, yet leaving behind none of its past developments—neither Shakespeare nor Homer—he also knows that this development is not the same thing as improvement, either artistically or psychologically. The present is different from the past because the present knows the past in a way that the past wouldn’t be able to know itself.

Eliot acknowledges that many people object to his idea of a poetic profession, saying that it involves too much learning. Many believe that too much learning limits the poet’s instincts. Eliot admits that knowledge should not get in the way of the poet’s necessary “laziness” and spontaneity. But he also doesn’t want knowledge to be boiled down into easily accessible forms. Some people can absorb knowledge, but other people must work for it. Either way, the poet must obtain the “consciousness of the past” and must develop it throughout life.

To do this, Eliot says the traditional poet must always sacrifice self and personal interests for something of greater value. This process is a “continual extinction of personality” and resembles a science. In order to visualize this, Eliot asks readers to think about what happens to oxygen and sulphur dioxide when they are in the presence of platinum.