Tradition and the Individual Talent

In Part 1 of “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot points out that most people only appreciate a poet if the poet is different from their predecessors. In this difference, readers “pretend to find what is individual.” However, Eliot claims that the best parts of a poem are actually the ones in which the dead poets “assert their immortality.” In other words, the best parts of a poet’s work resemble the poetry of the past. At the same time, the present also plays an important role in great poetry in Eliot’s vision. He suggests that what makes the poet great is the “historical sense,” a sense that enables the poet to see not only the “pastness of the past, but […] its presence” and to understand both the timelessness and temporality of art. He describes the past and the present as having a reciprocal relationship in art in which the present changes the past while the past guides the present. Ultimately, the poet’s position in the present is important, because from it the poet can understand the past better than the past could understand itself. Therefore, the poet lives “in the present moment of the past.” With this claim, Eliot asserts that the past is not really the past, but that it lives in the present, and that it is the traditional poet’s job to keep the past alive through their work.

Early on, Eliot establishes that, contrary to common opinion, the best poems conform to the past.  Eliot claims that common opinion is prejudiced in its criticism of poetry because it “dwell[s] with satisfaction upon [a] poet’s difference from [their] predecessors.” In the absence of this prejudice, Eliot claims that the reader naturally appreciates the traditional aspects of poetry. Not only should a poem display aspects of the past, but it should conform to the past’s standards. Eliot claims that a poem’s fitting in with the poems of the past is a “test of its value.” The poem isn’t judged as to its being better or worse than those of the past, but rather the poem’s value is measured based on how well it belongs with what came before it. Eliot points out, however, that conforming doesn’t mean imitating one’s immediate predecessors; conforming to one aspect or period of the past is unacceptable and immature. Rather, the poet should be conscious of “the main current” of art’s history, being aware that “art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same.” Although poetry is always evolving, this change does not necessarily mean improvement. The traditional poet knows that they don’t increase the value of poetry in general when they write, but only add to its development. Furthermore, the poet must develop this “consciousness of the past” throughout their entire life. Therefore, the poet has a huge responsibility to the past.

As important as it is for the poet to develop the consciousness of the past, their position in the present is of equal importance. First of all, Eliot cautions against imitation. He says that a poet should never blindly imitate predecessors because this would be tiresome, and “novelty is better than repetition.” This shows that even the traditional writer must incorporate the present—something new—into their work. Also, the poet’s consciousness of the past, instead of making them antiquated, makes them actually more aware of their modernity. Even the traditional writer’s “historical sense,” although it causes them to “write with the whole of the literature of Europe” in their bones, also causes them to become conscious of “[their] contemporaneity.” The poet becomes aware of their contemporaneity when they keep in mind the entire scope of the past that came before them, and, when they write, they are keeping the past alive in the present moment they are in. What is more, the poet’s consciousness of the past is not of something dead. According to Eliot, the traditional poet sees “not only the pastness of the past, but also its presence.” Therefore, to the traditional poet, the past is actually the present.

The past and the present have a reciprocal relationship which is necessary for the traditional poet’s work. When it comes to a poem’s conformity with the past, the past also conforms with it. In fact, “the past [is] altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.” When a new work of art is created, the whole past of art is adjusted slightly to make room for it. Moreover, the new work fits in because it is new. Eliot notes that a work of art must always be new, or else it would “therefore not be a work of art.” In order for a poem to conform to the past at all, it must be new in some way—a new take on the past—or else it would not be art at all, and would not belong with all art as a whole. Finally, Eliot claims that in order to know the past, one must be in the present. He says that the present is “an awareness of the past in a way […] which the past’s awareness of itself cannot show.” This suggests that the present is a necessary vantage point for viewing the past as it truly is. In other words, without the present, there would be no past.

At the beginning of his essay, Eliot sought to remove prejudices from the word “traditional.” Prior to his essay, “traditional” had a negative connotation and meant “archaic” or “derivative.” In Part 1, however, Eliot redefines “traditional” to describe the writer who is conscious of both the past and the present. In fact, he connects the present and the past so closely within the word traditional that it seems one can’t exist without the other: in order for the traditional poet to “develop a consciousness of the past,” they must live in the present, and in order to write contemporary poetry, they must be conscious of the past.