T.S. Elliot on “Tradition and the Individual Talent”

Upon reading this work the one thought that kept coming to my mind was “why are we not required read this selection before dealing with literature and poetry?” Here Elliot criticizes traditional ways to criticize and analyze literature. Elliot points out that the most traditional way to approach anything is by relying on what we know. But this takes away from looking at the core of poetry. For Elliot the essence of poetry is the emotion and, more importantly, conviction that the work carries stating “for it is not the ‘greatness,’ the intensity, of the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artistic process” (1219). This makes analyzing and understanding poetry so much easier at one level. Elliot throws out the traditional notions of looking at past works of a poet in order to achieve some kind of understanding of the new work. Instead, Elliot suggests that we look at each piece for just itself. It is quite counterintuitive as we are taught to look at a whole body of work typically. Often it is hard to fully appreciate a work unless put in context of some other work. It is hard to fully appreciate one of Aristophanes’ plays without reading his other plays and understanding the history at the time. The same can be said for numerous other authors. Yet Elliot rejects this notion with the belief that if a poem is looked at individually one can full appreciate what it is trying to accomplish. Elliot in some ways blames education for making us in the way that we are in looking at poetry. His belief is that education binds the mind in ideals and prevents it from reaching its potential. For a poet to be truly effective there must be a detachment from education and a willingness to try new things. For this to truly work and to be understood one must look at each poem individually as each is trying to capture a different emotion or ideal. This idea, for me at least, makes the most sense. Often it seems that poems do not relate to another piece unless it is explicit. This ideal makes the approach to understanding poetry easier in that you look for the ideal and emotion instead of being caught up in details. For Elliot it appears that details should only be used to get a full idea across to a reader. I believe that this piece helps make the understanding of poetry much easier.