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T. S. Eliot and the Modernist Movement
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The term “modernism” refers to a movement which commenced in the late 1800s, coalesced immediately after World War I, and remained influential past World War II into the late 1940s, when postmodernism began to take hold . The modernist movement encompassed poetry, fiction, drama, painting, music and architecture in particular . As with any movement, its evolution and decline of influence is gradual and hard to pinpoint in time . In any case, the true birth of modernism in poetry is frequently dated to the publication of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in 1917.

In many ways, modernism is a reaction to the atrocities of the World Wars as well as to the Victorian ideals that preceded them. In the widespread suffering and chaos that followed the wars, the older ideals seemed questionable, as did many moral precepts . Modernist poets were therefore concerned with breaking established rules, traditions and conventions, and finding a distinctly contemporary mode of expression, through countless experiments in form and style. The chief concern was the intricacies of language and how to use them, as well as with writing as an end in itself . The world seemed to be breaking apart, the meaning of everything was being questioned, and modernism grappled with the fragmentation and complexity brought about by such a state. The modern poet had a different world from the Victorian poets to contemplate, and thus employed new forms and styles as fitting this new disillusioned world view.

As the earliest Modernist, Eliot had a central role in determining certain broad dictates of the movement. With fellow Modernist poet Ezra Pound, for example, he decided that “The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to from a new compound are present together” (T. S. Eliot). By this, he almost certainly meant that true poetry is not only a creative expression of a poet’s worldview, but that such expression had to be scientifically derived—another of his beliefs (T. S. Eliot). He contended that poetry was the highest form of science and the one most necessary to the generation that came after science had destroyed so many cities.

With these ideas in mind, Eliot and many other Modernist poets, such as Pound, William Carlos Williams, Dylan Thomas, and William Butler Yeats attempted to describe the world they saw before them in poetry, rather than transport their readers to a false world. Though they saw themselves as harshly realistic, their work might also be interpreted as incoherent or unnecessarily dark (T. S. Eliot). Eliot, like the others, attributed the former to the incoherence of the times and the latter to the misconceptions of his critics (T. S. Eliot). He described his mission as follows:

“What we have to do is to bring poetry into the world in which the audience lives and to which it returns when it leaves the theatre; not to transport the audience into some imaginary world totally unlike their own, an unreal world in which poetry can be spoken. What I should hope might achieved, by a generation of dramatists having the benefit of our experience, is that the audience should find, at the moment of awareness that it is hearing poetry, that it is saying to itself: "I could talk in poetry too!" Then we should not be transported into an artificial world; on the contrary, out own sordid, dreary, daily world would be suddenly illuminated and transfigured.” (from Poetry and Drama, 1951) (quoted in T. S. Eliot)

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@Unfinished works Of Famous writers.@
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A .Henry viii -Shakespeare.W

B .prelude -Wordsworth.W

C. the triumph of life -Shelley P.B

D .Ode to Maia -Keats John

E .Hyperion -Keats John.

F .The mysteries of Edwin Drood- Dickens Charles.

G . Mr noon - Lawrence.D.H

H .the garden of Eden.-Hemingway

#History of Britain -Milton
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Anita Desai Books Collection
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Anita Desai Books Collection
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Anita Desai Books Collection
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Anita Desai Books Collection
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“Tradition and Individual Talent”
by T. S. Eliot
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🍃Introduction:🍃
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As a critic T. S. Eliot was very practical. He called himself “a classicist in literature”. According to Eliot, a critic must obey the objective standards to analyze any work. He thought criticism as a science. Eliot’s criticism became revolutionary at that time. 2oth century got ‘metaphysical revival’ because of Eliot. He first recognized or accepted the uniqueness of ‘metaphysical poets’ of 17th century. Eliot came with new ideas in criticism’s world in19th century. Eliot believed that when the old and new will become readjusted, it will be the end of criticism. He says:
“From time to time it is desirable, that some critic shall appear to review the past of our literature and set the poets and the poems in a new order.”
Eliot demands, from any critic, ability for judgment and powerful liberty of mind to identify and to interpret. Eliot planned numerous critical concepts that gained wide currency and had a broad influence on criticism. ‘Objective co-relative’, ‘Dissociation of sensibility’, ‘Unification of sensibility’, ‘Theory of Depersonalization’ are few of Eliot’s theories, which becomes ‘cliché’ now. He emphasizes on ‘a highly developed sense of fact’. He gave new direction and new tools of criticism. George Watson writes about Eliot:
“Eliot made English criticism look different, but not in a simple sense. He offered it a new range of rhetorical possibilities, confirmed it in its increasing contempt for historical process, and yet reshaped its notion of period by a handful of brilliant institutions.”

· Main Concepts of the Essay:

The essay “Tradition and Individual Talent” was first published in “The Egoist”. “The Egoist” was a literary magazine, which is considered today as “England’s Most Important Modernist Periodical”. This essay was later published in “The Sacred Wood”, which is Eliot’s first book of criticism.

This essay is divided into three parts:
1. The concept of tradition
2. The theory of impersonal poetry
3. The conclusion with a gist that “the poet’s sense of tradition and the impersonality of poetry are complimentary things.”

Now I am explaining the main concepts of the essay.

1. The Concept of Tradition:

In first pat Eliot speaks about tradition, He says: “Seldom, perhaps, does the word (tradition) appear except in a phrase of censure”. It means in English writings they don’t see the word ‘tradition’ in positive way.
He says about Englishmen’s attitude towards French Literature. Englishmen have a habit to feel proud on themselves. That is the proud for their creativity and more for their ‘less’ criticality. In French there is a mass of critical writing. Eliot compares English with French that they (French) have habit of critical method and English have habit of ‘conclusion’. He says:
“…we only conclude (we are such unconscious people) that the French are more critical than we; and sometimes even plume ourselves a little with the fact, as if the French were less spontaneous”.

Eliot seems quite in favor of such ‘criticality’. He thinks “criticism is as inevitable as breathing”. Then he talks about tradition. The Englishmen, while analyzing the poet, admire those aspects which are different from the poet’s predecessors. Means, they want to get ‘newness’ and ‘uniqueness’ from every poet to praise them. They always find isolation of the poet from his (mainly) immediate predecessors. Then Eliot says, if we put aside such prejudice; we can come to know that the poet’s individuality, which we are finding, is very much connected with his ancestors. According to Eliot the most individual part of any work is the part in which the dead poets are mirrored vigorously. And such resemblance is mostly seen in the period of maturity of the poet, not in the period of his adolescence. So, by this he asserts that tradition and individuality go together.
Then Eliot talks

about tradition and ‘historical sense’. He says that if the form of tradition remained only in blind adherence of dead people or ancestors, then it would be lost or such tradition should be destroyed. But, he says that tradition is not in following pre generation only. This word carries much wider meaning. According to Eliot, in every traditions also there is a bit of novelty. He says:
“Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor. It involves in the first place, the historical sense.”
This historical sense is inevitable for any poet. And with this historical sense they should have perception about its presence as well as about its ‘pastness of past’. This historical sense forces a man to write not only with his own generation, but with the whole age of the English literature. Historical sense makes a poet to feel that the whole of the literature from Homer and the whole of the literature of his own generation has a simultaneous existence. It harmonizes two different things ‘timelessness’ and ‘temporality’ in poet’s work. This makes a poet traditional. Eliot says:

“No poet, no artist of any art has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation o the dead poets and artists. You can’t value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison among the dead.”
By this statement Eliot wants to prove that nothing can be individual in totality. Every poet or artist, consciously or unconsciously, keeps some bits of past. Eliot says about ‘conformity between the old and the new’. When a new work is created then the whole time is created with it. It makes vast changes in the universe of literature. Anything happens with that new work that is simultaneously happening with its preceded works. Means when a new work of art comes it is automatically connected with its past. So, Eliot says that nothing and nobody can be valued alone. There is some ideal order between the existing monuments. The whole order of existing monument is readjusted with the addition of new work. So, by this Eliot breaks that belief that ‘past is unchangeable’. He says that past and present has a strong connection with each other. That is the conformity between the old and the new. Eliot says:
“…the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities”.

When a poet is being judged, in that process two things (past and present) are being measured by each other. Eliot says about “a more intelligible exposition of the relation of the poet to the past”. A poet cannot use the past as a shapeless mass, or he cannot fit himself in one or two private admirations, and also he cannot fit himself in one preferred period. The port must know that ‘art never improves, but the substance of the art is changing’. Eliot puts one anonymous quote here:
“The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did.”
He talks about necessary of knowledge for poets. He rejects that belief that a poet requires a huge amount of learning. He believes that “much learning deadens or perverts poetic sensibility.” He is not in favor of confining the knowledge for examination, library or publicity. Knowledge is a matter of absorption. What he wants to be insisted is that a poet first must develop the awareness of the past. With this discussion Eliot softly comes on the point of ‘depersonalization’. At the end of the first part he starts making structure for second part. So, at the end he says:

“The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.”

2. The Theory of Impersonal Poetry:

In this second part Eliot tries to define the process of ‘depersonalization’ and its relation with the sense of tradition. The main aspect of this theory is the relation of poetry with the poet. Eliot says:

“Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation