The word tradition implies a set of beliefs, practices, customs that has become convention by virtue of

it being perpetuated through generations. Individual talent refers to the creative genius, who can
create something new, as opposed to the mere imitation of the old. Eliot proposes a conflation of
tradition and individual talent in the mature artist. Eliot state that the word tradition in contemporary
times has acquired a negative (or pejorative) connotation/fallen into misuse. Either people lament the
absence of it, or use the adjectival form of the word “traditional” to label a form of writing. Even if
it’s acknowledged, it is never fully accepted without a reconstruction of what has already gone by.
Eliot adds with a tinge of humour that to English ears, tradition would be unacceptable if they don’t
find enough assurance that history has a role to play.

Eliot examines how the concept of tradition plays a crucial role in the exercise of the critical faculty
and how that improves and sustains the creative activity. He argues that every epoch, every race
possesses the critical and creative faculties, but people are indifferent to the limitations of their critical
faculty, than they are of their creative one. It has become customary to ascribe to a certain culture, a
certain attitude –the French has been credited with a critical bend of mind, considering the
voluminous amount of critical writing they have produced over the ages. But such a mode of thinking
is fallacious. Criticism is an innate metal process, and it is an inevitable as breathing. It is not just
enough to be critical however. It is imperative to be alert when one is criticising, so that one is able to
examine and judge one’s critical acumen. By that means, one’s critical faculty improves.

In this process of criticism there is a tendency to be biases towards those whose works are distinct in
the sense that there is no imitation of the old. The works are individualistic. But Eliot asserts that if
they are considered without this preformed bias, one will find echoes of their predecessors, in even
those most individualistic segments. There is therefore, a perpetuation of tradition. It is interesting to
consider Eliot here not just as a critic but also as a poet. His statements may be seen as an implicit
acknowledgement of his debt towards the French symbolist poets such as Baudelaire and Rimbaud,
who heavily influences his art. However, if it constitutes a blind imitation of those traditional
practices that have worked well in the past, it must be discouraged. These are usually the types of
work that get lost in time, and are never revisited. Eliot here opines that tradition cannot be limited to
blind imitation. One does not inherit tradition, one has to acquire it. It involves internalising the
“historical sense” that is having an essence not only of the past, but also being aware of its prevalence
in the resent. (Eliot here construes time in the Bergsonian sense –Bergson advocated a heterogeneous
notion of time, which is not divisible into units, like clock time, but where time is a seamless fusion of
the past, present and future. Bergson conveyed this idea through the analogy of the dancer, whose
movements, he observed, apprehended separate, but as a whole. ) This means that a writer does not
only keep his immediate historical context and contemporaries in mind, but is also conscious of the
writers who have come previously. This then makes the writer traditional, as well as makes him aware
of his place in contemporary times. When a new work of art is created, it has an immediate effect
upon the works that preceded it. The previous works of art already exist as a coherent order, and to
incorporate a new work of art, the order must be altered. This connotes that tradition is not a static
entity, but rather an evolving process. In this sense, Eliot avers that poets must be aware that they will
be judged, but not “amputated” or “destroyed” by the standards of the past. This will not merely be on
the basis of how the work conforms entirely to the preceding work, but how it fits, keeping its
individuality intact. An excellent literary example in this regard is Milton’s Paradise Lost, where
Milton uses the conventions of the epic found in Homer’s Iliad, Odyssey, as well as Virgil’s Aeneid,
but he modifies it, by introducing a Christian/Biblical subject.

Eliot hereafter talks about how the poet may incorporate the “past” within his narrative. The past
cannot be taken as “an indiscriminate bolus”, neither can the poets be influenced by his admiration to
remain restricted to them; nor can he base himself upon only one period. The poet must be aware of
the main current of events. This awareness does not entail any judgement in terms of how art has
improved (we cannot talk about the progression of art), but certainly an awareness of its evolution
concurrent with the change in the mind of Europe. Eliot avers that the mind for Europe, which
influences the writers of the continent, is constantly changing and evolving, but it doesn’t abandon
anything like Homer’s, or Shakespeare’s work. However, though there would not be any judgement,
there would still be a difference between the moment of now, and the moment of then, because
standing in the present, every author can have the benefit of hindsight.

Eliot objects to the fact that the art of writing poetry requires conscious study, or that this study may
even render a poet incapable of poetic imagination and expression. He affirms that the importance lies
in assimilating knowledge or having awareness of the tradition or the past, and not acquiring
knowledge for some paltry end in view. The poet must therefore procure the consciousness or essence
of the past, and develop this throughout his career.

Eliot hereafter talks about the importance of depersonalisation. He avers that the mind of the more
mature poet is a medium in which the varied feelings can freely combine -it acts as a catalyst does,
using the experiences of the artist to render something completely new and different. In this entire
chain of reaction, the catalyst (the mind of the poet) doesn’t impart its own attributes to the
constitution of a new poetic expression. In other words then, poetry according to Eliot, should not
contain any traces of the personality of the poet.