Tradition and the Individual Talent: A Critical Analysis

"Tradition and The Individual Talent (1919)" is from his collection of essays– The Sacred writing (1920). It is one of Eliot's major critical documents. It has given new insight into the trend of writing poetry, into the nature of criticism, the author, and the literary tradition. It evaluates "tradition" and "individual talent" in the trend of writing work of art. The author argues that poetry is impersonal. It avoids the expression of personal emotion. In fact, poetry portrays emotions, but different from personal emotions. In personal life, one may have agonies or not, but yet we find he or she writes some agonies as if they were his or her own. The essay also argues one more fascinating point that the creation of a major work of poetry alters the history of poetry. The poetry of the past affects poetry of succeeding periods, and similarly, poetry of the present can affect and alter the poetry of the past.