This blog is a respronse to the task given by Dilip sir as a part of our study of M.A, Department of English MKBU.

T.S.Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was a British-American poet, playwright, and literary critic. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential poets of the 20th century.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Eliot moved to England in 1914 to study at Oxford University. He settled in London and became a British citizen in 1927. Eliot's early poetry, including "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "The Waste Land," established him as a leader of the modernist movement in poetry. His later work, including Four Quartets, explored themes of spirituality, time, and human consciousness.

In addition to his poetry, Eliot was a prominent literary critic and essayist. His essays, including "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and "The Metaphysical Poets," are considered to be some of the most important works of literary criticism of the 20th century.

Eliot received numerous awards and honors throughout his lifetime, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. He remained an influential figure in literature and culture until his death in 1965.

The Traditional and Individual talent 

Eliot extensively about the relationship between tradition and individual talent. In his essay, "Tradition and the Individual Talent," Eliot argues that poetry is not created in a vacuum, but is instead the product of a long and complex literary tradition. He contends that poets must be familiar with this tradition and actively engage with it in order to create meaningful and effective works of art.

According to Eliot, the role of the individual poet is not to create something entirely new, but rather to add their own unique perspective and voice to the ongoing conversation of literary tradition. He argues that every great poet is influenced by the poets who came before them and that their work is inextricably linked to this larger literary heritage.

At the same time, Eliot believes that the individual poet must possess a certain level of talent and skill in order to make a meaningful contribution to the tradition. He suggests that there is a certain "impersonality" to great poetry, which allows the poet's own personal experiences and emotions to be subsumed into the larger tradition and transformed into something universal and timeless.

In sum, Eliot's view of tradition and individual talent suggests that great poetry is the result of a dynamic interplay between the individual poet and the larger literary tradition. The poet must possess both a deep understanding of this tradition and a high degree of personal skill and talent in order to make a meaningful contribution to the ongoing conversation of poetry.

 Eliot says the he progress of the artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality”. In other words, the poet's emotions and passions must be depersonalized; he must be as impersonal and objective as a scientist.

As the combination of Sulfuric dioxide and water makes Sulfuric Acid with the help of Platinum as a catalyst Poetry is also a product of the emotions and thought process of the poet, as catalyst is not coming with the sulfuric acid, poet should also make his personal emotions out of his poetry otherwise the poem would be merely a Diary, but poem can not be created without the thoughts and emotions of the poet as Catalyst is necessary to produce chemical out of chemical reaction.

Thank You.