T.S. Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent
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- čas přidán 31. 07. 2024
- T.S. Eliot's 1919 essay is a response to the ascendance of a Romantic poetics of originality and self-expression. Whereas Harold Bloom had purported to defend the Western tradition in his 1995 work The Western Canon on the basis of the aesthetic value of these works, one shorn of all relevance, Eliot's defence gave a rationale more in keeping with the way in which poets actually think.
Both seem helpful responses to Terry Eagleton's nihilistic if fashionable thesis that there is no such thing as literature.
All the same, Eliot's theory made poetry into the provenance of an elite group, his poetic practice and self-understanding limiting his appeal to a minority without broader social influence. The practice and theory of the Inklings, on the other hand, enjoyed enormous appeal while still possessing a sense of the deep roots of tradition still speaking in the contemporary age.
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45:00 I can feel the dignity as though Priam were in front of me largely due to the pathos which you have clearly felt and feel. Thank you for exhibiting the living tradition. Fantastic stuff.
You're very welcome. Glad you are enjoying it.
I really love how the professor is so indifferent to what he has to say yet, he makes all of it so detailed and deep..
How engaging and insightful. Thank you for this.
Wonderful piece of literary criticism. So very refreshing and timely
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I just looked this dude up. He teaches at Tyndale, my old Seminary. Good stuff.
It is true, Eliot is really very obscure;and comprehending his poetry as well as criticism entails a great amount of effort. I recently read "After Strange Gods" and was a little confused about what he means by heresy and orthodoxy. Could you kindly explain? It would be great if you could do a lecture on this essay as well, because it is a companion piece to "Tradition and Individual Talent ."
Thank you sir for the explanation!
Thank you very much Sir for your valuable insights!
Thank you for your explanations
Thank you so much sir 💕
very very very informative
I am watching this lecture for a third time now and it's really wonderful. Thank you Professor! Could you suggest some tips as to writing analysis answers in the exam?
Not sure exactly what an analysis exam is. But I would say revising for an exam should include understanding the main arguments and ideally you should memorize some felicitous turns of phrase.
i found this very insightful, thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Sir, as you said that sometimes authors tend to make a text difficult intentionally just to target a particular group of audience it reminded me of "The American Scholar" by Ralph Waldo Emerson; I struggled a lot with that text. Even though it was a speech still it was so hard probably this was the reason behind it being so difficult.
my question is that what are postcolonial elements in T.S. Eliot essay tradition and individual talent
Can you please make a lecture on Mathew Arnold's the function of criticism at present times???
I would love to do that. Not on the itinerary at the moment though.
Thanks😊
i found it impossibly hard to read and never saw the use of semicolons more in my life hahah! thank you for your insight.
Dr. Masson, thank you for this excellent essay. However, wouldn't someone like Wordsworth be a better comparison to make to Eliot's view? Such as with the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads? I just think it would aid your argument to have a stronger argument to compare Eliot's position to. Especially as Wordsworth argues to populist poetry, while at the same time, being sophisticated.
Could you please do a lecture on literary terms and history on English literature? 💕
That would be a very interesting subject, and a very difficult one. One of the great challenges to the student is the conceptual changes that take place using the very same word.
It's not exactly what you are after, but have a look at C.S. Lewis's fascinating Studies in Words.
Get M.H Abramss' Literary Terms and Edward Albert's History of English Literature. You can consult David Diaches for the latter, but it is pretty exhaustive.
thanks
I gave Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent" a read and man was it complicated, thank you so much for this cogent analysis. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like tradition is akin to the ever-relevant Platonic forms of truth and beauty which can manifest facially different in a particular, crafted to the relevant specifics in a given time period, but relevant nonetheless because the fragments of the particulars each participate in the forms. Also, could you expound upon your point about Eliot preaching to a narrowed group? Do you say that because he frames his theory as a criticism of poetry?
RE: narrowing. It is partly because of the Modernist movement, but far more because of the implications of the fact-value distinction of the Enlightenment, e.g. David Hume et al, which would lead to the claim that whereas science is based on facts, mistaking that for truth, the arts are merely based on 'values', whereby what is meant is something wholly fictional or fabricated.
The belief that continues to our day is that artists can only ever give their perspective (or express their 'values') but never attain truth.
@@LitProf Ah, very interesting and relevant (as you say) to today! Where could I read up more on the objectivity of beauty?
What's your opinion on his Wasteland?
Important poem as a cultural monument.
It's become clearer that CS Lewis did become much friendlier in later years. This was due to common membership on various Anglican committees. It seems Eliot ignored the early heated criticisms of his modernism in poetry, and charmed Lewis, and they socialized together with their wives. Eliot went on to publish, at Faber&Faber, Lewis' A Grief Ovserved, and protected his anonymity, by not revealing the authorship of CSL.
It is heartening to know that.
1:07:50 - The hermeneutics of beauty vs the hermeneutics of suspicion?
Look, I smoke my weight in weed all day. I drink gallons of beer. I can STILL understand the Waste Land. I may have read it 100+ times, but I understand it. Its an amazing piece of work.
can you arrange a lecture on it please sir
I don't get to Eliot very often, and don't dwell on the postcolonial elements of his poetry either. Sorry.
thanks
Can i ask about your opinion about Eliot's definition of poetry ??
Which one?
@@LitProf Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.
He is speaking against Romanticism here. I agree with his objection but don't think it will do as a POSITIVE definition of poetry.
@@LitProf thanks alot
Fine lecture. However, Dreher's book is titled The Benedict Option.
What did I say?
@@LitProf Hmmm. I think the Benedict Institute. I remember distinctly not "Option" however. Thank you for your contribution to Eliot scholarship on CZcams!
Ummm, "art for art's sake," while Wilde may have referenced it, is a quotation of -Horace-.
Absolutely, though Horace wouldn’t have ascribed to Wilde’s Interpretation of it.
hello sir how are you
All good
Huh, I never considered Englit studies weren't about as old as Englit
Ho
Lots of beating around the bush😑
Thank you so much sir 💕
thanks