Tradition and Individual Talent- Synopsis


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TRADITION AND INDIVIDUAL TALENT

(SYNOPSIS)




This blog is designed in a way that it provides a synopsis of ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’ – an essay by the most influential of all the modern critics, T.S.Eliot. Thomas Sterns Eliot, the distinguished poet, and critic has best explained his critical views in his essays. Eliot had declared himself as ‘a classicist in literature’. As a part of the classroom task, here I have shared some views captured through educative videos.


Well, to make it very interesting for the students of English Literature, not only limited to a particular area but worldwide and with an intention to share every drop of knowledge at various digital platforms, the Head of Department of M K Bhavnagar University, Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad Sir has introduced the course called ‘T. S. Eliot’s Tradition and Individual Talent’ along with other informative courses in an app ‘Flinnt’ which is India’s most exciting learning app. The videos are also available on YouTube.








Video


Description

1





The first video offers information about the 20th century English Criticism and how it begins with I.A. Richards's "Practical Criticism" as well as the School of New Criticism. The video also informs about the three segments of Eliot's works.


2




The second video provides information regarding T. S. Eliot's concept of tradition and how Individual Talent is associated with it. It also says how criticism is as important as a creative activity. It describes the positive connotation of the word "tradition" as well as how it is associated with a historical sense.


3





This video gives an excellent explanation regarding "history in the poet's bones" and how Shakespeare seems to be an exception in this law. Eliot, in a very artistic way borrows a thought of Matthew Arnold to support his view from the possible exceptions. To praise the individual talent of Shakespeare, he quotes,

"Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it".


4




This video provides information regarding the process of depersonalization with a scientific formula. With the help of chemical reaction, Eliot attempts to explain art with the lens of science.


5






Well, this fifth and the last video has to offer the three significant parts of the essay.

1. Tradition and its importance in the historical sense.

2. The poetic process as 'not an exception but an escape from personality'

3. The last part also sifts the attention from the author to text which is the prime focus of New Criticism.



Here are the questions which I have asked in the project blended learning-
Video 1

Question-

How can we justify Eliot's statement when he says, "I am a Classicist in Literature and a royalist in politics" ?

Video 2 

Question-

How Eliot seemed to connect the principle of aesthetic with the interdependence of the past and the present?

Video 3

Question-

Though divided by the epochs or age, what does Eliot mean when he says "the main current" of literature?

Question-

What is poetic sensibility according to Eliot? 

Video 4

Question-

How the process of depersonalization is related with the sense of tradition?

Video 5

Question-

How Eliot connects the 'emotion of art' with the sense of tradition?



Thank you!


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