An Elegant Epigraph: T.S. Eliot on Contemporary Poets and Poets of the Past

T.S. Eliot was born on this date (September 26) in 1888. Eliot’s significant presence as a poet was formed by his adaptation of traditionally recognized poetry, but he also altered the direction of poetry in the twentieth century with his innovations. Perhaps the composition of his work and the impact of his influence on others who followed provide an excellent example of his belief in the relationship between “tradition and the individual talent.” Here, Eliot explains his views concerning the contemporary poet’s place among those poets of the past.

“No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of æsthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new.” —T.S. Eliot

—From “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” an essay included in T.S. Eliot’s The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (Methune, 1920).


[“An Elegant Epigraph” serves as the recurring title for a continuing series of posts with entries containing brief but engaging, eloquent, and elegant excerpts of prose commentary introducing subjects particularly appropriate to discussion of literature, creative writing, or other relevant matters addressing complementary forms of art and music. These apposite extracts usually concern topics specifically relating to poetry or poetics. Each piece is accompanied by a recommendation that readers seek out the original publication to obtain further information and to become familiar with the complete context in which the chosen quotation appeared as well as other views presented by its author.]