Babcock 1 Charles John Babcock American Modernism Dr. Entzminger 10/16/11 Tradition and the Individual Talent of Eliot and Hughes In the essay Tradition and the Individual Talent written in 1919, T. S. Eliot proposes many ideas about art including theories of creation as well as criticism. The ideas he presents have a historical basis, such as, no poet, no artist, has his complete meaning alone. What Eliot intends by this is that the summation of all art is meant to be looked at in the reference to the newest work. This also works retroactively as well, in that art from the past must be viewed in conjunction with the new work. The technique which most obviously displays the tradition is direct references in works. Writers like Eliot will subtlety reference past writers works in their current ones. It works in such a way that it clearly displays which works the writer has studied, and what writers the particular artist views as good. It also creates further levels of the work, that open it up to criticism in a different way, changing elements or manipulating to add to their works. In the essay, Eliot also states, Some one said: The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did. Precisely, and they are that which we know. This shows quote displays the reverence aspect that Eliot believes is imposed on current writers in regards to their predecessors. The quote also does not distinguish from time
Babcock 2 period, so that Homer and Shakespeare are just as much part of tradition as William Wordsworth and W. B. Yeats. This practice of referencing work and the Eliot s idea of tradition, may seem like a contrast to the tenets of Modernism, specifically the idea that the past needs to be rejected. However, by viewing the references and the manner in which they are used, it can be seen that this actually follows the particular idea of rejecting the past, by following an idea that past writers have ignored, that is that everything is canon, and you should wear your tradition like a badge of honor. The best writer to test this assertion then is T.S. Eliot since he has written the essay in question. In his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Eliot opens the poem with an epigraph of a quote taken from Dante Alighieri s The Inferno, the quote involves an advisor to the pope who asked for forgiveness of a sin before committing it, Count Guido da Montefeltro. Dante (in the poem) meets Montefeltro and in the epigraph is presented is told that the words which follow will not matter, because Dante will not make it out alive, so he can proceed with his talking, because Dante will not benefit from this knowledge. This allusion to Dante fully utilizes the tradition as Eliot describes it in his essay. First, it gives the reader a sense of the speaker of Eliot s poem, so it relates contextually to the poem. It also relates thematically for a critic, because it mirrors the discourse that both Dante (in the poem) and Montefeltro, and the reader of Eliot s poem and the character of J. Alfred Prufrock, are
Babcock 3 having. It also, at just a base level, speaks for Eliot, telling the reader that Eliot recognizes the great dead writers. Eliot also does something interesting that suits his purposes completely, in that he presents the quotation in the epigraph in the original Italian, affirming both the tradition idea, that poets and writers must labor to gain tradition, in this sense he is saying that one should learn to speak and read the work in the original language, that this is the most perfect manner of viewing the work. So does this mean that Eliot is rejecting the past, as well as embracing tradition? He does not come out in defiance of the past here. He admits that Dante is a good poet, in both his use of a quotation of him, as well as his incorporation of his poetry appearing in the original Italian. Of course, when contrasting the rest of the poem to its epigraph, it is clear that Eliot is in fact rejecting Dante, because he does not conform to traditional line structures or lengths. At times he has brief lines, others stretch a while getting upward in terms of syllable count. With these things considered, it is quite obvious then that Eliot is wearing his tradition on his chest like it were a badge. Many writers fall within this idea of tradition. One such writer is the poet Langston Hughes, the star of the Harlem Renaissance. They both have labored in Eliot s idea that, it cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labor. One particular writer which Hughes references is the poet Walter Whitman. Walter Whitman is the epitome of American poets by the time of Hughes writing. The Whitmanian American is one of working class
Babcock 4 peoples, both men, women and of course, all races of people. However, based on his poem I Hear America Singing, one could see that he may not be hearing all of American sing. In his poem he describes white Americans, holding and maintaining blue collar jobs. Hughes, an African American was most likely perturbed by his omission of a person of color in the poem, and wrote his poem I Too Sing America. The reference to the title of the former poem is overt and thinly veiled. When one looks close, one can also see a reference in the manner of which Whitman speaks in his poem. From Whitman s poem, he alludes to the workers in the manner of The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck. This is a seemingly a simple phrase, with the worker presented first, followed by a description of what Whitman hears the worker singing. Hughes takes this framework and incorporates it in his poem, beginning with the second line I am the darker brother/ They send me to eat in the kitchen. This firmly places Hughes, who in the first line states that he is in fact singing, as the darker brother or to borrow Whitman s phrase, the worker. Hughes purposefully chooses to make a deviation from the form of the Whitman poem however, in that he adds details and a much deeper narrative to the darker brother in the poem Not only does this reference apply to Whitman, but it also, as Eliot intended in the idea of tradition, deepens what criticism can be made of the poem. In Hughes personal life he was a communist, another way of looking at a communist, is that they are workers. This reference and calling back to Whitman of him being a worker, also
Babcock 5 deepens the ability of the critic to believe not only is the poem in reference to Whitman, but also a statement of Marxist ideals. This depth would not be achievable, at least in this sense, without Eliot s concept of tradition. The true question of tradition is if Hughes is using the reference to Whitman, which is looking back to the past, while still rejecting it. The answer is yes he is. He is doing it in several ways, which are complex. Hughes is making it very clear that as an African American he refuses to be unheard while singing. This is Hughes rejecting the past overtly. However, by deviating from Whitman s original format for the description of the singers, he is also rebelling, stating that he is new and changing the elements of Whitman s poem, which he sees fit to do. Once again, there is the a sense that Hughes is still rejecting the past, while working with tradition. Both of the writers discussed clearly are wearing their tradition plainly, while achieving things that are not immediately evident, or immediately conceivable by an untrained eye. It is this which matters most, that the references be suiting, playing with both themes, and in conjunction with the fact that while still referencing the past, they are both rejecting past practices. Tradition is an ongoing thing, which of course, will span further than the reaches of Modernism, or any other system of beliefs. The idea of it, and Eliot s essay of it, have already reached far beyond Eliot in terms of years lived, and Eliot himself has become a part of the tradition.