Eliot’s Modernist Manifesto

This essay revisits Eliot’s seminal text “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919) which has been part of the central debates of literary discussions for almost a century. Although no longer an orthodoxy in our postmodern era, Eliot’s essay continues to influence current critical debates. The goa...

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Main Author: Viorica Patea
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Association Française d'Etudes Américaines 2017-01-01
Series:Transatlantica
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/8088
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author Viorica Patea
author_facet Viorica Patea
author_sort Viorica Patea
collection DOAJ
description This essay revisits Eliot’s seminal text “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919) which has been part of the central debates of literary discussions for almost a century. Although no longer an orthodoxy in our postmodern era, Eliot’s essay continues to influence current critical debates. The goal of this article is to rethink Eliot’s manifesto from the perspective of romantic and modernist poetics, and to reconcile the great disparity between Eliot the experimentalist avant-garde poet who advocates the aesthetics of fragmentation and the critic who pleads for the extinction of personality. This article reconsiders Eliot’s concepts of tradition and impersonality in the light of the revolution that took place in the visual arts in the first decades of the twentieth century, whose experimental language he tried to transfer to poetic practice. It also analyzes the way in which his theories present affinities with modern trends of philosophical thinking, such as historicist hermeneutics, relativism and pragmatism.
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spelling doaj-art-8ed40bff6d2d469893c78258a27b0e552025-01-30T10:46:04ZengAssociation Française d'Etudes AméricainesTransatlantica1765-27662017-01-01110.4000/transatlantica.8088Eliot’s Modernist ManifestoViorica PateaThis essay revisits Eliot’s seminal text “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919) which has been part of the central debates of literary discussions for almost a century. Although no longer an orthodoxy in our postmodern era, Eliot’s essay continues to influence current critical debates. The goal of this article is to rethink Eliot’s manifesto from the perspective of romantic and modernist poetics, and to reconcile the great disparity between Eliot the experimentalist avant-garde poet who advocates the aesthetics of fragmentation and the critic who pleads for the extinction of personality. This article reconsiders Eliot’s concepts of tradition and impersonality in the light of the revolution that took place in the visual arts in the first decades of the twentieth century, whose experimental language he tried to transfer to poetic practice. It also analyzes the way in which his theories present affinities with modern trends of philosophical thinking, such as historicist hermeneutics, relativism and pragmatism.https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/8088historyavant-gardemodernismT.S. EliotTraditionimpersonality
spellingShingle Viorica Patea
Eliot’s Modernist Manifesto
Transatlantica
history
avant-garde
modernism
T.S. Eliot
Tradition
impersonality
title Eliot’s Modernist Manifesto
title_full Eliot’s Modernist Manifesto
title_fullStr Eliot’s Modernist Manifesto
title_full_unstemmed Eliot’s Modernist Manifesto
title_short Eliot’s Modernist Manifesto
title_sort eliot s modernist manifesto
topic history
avant-garde
modernism
T.S. Eliot
Tradition
impersonality
url https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/8088
work_keys_str_mv AT vioricapatea eliotsmodernistmanifesto