“But the intellect (nous) is perhaps something more divine and unaffected (impassible).”
‘Historical sense’ is an intellectual discipline.
Eliot conceives this ‘historical sense’ as a central idea that he works with in his essay. For Eliot, the true artist must necessarily possess this ‘sense’ of what is ‘historical’ so that he may produce great literature. Eliot understands historical sense as a deeply held awareness of the literary past and how this past continues to move into and become part of the present.
Very famously, he observes that this historical sense involves a perception of the pastness of the past and its presence in the present, understanding these two aspects simultaneously and how they converge. Though the past belongs to another time, it continues to exist actively in the present, making past literature not a disconnected series of vignettes but that which flow fluidly into how present literature is shaped. Literature is thus a living enterprise.
Imagine all the great works of literature from the past and beyond, and what came after these great works, which make up pieces of literary work in the present. All of these entries from the past can be likened to beads held together on a string, creating a coherence that is beyond their individual aspects and yet, at the same time, having a strong appreciation of each bead, which independently exists as a great work of literature, imbuing a presence into the literary narratives that came to be created later. Or imagine historical sense as a symphonic performance played out across the centuries. Each piece of literature adds a new movement to the composition. The Composer must hear the earlier music, understand its construct, even as he contributes something new, making the entire symphony a living entity that continues to shape the new piece of literature and is, in turn, reshaped by the new.
The study of tradition, as Eliot interprets it, becomes necessary. The romantic idea of poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings which takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity,” as expressed by Wordsworth in his ‘Lyrical Ballads’, stands contested by Eliot. Eliot will argue that a poet needs to develop a strong understanding of historical literature, literary form, poetic language and culture. While it is possible to produce poetry which emerges from original thought, such poetry will lack the depth required for it to flourish through the detachment that the poet needs to employ when constructing and creating poetry. True originality, for Eliot, emerges from a deep engagement with the past. Hence, poetry becomes an expression of individuality when it is immersed in this idea of tradition, which is then transformed creatively. Individuality and tradition are not opposites; rather, they work together to make poetry come alive.
Eliot asserts that this immersion into a ‘historical sense’ requires intellectual discipline, in which the poet perceives the gestalt idea that the ‘whole is greater than the sum of its parts’. The past merges with the present to create a compelling poetic conversation as a complete and continually developing ‘unity’, in its poetic development and existence in the present. Such awareness is what constitutes ‘historical sense’. Such mature poetry requires a scholarship that is embedded in a stance of humility directed towards the actively incorporated ‘past’.
To be continued…..
References
Eliot, T. S. (1982). Tradition and the individual talent. Perspecta, 19, 36. https://doi.org/10.2307/1567048
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