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Tradition and the Individual Talent

Series: ERIS gems
Brief Description
"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things."... Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
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T. S. Eliot’s advocacy of “impersonality” as a literary ideal in Tradition and the Individual Talent had an immeasurable impact on Modernist literature and continues to resonate today.

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"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things."

T. S. Eliot's advocacy of impersonality as a literary ideal in Tradition and the Individual Talent had an immeasurable impact on Modernist literature and continues to resonate today. An incisive (and controversial) account of individual artists' relation to their forebears, this essay remains an outstanding work of critical prose.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781916809437

Publisher: ERIS

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 13 May 2025

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: ERIS

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 109.0mm

Height: 193.0mm

Weight: 0g

Pages: 32

About the Author

T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) was the single most influential English-language poet of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

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