T S Eliot and the Concept of Literary Tradition and the Importance of Allusions

Abstract: T S Eliot is of the opinion tradition is the historical sense and not the handing down, or following the ways of the ancient blindly. It cannot be inherited. It can only be achieved with great conscious efforts. An artist’s personal talent must follow a strong background learning of his culture and literature. When a poet presents a new creation that is characteristically allusive to his past works, the whole literature of his country or nation is positively affected by it. This kind of creative conformity of an individual’s talent to his past literary works is what is meant by Eliot’s concept of literary tradition. Eliot wanted to see the things i.e. literature in its entirety, but at the same time he never rejected the particular limitations of his own footing and grounding in time and place, that he calls ‘individual talent’, and in his particularly chosen tradition that composed his self-understanding. This paper discusses at length the concept of literary tradition along with the importance of allusions which are a great means to achieve the maintenance of tradition in literary works. The qualitative analysis of the data has been carried out deductively