Tradition and the Individual's Darkness

 

        One of the primary questions of modernism concerns the link of the present to the past, asking in essence what is the impact of previous movements in art. The primitive becomes significant because of its very difference from the modern, and the present age must examine these differences to decide whether progress or regress is necessary. In "Tradition and the Individual Talent," however, T. S. Eliot sets up a view of history and literature which places the modern age in the position of providing new cultural material to join preceding ages. This fundamentally optimistic view assumes as the result of art the continuation and redefinition of the past, finally producing a cultural whole with this synthesis of past and present. In this model, though, the specific role of the modern age comes into question when applied to Eliot's The Waste Land, as the concepts put forth in "Tradition and the Individual Talent" appear as impossibilities, attempts at a cultural unity which fails to solidify. In particular, the relationship of the modern to the primitive defines itself as inherently ambiguous, remaining vague despite a gesture towards wholeness.

        "Tradition and the Individual Talent" presents a conception of literature as part of an already existing order in which new works both contribute to and alter the previous tradition. Eliot states very clearly that "what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it" (72). The effect here occurs both retroactively and proactively. New movements in thought must always, of course, reevaluate already established thought. What Eliot envisions, however, includes both past and present affecting each other, not merely the past redefined by the present: "the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past" (72). Tradition, then, serves as a guide for what literature should pursue, but one which will produce a final synthesis in which direct causality fails to apply. The sum of knowledge manifests itself as more important than either the force of gathered knowledge or the novelty of innovation.

        The view of literature in "Tradition and the Individual Talent" assumes, therefore, an already thriving intellectual current which joins with the present in a shared simultaneity. The artist should participate in "a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable" (Eliot 73). A larger order does, indeed, exist as superior to the concerns of the immediate present. Eliot goes so far as to say for the poet "that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order" (72). In this moment, what emerges as interesting is the assertion of simultaneity. The literary works involved may affect each other because they share a sort of contemporary existence. Thus the timeline of literary development cannot form a linear path -- one age of literature does not cause the next, but exists alongside it.

        Eliot also makes an appeal to archetypal human thought in poetry, allowing it to occupy the place of that "something which is more valuable." Literature appears as recognizable because its character is fundamental to human thought. As Eliot states in the article, "The poet's mind is in fact a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together" (74). These feelings, phrases, and images derive from the same source, the origin of human experience. Poetry's purpose should not be "to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones" (Eliot 76). The ideal stated here envisions the synthesis of modes of thought into a concrete whole, drawing for material on past literature because it derives from the same ordinary emotions as the present. Eliot's view of literature in the modern age finally depends on this coherence to draw the disparate ages together in simultaneity.

        The redefinition of past and present into an order of literature occurs through the process of cyclical understanding. One age resembles the last because they travel through the same stages of life, death, and rebirth. Eliot's own belief that history and art moved in this fashion appears in his criticism. The intellectual current suggested in "Tradition and the Individual Talent," continuing on a larger scale than the individual artist, must have a fundamental scheme to define it. The different ages assert themselves simultaneously, and all ages draw upon the same base of human emotion. The cycle presents itself as the most obvious way in which these elements may be embraced. As artistic movements continue to revisit the pathways of the past, the same archetypal experiences occur, and all literature attempts to deal with these basic experiences.

        In The Waste Land, however, the vision of the modern age emerges as a pessimistic denial of the cyclical life Eliot idealizes in his criticism. What appear to be gestures toward rebirth result finally in a continued obsession with death. The poem begins with a seasonal note, suggesting a cycle of life and rebirth. However, the image itself remains ambivalent, as the poet states, "April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain" (1-4). The subject appears as rebirth, but the image still seems soaked with death. The lilacs are brought out of death, but they are bred, making this life the object of an activity rather than an independent reawakening. As the rain conjures both memory and desire, an awareness of past life and future possibility becomes more concrete, but that locates the present at a place of absolute death, inbetween the recollection of vitality and the hope for new life. This pessimism infects the passage by labeling April cruel. The process of rebirth opens on a painful note, reaffirming death while moving towards life.

        Fertility itself comes into question as well, as the second part of the poem ends with a dialogue denying the presence of life. Adopting a contemporary voice, the poem allows the speakers (a woman named Lil and another) to discuss the possibility of childbirth. An abortion is suggested in the "pills" of line 159, but the children themselves become associated with death: "She's had five already, and nearly died of young George" (160). The final defeat of life in this passage arrives with the sad, panicked confession, "The chemist said it would be all right, but I've never been the same" (161). Death occurs both with abortion and with childbirth. The inherent risk of having a child brings the possibility of death, but the consequences of the abortion have left Lil with an absence of fertility altogether. Again, the poem mentions life, but affirms the constant presence of death in the process.

        Death as part of a larger cycle also falls into doubt in The Waste Land as the continuation of the cycle beyond death appears impossible. The procession of the dead in lines 60-76 suggests the end of an age, but the possibility for hope beyond this moment ends up destroyed by the closed imagery. As Eliot describes the men in this procession, he denies the presence of optimism: "Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, / And each man fixed his eyes before his feet" (64-65). The sighing, which would be indicative of longing or hope, becomes smothered by this pessimistic image. These men have ceased to anticipate any possibilities for the future, as even longing carries a brief date when it appears at all. The consideration of only the immediate moment also defeats the notion of a life cycle, as the men concern themselves with just the steps they take. Rather than searching for a destination, these men focus merely on the smallest of movements, undermining the idea that this death only precedes life. The passage ends with a particularly closed image, resolving "With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine" (68). The echoes of the present moment into the future end abruptly, making improbable a continuation beyond this "final stroke." Rather than a cycle, the poem suggests the end of all life and development.

        The poem's treatment of images from the past also suggests the finality of the modern age. Eliot describes, in the beginning of section three, images of departed life: "The river's tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf / Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind / Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed" (173-75). Nature's restorative power appears ineffectual and dying. At one time, the leaves lived and the wind brought vitality to the land. Now, however, the nymphs, essential spirits of life, have left. This passage emphasizes not only the death of this moment but the life of previous ages. The cycle does not appear to continue past the modern age, as this retrospective longing for the past indicates. The life of the river dies in this moment as well, as the poet pleads, "Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song" (176). The immediate attention of this line focuses on the eventual end of the poet's voice. A possibility for continuing life beyond this poet still exists, however, but for the fact that the river must stop flowing as well. This moment implies that with the poet's conclusion, the river must end in tandem. The modern poet thus becomes the end not merely of an age, but of the entire current until this point.

        The role of myth in The Waste Land contradicts to some extent the ideals set forth in "Tradition and the Individual Talent." While Eliot draws extensively on previously established literary traditions, these traditions remain remote and inaccessible to the modern artist. In part two, the scenes on Cleopatra's walls evoke a mythic tradition which still cannot be understood by the present age. Philomel's cries seem distant and essentially incomprehensible when heard in this age: "still she cried, and still the world pursues" (102). The modern age still cannot truly understand the significance of this moment in the myth tradition. This distance increases as Eliot describes how "other withered stumps of time / Were told upon the walls; staring forms / Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed" (104-6). These presences appear as "withered," not the vital myths which Eliot intends to pursue and reinterpret. Indeed, the effect of their presence hushes the modern age rather than inspiring further creativity.

        This paralysis of creativity overrides Eliot even in the conclusion of the poem. The distant myths of Eliot's ideal literature appear in the form of the Upanishads' "Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata." However, even in the evocation of the Hindu tradition, a full breakthrough is denied the modern artist. Eliot describes the problem for the entire age: "We think of the key, each in his prison / Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison" (414-15). The inaccessibility of myth continues to strangle full comprehension, as the writer confirms and creates his imprisonment by fearing it. The retrospective nature of the modern age, obsessed with contacting the past, ends up destroying the chance for interacting with past traditions.

        Finally, The Waste Land defeats Eliot's ideal in the loss of coherence. Rather than drawing together various ages and synthesizing a new whole, Eliot has achieved a chaotic simultaneity. Addressed early in the poem, the modern man is told, "you know only / A heap of broken images" (21-22). Denied the ability to make sense of past myth, the modern artist can only view the collection of tradition as incomplete and fragmented. Stuck in a position between past art and future possibilities, the writer is left with an insubstantial legacy: "I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust" (27-30). The final image implies a grasp at resolution, an attempt to understand the proper place for the shadows of past and present in the art of today. The artist, however, loses his hold because of the essentially insubstantial quality of his attempt at coherence. Eliot admits his inability to form a concrete whole with the final stanza, stating simply, "These fragments I have shored against my ruins" (431). Despite attempts to synthesize different ages into a new tradition, Eliot's poetry remains in fragments. Even here the possible optimism of future understanding and coherence falls before the pessimism of this statement. The fragments only postpone the inevitable ruin of the poet; Eliot still presents the end as inevitable. His attempt at coherence will be overcome by the tide of time.

        For all of Eliot's idealism in his criticism, The Waste Land stands out in its sense of modern defeat facing the tradition of the past. Robert Crawford sums up the effect of the poem by saying that it "leaves its readers in darkness. The rituals of the past are perverted and decayed.... It is yet another part of the cycle of fertility which is seen in The Waste Land as a torturing cage" (148). Rather than contacting and recreating the order of the past to form a renewed literary tradition, the modern age merely mimics the primitive. Its cyclical form and gestures toward a new literary tradition disappear under the weight of the poem's defeat and ultimate darkness. The modern artist finds himself at the end of all cycles, reaching back to inaccessible myths and producing only confusion. Perhaps the most potent image of the primitive tradition occurs in the mountain scenes at the conclusion: "red sullen faces sneer and snarl / From doors of mudcracked houses" (344-45). Facing the possibility of understanding the past, the modernist meets hostility. The primitive remains essentially incomprehensible, while the modernist continues to search for inspiration in his past.