Abstract
This chapter examines Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” demonstrating how Eliot formulated the role and behavior of what Badiou would term “mastery” in relation to the void. Concretizing Badiou’s notions as presented in “A Poetic Dialectic,” Eliot’s classic essay demonstrates the principles at play in Badiou’s thought, positing and dialectically emptying the notion of the masterful critic. In doing so, Eliot exposes the void of critical discourse, and then incorporates that void back into the discourse itself in order to sustain and further it. “Tradition and the Individual Talent” not only predicts Badiou, but offers a daring example of the key tenets that occupy his thought.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1960.
Habib, M.A.R. The Early T.S. Eliot and Western Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Kenner, Hugh. The Pound Era. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
Symons, Arthur. The Symbolist Movement in Literature by Arthur Symons. New York: EP Dutton and Co., 1919.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
MacKenzie, C. (2018). Contaminated Intentions: Tradition and the Individual Talent. In: Badiou and American Modernist Poetics. Pivotal Studies in the Global American Literary Imagination. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95028-0_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95028-0_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-95027-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-95028-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)