Initial impressions: Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)
“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 was a Boston Brahmin, a name given to the erudite city dwellers of Boston, believed to be descendants of the early English settlers. The origins of the term ‘Brahmin’ (evoked curiosity given his inclination to Eastern philosophy) apparently had little to do with the system but rather a fancy name coined for the elitist purist faction of the city, albeit inspired. A considerable number of literary insiders consider Eliot the most important literary critic of the 19 th century and I think this played an enormous role in substantiating his identity as a prominent poet and thinker of the era as well. Eliot is widely acknowledged to have been one of the foremost to weed out the persona of ...