In T.S. Eliot’s essay: Tradition and Individual Talent, Eliot formulates several interesting theories about writers and how their talent is connected to tradition. Eliot points out the fact that when we criticize a literary work, we praise the writer for the aspects of their work that stand out or least resemble anyone else. In other words, we praise the parts of a writer’s work that sets them a part as an individual and gives them their own unique identity. Eliot’s argument is that these parts of the writer’s work that gives them their individual identity is developed and is a result of writers from the past and their works that have influenced the present writer’s work. In this way, tradition and what we praise as individual talent are directly tied together. In Eliot’s words, “What is to be insisted upon is that the poet must develop or procure the consciousness of the past and that he should continue to develop this consciousness throughout his career” (Eliot). This also relates to our discussion in class of the parlor conversation and how any argument or idea that someone can come up with is always a continuation of some previous discussion or argument. We can come up with new angles and ways to argue a topic, but it is always building off of someone’s previous discussion.
While Eliot makes it clear that it is important to note the tradition and historical context preceding and influencing a text, he does also resemble several elements of new criticism theory in his essay. For one, Eliot believes “Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation are directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry” (Eliot). Eliot also believes in looking at a text through a scientific point of view or formulaically, something else that seems to be very new criticism-esque.
It would be very hard to examine Paradise Lost through a lens of new criticism because the text is designed to work in parallel with its’ historical context. Milton is trying to make an argument against government censorship through his writing, so how is it possible to not bring in the historical context in an analysis of the text? My SCE project analyzes Paradise Lost by John Milton and discusses the arguments that Milton is trying to make underneath his intriguing layer of prose. Milton himself realized and understood in his creation of Paradise Lost that he was using the same conventions of a typical epic poem as many writers before him such as Homer and Virgil had done before. What made Milton an individual and what we praise in Paradise Lost is Milton’s unique reversal of epic poem conventions. Milton creates his own identity by using ideas from previous writers and their works, and builds something new off of it. For example, in most if not all epic poems up until Paradise Lost, there was the typical “epic hero” who goes on a quest, faces challenges, and ultimately succeeds in a task. The epic hero typically has traits of righteousness and virtue. Milton takes this convention and flips it on its head with the character of Satan who resembles certain traits of an epic hero, but is also the villain of the story.

Works Cited:
Eliot, T. S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Perspecta, vol. 19, 1982, p. 36., doi:10.2307/1567048.