Eliot describes a poet’s originality as the places where “the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.”  In other words, everything in art has been done, no matter how original it seems, and this isn’t something to be ashamed of. (I get this a lot as a writer.)  He emphasizes the “historical sense,” an understanding of how the past is present today (clever pun). But a historical sense cannot be passively absorbed. It must be obtained by “great labor.”  

I agree with much of what Eliot said.  His argument on dead poets asserting their immortality in living poets’ work reminded me of a surprising discovery I made while revising a YA mystery.  I considered my protagonist Silas pretty original—he’s a seventeen-year-old butler—but I realized he has things in common with a much older protagonist: Jesus.  Silas is conceived out of wedlock to a low-class couple. He lives a life of service and obedience. He walks on (frozen) water and serves at the story’s last supper.  He puts the lives of others before his own to confront great evil (the killer), who drags him to a graveyard. There, he’s wounded in the hand and side but (miraculously?) walks out of the graveyard alive.  

Contrary to Eliot’s argument, I wasn’t aware of all this when I wrote the story.  Not all echoes of past literature are consciously inserted by the writer through great labor.  First, we’re born into cultures that carry assumptions, stories, and ideals, which influence our thinking.  Second, the story (or other art) always has connections, references, and ideas the writer isn’t immediately aware of.  However, I doubt it’s a coincidence that I, a Roman Catholic author who read various stories with Christ figures and Biblical allusions, wrote a story about a boy with Christ figure characteristics.  

At the same time, becoming aware of our culture’s assumptions, stories, and ideals that we absorb is important not just for writers but also for thinkers.  This is the “great labor” to acquire a “historical sense.” It helps us understand why we believe what we believe and gives us room to consider other cultures’ assumptions, stories, and ideals.  

The historical sense and the “immortality” of dead writers puts a wrinkle in new criticism, though.  New criticism cuts out any context a writer is born into and the influence of previous writers, but Eliot claims both of these must be considered by a writer with the historical sense.  A new critic could get around this by pointing out that historical sense is directed at writers, not readers, and new criticism is a way of reading, not writing. Arguably, a writer doesn’t have to think about new criticism and can consider all the context they want when writing.  A new critical reader just won’t factor any of that in. But ignoring the historical sense means ignoring influences that guide the work. Those influences may give a new way to see the work as a whole. For example, if I think of Silas as a Christ figure, that suggests the killer embodies Satan and human wickedness, or Silas’s friends represent disciples, which opens a new line of analysis into their roles in the story.  

Reference

Eliot, T. S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.”  The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism, 1920.