Talk:Tradition and the Individual Talent

literary dictator
Hello. I've probably minor quibbles here, but there seems to be a leap here: "While Eliot is most often known for his poetry, he also contributed to the field of literary theory (hence, he has been dubbed the “literary dictator” by Delmore Schwartz)." I'm reluctant to edit this without some feedback.

Any thoughts on this? thanks Nomo1521 05:36, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't have any problems with that statement. I could use a citation or two but I've seen the Schwartz expression before. What would you edit the statement to? WikiParker 10:19, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I have a problem with it, it's irrelevant to the statement as it stands. He may be know as the "literary dictator," but it's not explained that that's because he was also a critic who sought to shape critical discourse in a way that would cast his work in the best possible light, or any other justification. It needs editing, or possibly removing IMO. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.83.108.10 (talk) 10:07, 14 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have just arrived here with the same quibble. There is no such statement on Delmore Schwartz's wikipage and no context as it was referring to this or later work. It would possiblly, if referenced (which it is not), be more relevant on either his page or T.S.Eliot proper. Þjóðólfr (talk) 11:00, 14 November 2009 (UTC)


 * The reference to check (I haven't) is the essay by Delmore Schwartz entitled "The Literary Dictatorship of TS Eliot" (Partisan Review, February 1949) WikiParker (talk) 02:40, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Eliot's mentioning of essay in After Strange Gods
I'm just adding a note here for some future development -- Eliot started out his University of Virginia lectures that ended up being published in After Strange Gods with:
 * Some years ago I wrote an essay entitled Tradition and the Individual Talent. During the course of the subsequent fifteen years I have discovered, or had brought to my attention, some unsatisfactory phrasing and at least one more than doubtful analogy. But I do not repudiate what I wrote in that essay any more fully than I should expect to do after such a lapse of time. The problem, naturally, does not seem to me so simple as it seemed then, nor could I treat it now as a purely literary one. What I propose to attempt in these three lectures is to outline the matter as I now conceive it.

WikiParker (talk) 13:05, 24 May 2014 (UTC)