ENGL 497Senior Seminar
Prof. G. Steinberg
You're reading a two-part essay that deals with two very different things.
In the first part, Eliot talks about tradition -- what it is, how it works, why it's relevant to literature. How does Eliot see tradition? How does tradition affect the creation and value of literature?
In the second part of the essay, Eliot talks about the author's role in literature. Wordsworth and Emerson seemed to define literature by saying that poetry is the writing of a poet, the author's “emotion recollected in tranquility.” How does Eliot perceive the author? What role does the author play in the creation of literature? How does real-life emotion function in the creation of poetry?
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