Tag Archives: Personality

ESSAY: “Tradition and the Individual Talent” by T.S. Eliot

Posted on by
1
Tradition and the Individual Talent: An EssayTradition and the Individual Talent: An Essay by T.S. Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Read for free at the Poetry Foundation

Amazon.in Page

While this is a controversial essay and I don’t accept it wholesale, myself, I would wholeheartedly recommend it as required reading for poets (and other artists.) What is Eliot’s controversial thesis? It’s that poetry should be less about the poet. That broad and imprecise statement can be clarified by considering two ways in which Eliot would make poetry less about the poet. First, Eliot proposes that poets should be in tune to the historic evolution of their art and — importantly — should not be so eager to break the chain with the past masters. He’s not saying a poet needs to be a literary historian, but rather that one be well-read in the poetry of the past. Second, Eliot advocates that a poet avoid packing one’s poetry with one’s personality, and – instead – let one’s personality dissolve away through the act of creation.

A quote from the essay may help to clarify — Eliot says, “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not an expression of personality, but an escape from personality.”

One can imagine the accusations of pretension and dogmatism that Eliot received in 1919 from the mass of poets who were moving full speed ahead into poetry that was suffused with autobiography, was avant-garde, and which was free of meter, rhyme and other compositional elements that had once been seen as the defining characteristics of poetry.

I don’t see this essay as being the map to our new home, but rather as the catalyst of a conversation that could move us to a more preferable intermediary location. I have, too often, picked up a collection by a young poet that was entirely autobiographical and (also, too often) of the “everybody hates me, nobody loves me, I think I’ll go eat worms” variety of wallowing in personal feelings. And I always think, when I want to read something depressing, I’ll read something from someone who has lived tragedy — e.g. a Rwandan refugee, not something from a twenty-four-year-old MFA student at some Ivy League school.

So, yeah, maybe we could use more connection to the past and a bit less autobiographical poetry from people who haven’t lived a novel-shaped life.

View all my reviews

PROMPT: Character

Posted on by
6

Are you a good judge of character?

I’m good at judging who IS a character, but probably not so much a judge of who HAS character. People are demonstrably overestimative of their ability to draw conclusions about other people’s internal characteristics. (I cite as an example that study about interview subjects asked to hold either warm or cold coffee in the hand they would use to shake interviewer’s hands.) So, I’m probably better than people who think they are good at it, while still not being good at it.

PROMPT: Traits

Posted on by
Reply

What personality trait in people raises a red flag with you?

When a “grown man” makes life / wellbeing decisions based on what others will think of him, one of the words in quotation marks is in question. So, I guess… conformity.

5 Traits Confused for Introversion

Posted on by
2

There are a number of personality traits or temporary states of mind that may be wrongly attributed to introverts. One reason for this is that introverts aren’t the most expressive of individuals, and in the absence of information people write their own stories — and when writing their own story, they tend to put themselves at the center, even if it’s a story to explain another person’s behavior. So it is that, faced with a lack of verbal or nonverbal feedback, many individuals will assume that the introvert’s behavior has something to do with them. For example, the introvert — lost in thought — who doesn’t acknowledge another person’s entry into the room may be seen assumed to be miffed or irritate, when the truth is that they were just so deeply absorbed in thought that they didn’t notice said person.

 

5.) Arrogance: If the introvert has a high level of self-confidence in his or her abilities in a particular domain, they may be believed to be arrogant or narcissistic, generally. I, for one, am plenty arrogant in some regards, but that doesn’t mean I’m at all arrogant about what people have assumed me to be arrogant about.

4.) People-hating: Introverts burn energy quickly in interactive, or highly stimulating, situations. That means that they aren’t going to jump on every invitation. An introvert has to manage energy with respect to activities and events where he or she has to interact with others. Choosing to stay home alone rather than go to a given party doesn’t equal hating people.

3.) Shyness: Introverts can be shy, i.e. have anxiety about being in social situations. However, the two don’t necessarily go together.  Shyness, or social anxiety, is also much less stable a condition. In other words, people can overcome social anxiety just like they overcome fear of spiders or heights. However, introversion isn’t conditioned away, generally speaking. One needs to think in terms of managing introversion rather than extinguishing it.

2.) Unintelligence: As Susan Cain discusses in her book “Quiet” this isn’t a global tendency, but it’s common enough in the Western world and America, specifically. In Taoism, it’s famously said that “He who speaks does not know, and he who knows does not speak.” But in the West, if you don’t broadcast your ideas loudly its assumed that you don’t have ideas, and — alternatively — if you are loud enough people may begin to assume you know what you’re talking about. [Which, needless to say, need not be true.]

1.) Hostility / Passive Aggressiveness / Anger: An introvert may be assumed to be giving others the “silent treatment” when — in fact — there’s no “treatment” just a love of silence.