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PARTISAN REVIEW
atre.... And there is a kind of eternal virginity about her. She is in–
accessible...."
The best-known manifesto on behalf of impersonality in the
arts is T. S. Eliot's classic essay of 1919, "Tradition and the Individual
Talent"; and Lincoln Kirstein makes no secret of the fact that his
own aesthetic philosophy is profoundly indebted to Eliot's. Although
Eliot's specific concern is poetry, his comments are equally ap–
plicable to the other arts. In fact, few essays do more to illuminate
the foundations of twentieth century neoclassicism, and for that
reason, I'd like to quote several key passages from this seminal work.
Eliot is determined to demonstrate that "modernism" need not
necessitate a break with tradition. Quite the contrary: for Eliot, the
greater the contemporary artist, the more likely it is that he will
regard tradition not as something oppressive and overbearing, but
rather as a vital and continuing source of inspiration . Speaking of
our modern fascination with uniqueness, with the way in which each
work of art
differs
from its predecessors, Eliot notes,
We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet's difference from his
predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors; whereas if
we approach a poet without this prejudice, we shall often find
that not only the best, but the most
individual
parts of his work
may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their
immortality most vigorously.... What happens is a continual
surrendering of himself as he is at the moment to something
which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual
self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.
It
is here that Eliot makes the all-important connection be–
tween historical continuity and impersonality. Note how completely
this attitude toward "personality" clashes with the romantic idea that
art is primarily a matter of "self-expression." In one of the essay's
most frequently-quoted passages, Eliot insists that "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." Some of
course would argue that this is a sure formula for sterility and
aloofness, but Eliot anticipates such objections, adding slyly, "only
those who have personality and emotions know what it means to
want to escape from these things."
Note how literally Kirstein adapts the ideas of Eliot when he
distinguishes Balanchine's modernism from that of the modern
dance choreographer:
