Contaminated Intentions: Tradition and the Individual Talent

Abstract

This chapter examines Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” demonstrating how Eliot formulated the role and behavior of what Badiou would term “mastery” in relation to the void. Concretizing Badiou’s notions as presented in “A Poetic Dialectic,” Eliot’s classic essay demonstrates the principles at play in Badiou’s thought, positing and dialectically emptying the notion of the masterful critic. In doing so, Eliot exposes the void of critical discourse, and then incorporates that void back into the discourse itself in order to sustain and further it. “Tradition and the Individual Talent” not only predicts Badiou, but offers a daring example of the key tenets that occupy his thought.