“Tradition and the Individual Talent”

Readings: Tyson, the New Criticism; T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock” and “Tradition and the Individual Talent”

Prompt: In “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” Eliot discusses a peculiar anxiety that writers have about their potential for originality and argues that any “new” artistic form necessarily emerges from the past. For this assignment it is your task to locate one contemporary work of art or literature and write one paragraph about its relation to a previous work of art or literature.