TRADITION AND THE INDIVIDUAL TALENT (T.S ELIOT) AND THE MIND OF THE POET AS A CATALYST

I, therefore, invite you to consider, as a suggestive analogy, the action which takes place when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide.

The analogy was that of the catalyst. When the two gases previously mentioned are mixed in the presence of a filament of platinum, they form sulphurous acid. This combination takes place only if the platinum is present; nevertheless the newly formed acid contains no trace of platinum, and the platinum itself is apparently unaffected; has remained inert, neutral, and unchanged. The mind of the poet is the shred of platinum. It may partly or exclusively operate upon the experience of the man himself; but, the more perfect the artist, the more completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates; the more perfectly will the mind digest and transmute the passions which are its material. 

The text it self explains the analogy very well, there is not much one could add. The catalysts, indeed, remain intact at the end of the reaction; they only make it possible for the reaction to runs in a more favorable, faster way..

There is another quote by Eliot about poets that I like. He said about bad poets: “In fact, the bad poet is usually unconscious where he ought to be conscious, and conscious where he ought to be unconscious”. I used this sentence, conversely, to praise the last Kiko Veneno albums