Analysis of the poem “To the Nightingale” by Jorge Luis Borges with reference to “Tradition and Individual Talent” by T.S. Eliot

Abstract

“He must be quite aware of the obvious fact that art never improves, but that the material of art is never quite the same.” (Eliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent) a known essay by T.S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” focuses on two major aspects for a good poetry and for a poet. One among them is tradition, where a good poet is a well-read person and understands his/her duty in relation to the past of literature and of his predecessors; the other aspect is the concept of impersonalisation where he does not adhere to any preferred period or poet and makes his own position. “Nightingale” is a bird on which many poets from Virgil to Keats and Jorge Luis Borges have attempted their pen. After many beautiful poems written already on Nightingale, Borges thinks to write about it and feels perplexed as the bird has been nicely depicted by canonical poets. How would Borges make his position as poet when he is to write on Nightingale?