Tradition and Individual Abilities and Eliot' s Viewpoint of Literary History——Calling in Question New Criticism is Lacking in Historical Idea

It is actually unreasonable for the field of theory to have been considering that new criticism, a mode of literory criticism on self-discipline, is only adaptable to temporary study but not constant analysis because of its lack of historical idea. As an originator of the school of new criticism, T S Eliot tried to com bine literary theory and criticism with literary history and put forward the idea of literary non-individuality in his most important thesis Tradition and Individual Abilities. He emphasized the decisive influence of literary tradition on individual writer and the development of literary history, and he also put forward the evalu ation criteria of literary history, which is called External Authority. His unique point of view of literary history made remarkable contributions to the development of theory of western literary history of the 20th cen tury, which was a specific and profound inspiration to the construction of the new century literary historical science in China.