In ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ (1919), an essay Eliot produced shortly after the prfrock collection, the author outlines his artistic approach to poetry. He champions the concept of ‘tradition’ in art, believing that the best works are infused with an appreciation of the past. Eliot defines this appreciation with what he calls ‘historical sense’, considering the tradition in literature not as a mere repetition of past works, but as a knowledge and incorporation of them in the present.

Eliot’s “historical sense” is amply demonstrated by the endless allusions interspersed throughout the prfrock poems, evident in ‘The Boston Evening Transcript’ with the evocation of the figure of La Rochefoucauld.

Francois La Rochefoucauld was a 17th century French author, best remembered for his ‘Reflections or Aphorisms and Moral Maxims’ (1665). The reference is deliberate, intended to delineate the type of individual reading the Boston Afternoon Transcript as self-satisfied and clearly lifeless. While these qualities are also conveyed in the lines: ‘When the evening speeds weakly in the street / Awakening the appetites of life in some / And in others bringing the Boston Afternoon Transcript‘, where the word ‘life’ is attributed to ‘some’, but not to the ‘others’ who read the Boston Afternoon Transcriptit is the allusion to La Rochefoucauld that consolidates the readers of this provincial organ as lifeless.

The art of presenting La Rochefoucauld’s maxims is more important than the ethical convictions behind them, and moral attitudes are manifested in his presentation, often with the intention of undermining hypocrisy rather than demonstrating a reasoned moral point of view. The poet’s character’s weary farewell to La Rochefoucauld: “If the street were time and he at the end of the street,” subtly represents an undermining of a self-conscious attitude by his own self-consciousness. He also shows an awareness of the pleasing balance between expression and conviction, something that is beyond the comprehension of ‘cousin Harriet’ in the poem and her companions. Boston Afternoon Transcript readers

The theme of ‘The Boston Evening Transcript’ and the reference to La Rochefoucauld is also indicative of Eliot’s fascination with European literary history and disdain for New World culture. It was written around the time that Eliot had successfully made his transition from America to Europe and is permeated with views regarding his homeland.

The conciseness of the first line of the poem, where Boston Afternoon Transcript readers are shown ‘Swaying in the wind like a field of ripe corn’, as if soon to be harvested, it also suggests that Eliot had adopted some of the artistic methods instituted by the so-called Imaginists. Eliot’s partner, Ezra Pound, was one of the leading proponents of Imagism and had already defined some of the attributes that a poem had to include to be considered Imagist. Pound defined an ‘Image’ as something whose intellectual and emotional complexity can be determined in an instant of time.

The poet and fellow Imagist FS Flint identified an ‘Image’ as a direct treatment of a theme; the poet was not to use any words that did not contribute to the presentation, and in terms of rhythm: compose in sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome. The conspicuous lack of a rhyme scheme in ‘The Boston Evening Transcript’ and its surprisingly succinct first line, set somewhat apart from the rest of the stanza, seem to reflect Flint’s analogy with music, if the metronome were considered analogous to the meter. poetics. or rhyme scheme.