"Style" and "The Historical Sense:": Historiography and Self-knowledge in Nietzsche and T.S. Eliot

Nietzsche's view of the possibility of self-knowledge, a convoluted and much-debated topic in Nietzsche scholarship, in continental philosophy generally, and in contemporary analytic discussions of self-knowledge, finds its most clear presentation in his middle and mature works. Connecting his philosophy of history to his discussions of self-knowledge provides a compelling account of self-knowledge through the "doing" of history. This paper analyzes the philosophical models of history found in Nietzsche's works and in T.S. Eliot's "Tradition and the Individual Talent." I first argue that Nietzsche's historical model is primarily aesthetic, with an emphasis on the role of history in the development of a form of self-knowledge. Further, I argue that Eliot's conception of the poetic work and the poet is a concrete example of the development of historical self-knowledge. Finally, I suggest that Eliot's poet is an aesthetic embodiment of Nietzsche's often quoted "style" motif. Eliot's concept of the poet and the historiography he indirectly models through his theory of literary criticism provides an example of Nietzsche's person of "style," allowing philosophers to gain greater insight into Nietzsche's conception of the self.