Traditional and the Individual Talent, an essay written by T.S.Eliot in 1920, deals with the value of tradition, in particular with the relationship between the work of the individual poet and that of the poets who wrote before him. The extract is an argumentative text divided in two parts.

The first one the most important sentence, which coincides also with the thesis of the essay, is : “we shall often find that only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously”. In Eliot's opinion a work is innovative only if it presents in its structure the works of its ancestors; so a poet shows his skills only when in his works he introduces quotations and epigraph from other text. In order to better explain his point of view Eliot provides a definition of tradition: “is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour”. In addition tradition involves the historical sense which “is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional”. To sum up the tradition consist of an ideal order and when a new work of art is created the ideal order is altered. There is a readjustment of relationships, proportions and values of each work toward the whole as a result the past is altered by the present and the present is directed by the past. The poet must be very conscious of the main current, be aware that art never improves and that the mind of Europe is more important than the private mind.

The second part starts with a very important sentence: “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists”. Nobody can evaluate a poet or a work individually, it must be put in comparison with his ancestors. His significance is appreciated only because of his relation to past poets or artists. Eliot ends the extract with these words: “the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities”. Whenever a poet or an artist composes something his work is the total of what has preceded him. The meaning of the poet, T.S.Eliot seems to say, depends largely on his relationship with the dead poets. Contrast and comparison are two reference point to evaluate a work of art. When a new work of art enters the artistic circuit it allows a new vision of the circuit which it includes the new and the old; this happens because T.S.Eliot believed in the concept of simultaneity which included also a simultaneous order.

In my opinion past is very important because only with the knowledge of what happened before us we can understand the present.