Tradition and the Individual Talent (1920)

T.S. Eliot 

The essay 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 essay is an argumentative text, that implies the presence of a thesis with different argumentations that support it. The essay con be divided in two parts. The first part starts explaining that a write enjoys only if it is different from his immediate predecessor write. But that's a prejudice because the innovative poet should deal with the ancestor or with all the great writers of the past "to assert their immortality most vigorously". The innovation shouldn't deal with adolescence productions but instead with mature productions. Now Eliot describes another argumentation: tradition. Tradition in literature is a matter of much wider significance. He identifies tradition with the "historical sense" and to reach it you have to do a great "labour". He elaborates the idea of historical sense and says : "the historical sense invokes a perception not only of the partners of the past but also of its presence", that's the timeless that makes a great writer traditional.
In the second part he starts writing: "No poet, no artist has a complete meaning alone." Eliot reaffirms that the poet, in order to survive as a poet must invite close contrast and comparison with the dead poets. Going on he describes what happens to the order when a new work of art is introduced. So the existing order must be altered and "the relations, proportions, values of each work of art are readjusted". In short the poet who is aware of the difficulties and responsibilities of writing and accept the previous productions can be called a new writer.
In my opinion Eliot's essay focuses the attention on an important theme: The past directs the present and it is modified by the present.