Tradition and the individual Talent is an important essay written by T.S. Eliot that was published in 1920. The essay concerns with Eliot's attitude to tradition and his conception of impersonality of literature. Besides the essay deal 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. His essay is considered to be seminar.

The text is and argumentative essay, so the poet state a thesis, and his goal is to convince the reader, with his argumentations.

The question is, If I'm a talented poet, what make me an innovative artist? Eliot's thesis is that the most innovative is who combine the new with the past. We seem to be happy saying that a poet is different , isolated, and we think to have found an innovative poet. Eliot judge this approach not right. His thesis is that the best work of a poet is a production that shows the presence of the ancient poets. So the dead poets are still alive in the new productions. Therefore a poet is innovative as much his work is able to displays the most important productions of the history. At this point he goes in detail of his thesis. He don't considerers a poet innovative when he displays a use of language of an adolescent. When you are an adolescent you're influenced by emotions, while when you are mature you combine the use of the mind with emotions.

But in Eliot's opinion, displaying tradition is not only a simple copy and paste action from the tradition to the new work of art. Eliot assert that not only the past influence the present, but also the present influence the past. So for example if a poet creates an innovative poem, this new poem influences also all the poems that belong to the tradition.

In the end of the extract, Eliot states that a work of art can't be considered on its own, but it must be put in relation and reference with the other works of the past. In a similar way no poet has his complete meaning alone. We must put him in relation with the dead poets and artists. You can't value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead.