Tradition and the Individual Talent is an argumentative text written by T.S. Eliot.  He wants to explain his new approach to poetry considering the concept of tradition and the relationship between present and past.

In the first lines the essayist immediately introduces his thesis saying that “not only the best, but the most individual parts of work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.”  According to Eliot’s opinion a great poet has to recognize the works of past poets but only the texts which belong to the period of full maturity. Going on analysing the essay ,Eliot focuses his attention on tradition’s concept.

It can be considered a simultaneous order : the poet must embrace the whole literature including a Homer à Tradition is the fusion of past and present.

 “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaing alone”.

à That statement clearly explain that the poet has not a meaning if he is not compared with other realities.  

” What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it.”

àThe poet has to readjust the past in a new way creating something that can be considered new!