The essay is an extract from Tradition and the Individual Talent written by T.S. Eliot in 1920, which concerns Eliot's attitude to tradition and his conception of the impersonality of literature.
At the beginning of the essay, Eliot relates the poet with his predecessors and therefore with his traditions. Then, he argues his thesis by outlining the concept of tradition and the idea of historical sense.
According to T.S. Eliot, tradition is something more than mere conglomeration of dead works. He identifies tradition with historical sense. Eliot elaborates the idea of historical sense and he defines it as a dynamic manifestation of tradition which shapes the minds of different poets of different generation. Eliot also inkles that the poet's conformity into tradition is an act of rigorous intellectual efforts that constitute a poet in him.
So, Eliot takes tradition to be an embodiment of values and beliefs shared by a race which leads to the idea that there is a process of natural selection and rejection. The values and the belief that die with the passage of time are subject to rejection. The values and beliefs that constitute the tradition are living one with capacity of mutual interaction. The old and the new interpenetrate and this interpenetration results into a new order defined in terms of the simultaneous existence of the values of the past and the present. The survival of past ratifies the presentness of it. The simultaneous existence of the past and the present, of the old and the new. It is, thus, evident that the poet is guided chiefly by the dynamics of the tradition.
Eliot reaffirms that the poet, in order to survive as a poet must invite close contrast and comparison with the dead poets. Unless, a poet is capable of doing that he ceases to matter in the history of poetry. Eliot conceives tradition and individual talent as unifiable and show that the two have an equally important role to play in poetic creation.
In conclusion Eliot states that the past directs the present and is modified by the present. This is an apt revelation of the traditional capabilities of a poet. The past helps us understand the present and the present throws light on the past. The new work of art is judged by the standards set by the past. It is in the light of the past alone that an individual talent can be. This is the way Eliot subtly reconciles the tradition and the individual talent.