Tradition and the Individual Talent is an essay written in 1920 by T.S. Eliot. It is an argumentative text. This extract is addressed to contemporaneous poets.

The essay is about the value of tradition and the relation between contemporaneous poets and the poets of the past.

The thesis of the essay is that a work is innovative when there is the presence of the past, in particular the most important parts of the previous poets.

In the first part Eliot expresses his vision about the poetry that is a continuity work between past and present, for this reason there is the presence of parts of previous works. This vision implies that there is a historical sense, a perception that permits to perceive the presence of the past.

In the second part T.S.Eliot conveys his point of view, which seems to anticipate intertextuality. Moreover the meaning of the poem depends on the relationship with the previous writers because this reference permits to evalue a work. In this part there is the concepts on simultaneity in which Eliot believes.

In this essay Eliot expresses the concept that to become a great poet, he must labour. Poets can’t be only inherit of the work and knowledge of past writers. The literature must be composed of all time and in particular it must be a work of intertextuality.

Man was scared to lose the direction and to don’t have a sense but the only explanation is to contrast the different times.  Eliot questions the conception of literature, he analyses the traditional literature and the features of a great poet. The poet also criticizes the attitude of the poets.

I think Eliot is an innovative writer because in his works the problems of his society are represented in a different and interesting way, he uses intertextuality to focus the attention of some themes.