In Tradition and the Individual Talent, T.S. Eliot argues that a poet should not be isolated or completely original in the modernist sense of breaking away from tradition. Instead, Eliot redefines “tradition” as something active and dynamic, not passive or blindly imitated.
He emphasizes that tradition must be acquired, and its most important component is the “historical sense.” This sense is:
Not just knowing historical facts or reading old texts,
But deeply feeling that the past still lives in the present, influencing current thought and creativity.
Eliot famously describes this as:
“a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence.”
This means that a true poet sees literature as a continuum — a chain where every new work enters into a dialogue with the past. When a new work is created, it reshapes how we interpret past works (just like placing new furniture in a room requires rearranging the old).
