To understand TS Eliot as a writer, it is necessary to consider his vision of creative writing and his passion for tradition. Eliot's idea of ​​tradition can be misinterpreted: "It is very often perceived as a smug and pompous intransigence towards change... backward-looking traditionalism, self-satisfied with the way things have been and averse to any idea of ​​change" (Shusterman, 156) . However, “closer study will reveal that Eliot saw tradition as requiring constant criticism and alteration with the aim of developing and orienting it towards the future” (Shusterman, 157). This passion for tradition is reflected in many of his essays and creative works. «Tradition, in its ultimate designation, consists of the timeless order which includes all the necessary parts and from which each part draws its meaning» (Lu, 83). For Eliot, tradition is essential to every poet's work. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In Eliot's essay Tradition and Individual Talent, he outlines a term that will be indispensable in any work of art to follow. He defines “the historical sense” as a connection between the new poet and all the poets who preceded him; “a sense of the timeless as well as the temporal and the timeless and the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.” There will often be an ambivalence on the part of the creative artist towards the artistic past, especially the recent past. This is understandable. On the one hand there is the desire to be truly creative, to produce something new and not simply a novelty within overused but understood forms. On the other, there is the pressing need for genius to learn from genius. Eliot's historical sense is not only relevant; it is vital to the interpretation and understanding of the art. Eliot's intention in formulating this historical sense is to create a sort of rubric that evaluates the poet's ability to maintain tradition in innovation, or “conformity between the old and the new.” Following this trend, The Wasteland refuses to let go of the past. To interpret a work of art you need to understand its context and the elements it works with. For example, a “blind” interpreter would not understand the common poetic device of allusion. It follows that it may be impossible for the reader to truly conceive of the art: “No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone.” In this quote Eliot himself uses the tool of allusion. He references the John Donne quote: “No man is an island.” More importantly, however, Eliot explains his main idea that it is essentially impossible to understand a poet without placing him in the context of the “dead.” Eliot's historical sense can be applied to the poet for the purpose of judgment and therefore evaluation. It is not a judgment that the new art is better or worse than previous art, but a judgment on the poet's ability to be traditional and individual at the same time. “It is a judgment, a comparison, in which two things are measured against each other.” These two things are conformity and individuality. “Identifying and valorizing modernity also means identifying a guiding and significant difference between one's cultural heritage and the needs of the new moment” (Wood, 18). If the work is too conforming it is not considered art at all. However, art is not necessarily better because it is more innovative and new because its ability to “adapt” is also evaluated. Therefore, one of Eliot's intentions in a historical sense is to evaluate the talent ofnew poet. “Eliot's conception of tradition leaves room for originality, but originality as he conceives it is a consequence of the individuation of the One” (Lu, 82). There are arguments against Eliot that this simultaneous existence of poetry between past and present is unattainable. "There cannot be absolute historical knowledge because we can never escape our contemporary point of view from which we perceive our world and our past. Thus a given period of history will be perceived uniquely from all other periods” (Skaff, 26).Artists have proclaimed themselves against tradition, meaning the art of the past and those who, have not. having succeeded in learning from the past, they are condemned to repeat it or produce work, which is simply evidence of a protest movement. Eliot has an account of how he thinks the artist should engage with Tradition a Tradition is established in a culture and for an audience. The guiding idea here is that a living Tradition is one in which new art can alter the meaning, the perception of monuments of the past. Eliot expresses it thus in a key passage of his essay, Tradition and Individual Talent: the existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the truly new) work of art among them. The existing order is completed before the new job arrives; in order for it to persist after the takeover of novelty, the entire existing order must be, however slightly, modified; and so the relationships, proportions, values ​​of each work of art with respect to the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Who approved this idea of ​​order. . . he will not find it absurd that the past is altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past. And the poet who is aware of this will be aware of great difficulties and responsibilities. In other words, a living tradition is distinguished from a dead tradition. In the latter case there is no simultaneous order, no synchrony, for any living person, but simply historical (archival, philological) records. English is a living language, whose simultaneous order is continually reshaped by new speakers. Each innovation, which subtly takes hold, modifies the language inherited from the past. For a living language, change is always present. In contrast, Latin is a dead language because there are no new speakers to reshape it. There is no change, just dictionaries and grammars that are essentially set in stone. From this perspective, much of active arts education must be concerned with keeping the past alive, and this involves deciding what to keep alive and how. Many other poets, besides Eliot himself, give examples of Eliot's faith in tradition. A poet who exemplifies Eliot's historical sense is Walt Whitman. Whitman managed to take a structure of English poetry and transfer it into a different form while still somehow staying within the original format to some extent. One poet from whom Walt Whitman took the classical form of the elegy and created his guidelines is John Milton. John Milton wrote Lycidas, which has become known as an archetype of the classical elegiac form. After Abraham Lincoln's death, a grieving Walt Whitman wrote When the Lilacs Last in the Yard They Bloom. This modern elegy stayed within the guidelines established by Milton's elegy in some areas; however, it also contains some characteristics that move away creating an entirely new form of elegy to observe. The characteristicsof the classical elegy that Whitman abandons are the repetition of the dead tone, the pastoral theme, the desire to control nature and the questioning. However, Whitman uses traditional techniques such as the weaving and substitution technique, both of which are present in Milton's Elegy. The three major themes are woven in and out of the cross-country procession in Whitman's essay. The subject of Whitman's poem is an abstract national hero. Through this abandonment of naming the dead it is possible that the subject represents not only Lincoln but also the fallen Union soldiers, “Coffin carrying a corpse where it will rest in its grave.” This anonymity allows the “corpse” to represent Lincoln and all the unknown dead of the war. In contrast, Milton's classic elegy proclaims, “For Lycidas is dead.” In Whitman's poem the martyred president is never directly described, never named, and never directly addressed. Therefore, Whitman uses Milton's traditional techniques to create a respected and understood elegy; however, he uses new techniques to keep his elegy unique and appropriate to the situation. Through Whitman's sense of history he created a poetry to be revered for its traditional and individualistic values. Just as Tradition and Individual Talent asks the reader to remember the dead, so does The Wasteland. In The Wasteland, The “Burial of the Dead” opens with the haunting image of lilacs growing from the dead earth. It ends with the image of a dog digging up human bones in a garden. This scene alludes to Eliot's essay. In the essay he writes not to forget those dead poets who wrote before us. That one must look back at them and remember them just as the dog makes one remember the dead by digging up their physical remains. It is ironic that Eliot uses innovative new styles when he writes a poem that mocks the modern age as a “waste land.” “There is a death wish, what underlies it is a weary continuation of mere existence when health, activity, joy and sensation are gone” (Gish, 41). Eliot embraces innovation and change. In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is innovative and completely departs from tradition, “it is individual to a certain extent. Mr. Eliot uses free rhyme very effectively” (Brooker, 3). The speaker of this ironic monologue is a modern, urban man who, like many of his kind, feels isolated and incapable of decisive action. The speaker of this ironic monologue is a modern, urban man who, like many of his kind, feels isolated and incapable of decisive action. The refrain in J. Alfred Prufrock's The Love Song is: “In the room the women come and go/Talking about Michelangelo.” These jokes obviously mock the Victorian bourgeoisie. This is therefore a poem of rebellion against tradition. “At the heart of his work is a rigorous critique of economic modernity, linking material causes and ideological effects, locating the ruins of capital in everything from sex to art, science and religion” (Commentale, 70) . Misunderstanding Eliot's idea of ​​tradition can create problems in interpreting Eliot's work. “With the label 'conservative' readers forget his innovative achievements in poetry and criticism, and his advocacy of the need for continuous change and development in these fields” (Shusterman, 156). The poet and his time are relevant when looking at the past that preceded each individual poet. TS Eliot, “The poet's task will be different, not only according to his personal constitution, but according to the time in which he finds himself. “Eliot proceeded to reconsider the saints of his mother's poetry and their mysticism from a historical perspective, keeping in mind that the”