Tradition is commonly defined in the form where the generation passes down to the next generation. Elliot strongly discouraged this form of tradition. Tradition to Elliot is a poet or artist who is a part of their subjects’ culture as a whole.

Tradition in nature is vague, it isn’t agreeable without a comfort reference. Individuals have their own personal thought, which causes them to have different reference points. This is what leads to vagueness of tradition. This reference point is what brings all the pieces of the puzzle together. Tradition has a wide significance. It has to be able to call anyone indispensably who is a poet over 25 years old. Man doesn’t write for how own generation, but has to write with the feeling of the whole literature of his own culture. He has to be a part of the entire literature culture. There are no generations but one whole collected culture filled with the ancestors of writers. Traditional writers have a sense of timelessness. Their writing breaks through the barrier of time and fits in at any time period.

Tradition is a sequence of all traditional work. This sequential order is complete before the new work because for the order to persist after supervention of novelty. The order is determined by its significance. Significance is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets. No writing has complete meaning without anything to compare it to. Therefore writing has no value alone and must compare to the ancestors of writing. Literatures works significance gets determined on its own, modified by new work that is created.

For writers become traditional he must be aware of the past culture of literature and its ancestors. With this knowledge the poet is a ware of the responsibilities and the difference of his work will be judged. This comparison must live up to the standard of the work of the dead poets. In Order to become a new work, the writer must conform to these ideals. Not conforming would live up to this standard and become a new work. New works are never more valuable than the previous works. This new work just fits in with the ancestors work. It is impossible for knowledge to become easily translated into useful material. Therefore art never improves, just material changes. New work most likely has both features; conforms and is individual. This occurs s by continual surrendering himself, causing an extension of his personality. Traditional work is slowly and cautiously applied, because time is a better judge than us. Time has the capability of testing historical sense, which leads to the standard of traditional writing.