T. S. Eliot's The Painter Of Modern Life By Charles Baudelaire

From both the reading, Charles Baudelaire in 'The Painter of Modern Life, ' and T. S. Eliot in 'Tradition and the Individual Talent ', we see a kind of difficult and laborious relation to the present. We are to compare and contrast the two essayists ' different approaches to the task of the present. Both the essayists’, in their writing, have one thing in common which is tradition. But first what comes to a persons mind when they think about tradition. What is tradition? Why is it important? How does it have an effect on our everyday lives. So lets start with a definition of the word ‘tradition’ it is a belief or behavior that has been passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A tradition may continue and evolve for thousands of years—the word "tradition" itself is derived from the Latin tradere or traderer literally meaning to transmit, to hand over, to give for safekeeping. While it is commonly assumed that traditions have ancient history, many traditions have been invented on purpose, whether that be political or cultural, over short periods of time. Certain scholarly fields, such as anthropology and biology, have adapted the term "tradition," defining it more precisely than its conventional use in order to facilitate scholarly discourse. The concept of tradition, as the notion of holding on to a previous time, is also found in political and philosophical discourse.