Their respective essays ‘Tradition And The Individual Talent’ and ‘Modern Fiction’ serve only to underline the tremendous difference in the views of Eliot and Woolf with regard to literary tradition and the role of the artist. Eliot sees it as being incumbent upon the artist to, not just be aware, but to have studied the whole historical tradition of poetry. In his development of this theme there maybe seen to be links in his basic philosophy and that of the Romantics insofar as he sees the poet as a vessel or channel through which, to put it cruisely, inspiration passes. If there is to be any element of continuity, which of earlier writing, the more effective