T.S.Eliot & John Crowe Ransom

"In English writing we seldom speak of tradition", "The past isn't dead, not even past".

      For Eliot, tradition is the basic element of the poem; and an excellent poet is the capable of broadening the tradition within the pome. His poem presents the recur of the times to express the poet is thinking about the past in the present.

Burnt Norton

(No. 1 of 'Four Quartets')

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

I

                                            Time present and time past 

                                            Are both perhaps present in time future,
                                            And time future contained in time past.
                                            If all time is eternally present
                                            All time is unredeemable.
                                            What might have been is an abstraction
                                            Remaining a perpetual possibility
                                           Only in a world of speculation.
                                           What might have been and what has been
                                           Point to one end, which is always present.
                                           Footfalls echo in the memory
                                           Down the passage which we did not take
                                           Towards the door we never opened
                                           Into the rose-garden. My words echo
                                           Thus, in your mind.
                                           But to what purpose
                                           Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
                                           I do not know.
                              
                               (http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/eliot_burnt_norton.htm)