Eliot’s idea of tradition is directly linked with his impersonal theory of art, as he insists on the poet’s duty to transcend the private self by loyalty to the tradition of European literature as a whole. He has expressed his views on the impersonality of poetry and the poetic process in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919). He says that poetry is not the expression of the personality of the poet. Revolting against the romantic theory of poetry as the expression of self, Eliot propounds a theory of poetry which views poetic process not as an externalization of personal feelings, but as a complete surrender of personality. He insists on viewing the whole of European literature as a continuity where each work of the present modifies the past works and is in turn modified by them. Eliot’s views on the nature of the poetic process are also noteworthy. Poetry according to him, is not inspiration, it is an organization. A great number of varied feelings, emotions and experiences are stored up in the mind of the poet who amalgamates them and forms a new whole out of them. The poetic process, therefore, is that of organization of fusing a new whole out of them. The poetic process therefore is that of organization, of fusing different experiences and feelings into a new whole. Perfect Poetry can be produced only when there is “unification of sensibility”. The greatness of a poem does not depend not depend on the types of pleasure it gives or the quality of moral improvement it effects, but on the order an unity it imposes on the chaotic and disparate experiences of the poet. A good poem must give the impression of a perfect organization experiences. 
Eliot elucidates his impersonal theory by examining, first, the relation of the poet to the past, and secondly the relation of the poem to its author. The past, Eliot says, is never, dead; it lives in present. “No- poet, no artist of any sort, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation, is the appreciation of his relation to and comparison, among the dead. “Eliot insists on the importance of the relation of the poem to other poems by other authors, and suggests the conception of poetry as a living whole of all the poetry that has ever been written.
The artistic process, according to Eliot, is a process of depersonalization, the artist’s continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. He must surrender himself totally for the creative work. “The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. Eliot also points out the relation of the poem to its author; the poem, according to him, has no relation to the poet. The difference between the mind, of a mature poet and that of an immature one is that the mind, of a mature poet is “a more finely perfected medium in which special” or very varied, feelings are at liberty to, enter, into new combinations”.
Emotions and feelings are the elements which entering the presence of the poet’s mind which acts as a catalyst, go into the making of a work of art. The final effect produced by a work of art may be formed out of several emotions into one; it may be formed out of a single emotion or out the feeling evoked in the poet by various words and images. It is also possible that it may be composed of feelings alone, without using any emotion. Thus, “the poet’s mind is a receptacle for seizing and storing up numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all the particles which can unite to form a new compound are present together”.