It is said that tradition is the biography of literature and that writers are, in some way, products of the literary tradition and participants in it. Thus this question means to know how writers respond to tradition in terms of a heritage of literature. It is obvious that they make a response to it by acceptance, adjustment, and reinvention.
Different writers inevitably accepted literary inheritance such as the King Arthur stories, Beowulf but decided to use it in different ways. For example, Arthurian legend was written in various versions and on different purposes. The poet who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has his knight-hero submit to a series of tests that teach him something about himself. And the tests come from earlier folk tales and romances which were woven into his seamless whole.
The writer made the adjustment for a story which is a kind of bequest from the past such as Beowulf in order to change in the telling. Beowulf ends on a note or a type of feeling of farewell, with the dying hero deserted by all except one faithful follower. However, this story grew in the re-telling which was added many more details such as killing the monster’s mother, Beowulf’s own fate in battle with a dragon, and Christian elements.
The idea of reinvention shows explicitly in Geoffrey Chaucer’s response to literary traditions. He is both indebted to traditions and most committed to creating them. For example, in The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer changed what he inherited. His pilgrims reflect all most all levels of society from the Knight to the Miller. In addition, Chaucer invented the rhythm of English poetry. It means that literary traditions which were what Chaucer inherited were created.
In conclusion, the relationship of the writer to tradition is the writer’s responses to his times which infers to what he believed and how he expressed them in terms of importance, beauty, the forms and styles, or the words and images.