Which is correct: Saint Poetic Tradition or Saintly-Poetic Tradition or Saint-Poetic Tradition?

Which is correct: The Saint Poetic Tradition or The Saintly-Poetic Tradition or the Saint-Poetic Tradition?

I want to write about the tradition of poets who were also saints. Which of the above is correct?

Solution 1:

If you're writing about poets who were formal saints, "the saint-poet tradition" would express that best. The compound modifier "saint-poet" establishes that there is such a being.

However, if you're writing about poets who were generally saintly, "the saintly-poet tradition" would best express that. Here you need the hyphenated compound modifier to distinguish the idea from a poets tradition that was in itself saintly.

A compound modifier is a sequence of modifiers of a noun that function as a single unit. It consists of two or more words (adjectives, gerunds, or nouns) of which the left-hand component modifies the right-hand one, as in "the dark-green dress": dark modifies the green that modifies dress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_compound#Compound_nouns