T S Eliot A Virgilian Poet

Late in his life T. S. Eliot, when asked if his poetry belonged in the tradition of American literature, replied: “I’d say that my poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America than with anything written in my generation in England. That I’m sure of. . . . In its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America.” In T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, James Miller offers the first sustained account of Eliot’s early years, showing that the emotional springs of his poetry did indeed come from America. Miller challenges long-held assumptions about Eliot’s poetry and his life. Eliot himself always maintained that his poems were not based on personal experience, and thus should not be read as personal poems. But Miller convincingly combines a reading of the early work with careful analysis of surviving early correspondence, accounts from Eliot’s friends and acquaintances, and new scholarship that delves into Eliot’s Harvard years. Ultimately, Miller demonstrates that Eliot’s poetry is filled with reflections of his personal experiences: his relationships with family, friends, and wives; his sexuality; his intellectual and social development; his influences. Publication of T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet marks a milestone in Eliot scholarship. At last we have a balanced portrait of the poet and the man, one that takes seriously his American roots. In the process, we gain a fuller appreciation for some of the best-loved poetry of the twentieth century.

T.S. Eliot was arguably the most important poet of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, there remains much scope for reconsidering the content, form and expressive nature of Eliot’s religious poetry, and this edited collection pays particular attention to the multivalent spiritual dimensions of his popular poems, such as ‘The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock’, ‘The Waste Land’, ‘Journey of the Magi’, ‘The Hollow Men’, and ‘Choruses’ from The Rock. Eliot’s sustained popularity is an intriguing cultural phenomenon, given that the religious voice of Eliot’s poetry is frequently antagonistic towards the ‘unchurched’ or secular reader: ‘You! Hypocrite lecteur!’ This said, Eliot’s spiritual development was not a logical matter and his devotional poetry is rarely didactic. The volume presents a rich and powerful range of essays by leading and emerging T.S. Eliot and literary modernist scholars, considering the doctrinal, religious, humanist, mythic and secular aspects of Eliot’s poetry: Anglo-Catholic belief (Barry Spurr), the integration of doctrine and poetry (Tony Sharpe), the modernist mythopoeia of Four Quartets (Michael Bell), the ‘felt significance’ of religious poetry (Andy Mousley), ennui as a modern evil (Scott Freer), Eliot’s pre-conversion encounter with ‘modernist theology’ (Joanna Rzepa), Eliot’s ‘religious agrarianism’ (Jeremy Diaper), the maternal allegory of Ash Wednesday (Matthew Geary), and an autobiographical reading of religious conversion inspired by Eliot in a secular age (Lynda Kong). This book is a timely addition to the ‘return of religion’ in modernist studies in the light of renewed interest in T.S. Eliot scholarship.

This book reads T. S. Eliot’s poetry and plays in light of his sustained preoccupation with organicism. It demonstrates that Eliot’s environmental concerns emerged as a notable theme in his literary works from his early poetry notebook of poems known as Inventions of the March Hare at least until Murder in the Cathedral.

Ezra Pound belatedly conceded that T.S.Eliot "was the true Dantescan voice" of the modern world. With this assertion in mind, this study examines the relationship between the two poets. It attempts to show how Dante's total vision impinges on Eliot's craft and thought.

Looks at Eliot's poetry and his "fragmentary method" of poetry composition.

"Guided by Eliot's own allusions and references to specific authors and historical moments, Cuddy adds a feminist, cultural, and intertextual perspective to the familiar critical interpretations of Eliot's work in order to reread poems and plays through nineteenth-century ideologies and knowledge set against our own time. By considering the implications and consequences of Eliot's culturally approved assumptions, this study further reveals how Eliot was trapped between the idea of Evolution as a unifying project and the reality of his own and his culture's hierarchical (and fragmenting) beliefs about class, gender, religion, and race. Cuddy concludes by exploring how this conflict undermined Eliot's mission of unity and influenced his (and Modernism's) place in history."--BOOK JACKET.

The T. S. Eliot Studies Annual features the year’s best scholarship on this major literary figure.