The Cambridge Introduction to T. S. Eliot (Cambridge Introductions to Literature)
John Xiros Cooper
Language: English
Pages: 142
ISBN: 0521547598
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
T. S. Eliot is not only one of the most important poets of the twentieth century; as literary critic and commentator on culture and society, his writing continues to be profoundly influential. Every student of English must engage with his writing to understand the course of modern literature. This book provides the perfect introduction to key aspects of Eliot's life and work, as well as to the wider contexts of modernism in which he wrote. John Xiros Cooper explains how Eliot was influenced by the intellectual climate of both twentieth-century Britain and America, and how he became a key cultural figure on both sides of the Atlantic. The continuing controversies surrounding his writing and his thought are also addressed. With a useful guide to further reading, this is the most informative and accessible introduction to T. S. Eliot.
as a primordial binding force in society. A common set of transcendental beliefs made it possible for a people to experience the plenitude of a vital communal life and the psychological and emotional reassurances that come with authentic belonging. Important as these external, intellectual factors were in directing Eliot toward a new confession of faith, his hunger for spiritual comfort in a time of personal crisis weighed heavily in the making of his decision. The anxieties and depressive
reading his poetry. No doubt there are ways in which his interests in ideas have influenced his verse. But the wide variety of interpretations of how those ideas are actually manifested in his poetry suggests that perhaps poetry was not the preferred medium for the elaboration of his thinking. One could make the case that philosophy is far more important to his prose, both the critical works and his cultural criticism. Poetry, for Eliot, was the medium in which he worked out the practical
‘‘Vacant shuttles’’ weaving the wind (40). Whatever they experience – aestheticism (Mr. Silvero and Hakagawa), the occult (Madame de Tornquist), madness or, perhaps, depravity (Fra¨ulein von Kulp) – in the empty rituals they perform, they are trapped, like Gerontion himself, in a knowledge that is, at best, phantasmal. History, on the other hand, seems to oVer a more durable form of knowing. But it, too, is ‘‘cunning,’’ full of deception. The knowledge that history gives, in the form of its
furniture wholesaler named Prufrock-Littau appeared in the local press in the first decade of the twentieth century. 6. Arthur Hugh Clough, The Poems, ed. A. L. P. Norrington (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), Canto II, ll. 292–295, p. 196. 7. Robert Langbaum, The Poetry of Experience: The Dramatic Monologue in Modern Literary Tradition (New York: W. W. Norton, 1957), p. 85. 8. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, trans. Le´on S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University
to her in July 1933. When he did not return to their flat from America, Vivien became hysterical. Things did not improve. The separation proved to be catastrophic for her and eventually led to a complete breakdown. Eliot felt the pain of her distress and would have preferred a more amicable separation but this was not possible in the circumstances. With Vivien’s brother Maurice, Eliot helped to supervise his wife’s aVairs at a distance. They were never to see each other again. Once the initial