T.S. Eliot
Eliot and his age : T.S. Eliot's moral imagination in the twentieth century
Russell Kirk.
Wilmington, Del. : ISI Books, c2008.
Kirk's (1918-94) biography shows how American-born British poet Eliot (1888-1965) inherited and perpetuated a conservative tradition centuries old. It first appeared in 1971, and is reprinted here from the 1984 revised edition published by Sherwood Sugden and Company, which has been out of print for many years. Benjamin G. Lockerd (English language and literature, Grand Valley State U.) contributes a new introduction and a postscript. Annotation #169;2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Discovering modernism : T.S. Eliot and his context
Louis Menand.
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.
When Discovering Modernism was first published, it shed new and welcome light on the birth of Modernism. This reissue of Menand's classic intellectual history of T.S. Eliot and the singular role he played in the rise of literary modernism features an updated Afterword by the author, as well asa detailed critical appraisal of the progression of Eliot's career as a poet and critic. The new Afterword was adapted from Menand's critically lauded essay on Eliot in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume Seven: Modernism and the New Criticism. Menand shows how Eliot's early views onliterary value and authenticity, and his later repudiation of those views, reflect the profound changes regarding the understanding of literature and its significance that occurred in the early part of the twentieth century. It will prove an eye-opening study for readers with an interest in thewritings of T.S. Eliot and other luminaries of the Modernist era.
T.S. Eliot
Craig Raine.
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.
In this brilliant exploration of T.S. Eliot's work, prize-winning poet Raine reveals that an implicit controlling theme--the buried life, or the failure of feeling--unfolds in surprisingly varied ways throughout Eliot's work. He illuminates the paradoxical Eliot--an exacting anti-romantic realist, skeptical of the emotions, yet incessantly troubled by the fear of emotional failure.
T.S. Eliot : the making of an American poet, 1888-1922
James E. Miller, Jr.
University Park, Pa. : Pennsylvania State University Press, c2005.
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 E. Miller Jr. offers the first sustained account of Eliot's early years, showing that the emotional springs of early years, showing that the emotional springs of his poetry did indeed come from America.
T.S. Eliot is likely the best known literary figure to have been born in St. Louis (in 1888). His grandfather came from Harvard Divinity School and founded Washington University. Both sides of the family took pride in their New England roots.
St. Louis was where Eliot came from, but he was never very clear on where he belonged. In later life he became an Anglican and a British subject and resident. His writing grew out of world literature and most specifically, English literature, but its shape owes much to where he grew up. Eliot said of his work “in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America.”
Eliot’s poetry and criticism made him a giant in the world of letters. The Wasteland became the symbol of its generation-even its title was definitively evocative. The wide-ranging creative approach that drew from many distinct times and cultures struck a responsive chord with contemporary readers. Eliot’s towering reputation was confirmed when he was awarded, at the age of sixty, the Nobel Prize for Literature.
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In 1939, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a collection of whimsical poems Eliot had written for his young godchildren, was published. This slim, uncharacteristic volume was later reworked into the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical Cats, which in 1997 became the longest-running Broadway show ever. |
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Cats, the musical |
Locally, Eliot has not gotten as much recognition as he might deserve. The house he was born in (2635 Locust St.) was torn down and became a phone company parking lot. In the ‘70’s, sculptor Andrew Osze was commissioned to create a memorial plaque, which was eventually given a home at the St. Louis Public Library.
Article by: St. Louis Public Library staff.
