Eliot, Thomas Stearns. (1888 - 1965).
L i f e
- settled in England after the outbreak of WW I, became a British subject and member of the Church of England (1927)
W o r k
< influenced by the Metaphysical poets, Jacobean dramatists, French Symbolists, Italian Renaissance, Indian mystical philosophy, and the Bible
- uses unexplained juxtapositions, allusiveness, suggestive symbols, irony, wit, and colloquial element
- builds up his own body of imagery, symbolism, and references to supply the no more existing common cultural heritage
C r i t i c i s m :
“Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1917):
- defines and prescribes historical, religious, and literary traditions
- ‘no poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone’ x but: only in relation to a larger tradition
“The Metaphysical Poets” (1921):
- justifies the contortions of John Donne’s poetry
- perceives a divine order beyond the physical evidence of disorder
P o e t r y :
Prufrock and Other Observations (1917):
> “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:
- a disconcerting and subtly evasive monologue, set in a symbolic landscape
- plays with politeness, failures of comprehension, and despair
The Waste Land (1922):
- edited by Ezra Pound into 5 interrelated sections with separate titles
- explores the corruption of a physical and figuratively urban desert
- plays with juxtaposition, inconsistency of perception, multiplicity of narration, and fluidity of time and place
- concludes with a series of quotations and his own line amid them: ‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins’
Ash Wednesday (1930):
- examines the aspects of religious doubt, discovery, and revelation
- celebrates the wonder at the epiphanies of a Christian God
Four Quartets (1943):
- relates each of the four poems to a specific place
- further examines religious moods and the heritage of human sinfulness
V e r s e D r a m a :
Sweeney Agonistes (1926):
- experiments with ritual, masks, dance, and music
Murder in the Cathedral (1935):
- the most successful x the least experimental of his plays
- concerned with the murder of Archbishop Becket
The Family Reunion (1939):
- concerned with guilt and redemption in a modern upper-class family
- combines the chorus from Greek tragedy and drawing-room conversation
Basics
(Photo: Geocities com).
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Author
Thomas Stearns Eliot. (1888 - 1965). American. British citizen since 1927. -
Work
Poet. Playwright. Critic. Author of The Waste Land (1922). Nobel Prize winner (1948). -
Genres
Modernism. Poetry and drama.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Poems of Distinction
"Portrait of a Lady" (1915)
"Sweeney Among the Nightingales" (1920)
"The Hippopotamus" (1920)
"The Hollow Men" (1925)
Quote
"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
From "The Hollow Men" (1925).