Eliot Thomas Stearns - The Cambridge companion to T.S. Eliot

Besides being a poet of genius T. S. Eliot was a many-sided man of letters and his work requires and rewards approaches from a variety of points of view. In this Companion an international team of leading Eliot scholars contribute specialized studies of the different facets of his work to build up a carefully coordinated and fully rounded introduction.

Five chapters are devoted to his poetry and drama. These cover his entire output in verse, bringing out the most significant features, clarifying what is problematic, and showing where the interest lies for readers now. Taken together these chapters constitute a complete account of Eliots poems and plays from several distinct points of view. Written by critics and teachers with a deep understanding and appreciation of his work, a wide knowledge of previous and current Eliot studies, and well acquainted with the interests and needs of students, they will make even Eliots most difficult verse at once more approachable and more intelligible.

The preceding seven chapters present and assess the major aspects and issues of Eliots life and thought. The subtle inter-relations of the life and the work are sensitively revealed. There is new information about Eliots American roots, and new insight into what he made of England. A philosopher argues for a new and more discerning placing of Eliot as a philosopher. The meaning and intent of his literary and social criticism, and the special political problems of the latter, are searchingly scrutinized. A study of the nature and evolution of Eliots religious sense affords a quite new insight into its shaping presence in all his work. Later chapters place Eliots work in a series of historical perspectives. One examines his borrowings from his predecessors, while another registers his impact on later twentieth-century poets. A wide-ranging exploration of what tradition meant in the context of modernism, is followed by an investigation of the way in which-isms and authors are constructed by critics and critical fashions, and of how Eliot has figured in this process.

There are two practical aids: a chronological outline giving the principal dates and facts of Eliots life and works; and an expert review of the whole field of Eliot studies supplemented by a helpful listing of the most significant publications. The Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot is designed to enhance the enjoyment and advance the understanding of Eliots work among both new readers and those already familiar with it by bringing together the best current intelligence on the full range of his writings.

THE CAMBRIDGE
COMPANION TO

T. S. ELIOT

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THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO

T. S. ELIOT

EDITED BY

A. DAVID MOODY

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

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Cambridge University Press 1994

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1994

Eleventh printing 2009

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

The Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot / edited by A. David Moody.

p. cm. (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

Includes index.

ISBN 0 521 42080 6 (hardback) ISBN 0 521 42127 6 (paperback)

1. Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 18881965 Criticism and interpretation.

I. Moody, Anthony David. II. Series.

PS3509.L43Z64728 1994

821.912dc20 9343558 CIP

ISBN 978-0-521-42127-0 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables and other factual information given in this work are correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter.

CONTENTS

JAMES OLNEY

ERIC SIGG

RICHARD SHUSTERMAN

TIMOTHY MATERER

PETER DALE SCOTT

CLEO McNELLY KEARNS

ALAN MARSHALL

J. C. C. MAYS

HARRIET DAVIDSON

JOHN KWAN-TERRY

A. DAVID MOODY

ROBIN GROVE

JAMES LONGENBACH

CHARLES ALTIERI

JEAN-MICHEL RABAT

BERNARD SHARRATT

JEWEL SPEARS BROOKER

CONTRIBUTORS

CHARLES ALTIERIS books include Painterly Abstraction in Modernist American Poetry (1989), Canons and Consequences (1990), and First Persons (1994). He now teaches at the University of California at Berkeley.

JEWEL SPEARS BROOKER is the author of Mastery and Escape: T. S. Eliot and the Dialectic of Modernism (1993), co-author of Reading The Waste Land: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation (1990), and editor of The Placing of T. S. Eliot (1991) and of Approaches to Teaching Eliots Poetry and Plays (1988). Professor of Literature at Eckerd College in Florida, Dr. Brooker has also taught at Columbia University and at Doshisha University in Japan. She served as President of the T. S. Eliot Society from 1985 to 1988.