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    T S Eliot

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    Vlad Vargau
    Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-British poet, playwright, and literary critic born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. Some of his most influential works include The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets. Eliot was a key figure in the modernist movement of the early 20th century and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

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    T S Eliot

    Uploaded by

    Vlad Vargau
    1K views18 pages
    Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-British poet, playwright, and literary critic born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. Some of his most influential works include The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets. Eliot was a key figure in the modernist movement of the early 20th century and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

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    Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-British poet, playwright, and literary critic born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. Some of his most influential works include The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets. Eliot was a key figure in the modernist movement of the early 20th century and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    1K views18 pages

    T S Eliot

    Uploaded by

    Vlad Vargau
    Thomas Stearns Eliot was an American-British poet, playwright, and literary critic born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. Some of his most influential works include The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets. Eliot was a key figure in the modernist movement of the early 20th century and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

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    Thomas Stearns Eliot

    (1888-1965)
    Thomas Stearns Eliot.
    T. S. Eliot

    1. Life
    • 1888: he was born in St. Louis,
    Missouri.

    • 1910: he studied in Paris at the


    Sorbonne.

    • 1915: he married the British ballet


    dancer Vivienne Haigh-Wood.

    • 1917: he established himself as an


    important avant-garde poet.
    Thomas Stearns Eliot.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    1. Life
    • 1922: he edited The Criterion, an
    intellectual magazine. His
    professions included being a
    poet, a critic and an editor.

    • 1925: he became director for the


    publishers “Faber & Faber”.

    • 1927: he acquired British


    citizenship and converted to
    Anglicanism.
    Thomas Stearns Eliot.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    1. Life
    • 1930: for the next thirty years he
    was considered as “the most
    dominant figure in poetry and
    literary criticism in the English-
    speaking world”.

    • 1948: he received the Nobel Prize


    for literature.

    • 1965: he died in London.

    Thomas Stearns Eliot.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    2. Works
    Before the conversion

    1917: Prufrock and other Observations.

    1922: The Waste Land. It is said to be


    “the single most influential poetic
    work of the twentieth century”.

    1925: The Hollow Men.


    Cover for the first edition of Prufrock and
    other Observations

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    2. Works
    After the conversion

    1927: Ariel Poems.

    1930: Ash-Wednesday.

    1935-1942: Four Quartets.

    1935: Murder in the Cathedral.

    A contemporary edition of Murder in the Cathedral


    1939: Family Reunion.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    3. T. S. Eliot’s world and the 19th-century world

    Modern/T. S. Eliot’s world 19th- century world


    Chaotic Ordered

    Futile Meaningful

    Pessimistic Optimistic

    Unstable Stable

    Loss of faith Faith

    Collapse of moral values Morality/Values

    Confused sense of identity Clear sense of identity

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    4. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

    Poetic form: a dramatic monologue.

    Content: the protagonist’s realization of death within life, the lost


    opportunities in his life and the lack of any spiritual progress.

    The speaker: a middle-aged passive, aimless man.


    He is linked to:
    1. physical and intellectual inertia.
    2. inability to communicate with his fellow-beings.

    Style: juxtaposition of poetic images with everyday phrases and images;


    objective correlative instead of direct statements.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    5. The Waste Land: content

    • It is an autobiography written in a
    moment of crisis in the life of the poet.

    • It consists of five sections; it reflects


    the fragmented experience of the 20th-
    century sensibility of the great modern
    cities of the West.

    A contemporary edition of The Waste Land.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    5. The Waste Land: content


    • It is an anthology of indeterminate
    states of the mind, hallucinations,
    impressions, personalities blended
    and superimposed beyond the
    boundaries of time and place.

    • The speaking voice is related to


    various personalities: Tiresias, a
    knight from the Grail legend, the
    Fisher King. A contemporary edition of The Waste Land.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    6. The Waste Land: themes


    • The disillusionment and disgust of the period after World War I.

    • Contrast between past fertility and present sterility.

    • The mythical past linked to a new concept of History  repetition


    of the same events.

    • Spring Symbols: different from Chaucer  absence of rebirth.


    April is the cruelest month, breeding
    Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
    Memory and desire, stirring
    Dull roots with spring rain.
    (I section)
    Only Connect ... New Directions
    T. S. Eliot

    7. The Waste Land: style


    • Association of ideas  past and
    present are simultaneous.

    • Mythical method  to give


    significance to present futility.

    • Subjective experiences made


    universal.

    • Use of Juxtaposition.
    First draft of The Waste Land, third section.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    7. The Waste Land: style


    • Quotations from different languages
    and literary works.

    • Fragmentation.

    • Technique of implication: the active


    participation of the reader is required.

    • Objective correlative.

    • Repetition of words, images and


    phrases. First draft of The Waste Land, third section.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    8. The objective correlative: T. S. Eliot and Montale

    For Eliot, the “objective correlative” is a


    pattern of objects, events, actions, or a
    situation that can serve effectively to awaken in
    the reader an emotional response without
    being a direct statement of that subjective
    emotion.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    8. The objective correlative: T. S. Eliot and Montale


    What The Thunder said Meriggiare pallido e assorto
    (“Ossi di Seppia”)
    Here is no water but only rock Meriggiare pallido e assorto
    Rock and no water and the sandy road presso un rovente muro d’orto,
    The road winding above among the ascoltare tra i pruni e gli sterpi
    mountains schiocchi di merli, frusci di serpi.
    Which are mountains of rock without
    water.

     Both Eliot and Montale depict a desolate landscape.

     They both refer to a waste land of the spirit.

     This landscape is cosmopolitan in Eliot.

     It is a domestic landscape in Montale.

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    T. S. Eliot

    9. The Hollow Men

    • Linked to The Waste Land.

    • Main themes: despair and desolation.

    • No redemption is possible because of the lack of faith.

    • Parallel between past and present.

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    T. S. Eliot

    10. Journey of the Magi (Ariel Poems)


    Written after his conversion to Christianity.
    Content: the journey to the birthplace of Christ told by one of the Magi.

    • No celebration: the journey is


    painful and meaningless.

    • At first there is the regret of


    the previous life characterised
    by alienation.

    The Journey of the Magi fragment of a picture with the


    Adoration of the Magi, Sassetta, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
    New York.

    Only Connect ... New Directions


    T. S. Eliot

    10. Journey of the Magi (Ariel Poems)


    Written after his conversion to Christianity.
    Content: the journey to the birthplace of Christ told by one of the Magi.

    • End of paganism in the last lines.

    • The Magus cannot feel at home


    among “an alien people clutching
    their gods” (line 42). This captures
    the awkwardness felt by the
    faithful among nonbelievers and
    The Journey of the Magi fragment of a picture with the vice-versa.
    Adoration of the Magi, Sassetta, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
    New York.

    Only Connect ... New Directions

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