T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 – January 4, 1965) was an Anglo-American poet, dramatist, and literary critic, whose works like The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land and Four Quartets, are considered major achievements of twentieth-century Modernism.

Criticism

Eliot's poetry was first criticised as not being poetry at all. However, like Modern Art, that battle has long been won. A more insistent criticism has been of his widespread interweaving of quotes from other authors into his work. "Notes on the Waste Land", which follows after the poem, gives the source of many of these, but not all. There are no such acknowledgements after the "Four Quartets".

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This practice has been defended as a necessary salvaging of tradition in an age of fragmentation, and hence completely integral to the theme of the work, as well as adding richness through unexpected juxtaposition. It has, on the other hand, been condemned as showing a lack of originality.

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Canadian academic Robert Ian Scott has pointed out that the title of The Waste Land and some of the images had previously appeared in the work of a minor Kentucky poet, Madison Cawein (1865–1914). Bevis Hillier compared Cawein's lines "...come and go/Around its ancient portico" with Eliot's "...come and go/talking of Michelangelo." Cawein's "Waste Land" had appeared in the January 1913 issue of Chicago magazine Poetry (which also contained an article by Ezra Pound on London poets).

Related Topics:
Robert Ian Scott - Madison Cawein - 1865 - 1914 - Bevis Hillier - 1913

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More importantly and more crucial to Eliot's reputation as a major poet are the numerous charges of antisemitism leveled against the poet due to some elements of his early poetry. The poem "Gerontion" contains an often quoted example in its negative portrayal of a greedy landlord as the "jew squats on the window sill." However, later Eliot expressed regret at these writings, and was concerned for the plight of Jews in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries.

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