A Critical Reading of the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot

by Jain, Manju

• ISBN13: 9780195658378
• ISBN10: 019565837X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-12-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

T.S. Eliot's poetry is well known for its allusiveness and reference to a wide range of historical and literary subjects. At the same time, the roots of explanations and critical readings necessary to elucidate and contextualize Eliot's poetry have seldom been available. This book offers a carefully explanatory as well as critical reading of Eliot's Selected Poems. It tackles each poem individually, offering comments and explanations that draw from secondary as well as archival and unpublished sources. In particular, there is an exhaustive section explaining and contextualizing the manifold difficulties encountered in The Waste Land. Jain's use of various new critical approaches, alongside her use of primary data from Eliot holdings in the UK and the US, makes this an important source for comprehending Eliot's "difficult" poetry.

Table of Contents

Introduction
T. S. Eliot's Life and Ideas	1	(30)
Prufrock and Other Observations	31	(44)
The Long Song of J. Alfred Prufrock	32	(22)
Portrait of a Lady	54	(9)
Preludes	63	(4)
Rhapsody on a Windy Night	67	(8)
Poems 1920	75	(49)
Gerontion	79	(17)
Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein With a Cigar	96	(7)
Sweeney Erect	103	(3)
A Cooking Egg	106	(3)
The Hippopotamus	109	(3)
Whispers of Immortality	112	(3)
Mr Eliot's Sunday Morning Service	115	(5)
Sweeney among the Nightingales	120	(4)
The Waste Land	124	(72)
Composition and Publication	124	(5)
The Question of Form	129	(4)
Eliot's Use of Points of View	133	(3)
The Use of Allusions	136	(1)
Eliot's Use of Myth and Anthropology	137	(8)
`The Waste Land' as an Autobiographical Poem and as a Social and Cultural Critique	145	(51)
The Burial of the Dead	151	(13)
A Game of Chess	164	(5)
The Fire Sermon	169	(12)
Death by Water	181	(2)
What the Thunder Said	183	(13)
The Hollow Men	196	(16)
Ash-Wednesday	212	(19)
Ariel Poems	231	(15)
Journey of the Magi	231	(5)
A Song for Simeon	236	(3)
Animula	239	(2)
Marina	241	(5)
Choruses from `The Rock'	246	(6)
Select Bibliography	252	(7)
Updated Select Bibliography	259