ANOTHER PERPECTIVE **** T S ELIOT.

ROLCAM

Eliot, T. S. (1888-1965), ranks among the most important poets of the 1900's. In "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," The Waste Land, and other poems, he departed radically from the techniques and subject matter of pre-World War I poetry. His poetry, along with his critical works, helped to reshape modern literature. Eliot received the 1948 Nobel Prize for literature.

His life. Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis. He studied at Harvard, the Sorbonne in Paris, and Oxford. He settled in London in 1914. Eliot was working as a bank clerk when his poems came to the attention of the American poet Ezra Pound. Pound encouraged Eliot, and helped him with his poetry.

Many of Eliot's views on literature appeared in The Criterion, a literary magazine he edited from 1922 to 1939. Eliot served as a director of a London publishing house from 1925 until his death.

In 1927, Eliot became a British subject, declaring himself "Anglo-Catholic in religion, royalist in politics, and classicist in literature."

His works. Eliot's first major poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1917), revealed his original and highly developed style. The poem shows the influence of certain French poets of the 1800's, but its startling jumps from rhetorical language to cliche, its indirect literary references, and its simultaneous humor and pessimism were quite new in English literature.

"Prufrock" created a small literary stir, but The Waste Land (1922) created an uproar. Some critics called the work a masterpiece, others a hoax. While this long, complex poem includes many obscure literary references, many in other languages, its main direction is clear. It contrasts the spiritual bankruptcy Eliot saw in modern Europe with the values and unity of the past.

Eliot's "Ash Wednesday" (1930), far different from The Waste Land in tone and mood, is more musical, direct, and traditional, and, in its religious emphasis, tentatively hopeful. Four Quartets, his last major poem, is a deeply religious, often beautiful, meditation on time and timelessness. It includes four sections: "Burnt Norton" (1936), "East Coker" (1940), "The Dry Salvages" (1941), and "Little Gidding" (1942). In "Little Gidding," he wrote:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Eliot also wrote several verse dramas. Murder in the Cathedral (1935), his first major play, is based on the death of Thomas a Becket. On the surface, The Cocktail Party (1950) appears to be a sophisticated comedy, but it is really a deeply religious and mystical work. Eliot's other plays include The Family Reunion (1939), The Confidential Clerk (1954), and The Elder Statesman (1958).

Eliot's Complete Poems and Plays (1909-1950) was published in 1952. Selected Essays (3rd edition, 1951) is a collection of his important prose.
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Roland Camilleri

Moderator

Sydney , Australia.