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T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)
T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)
Eliot
(1888 – 1965)
THOMAS STEARNS
ELIOT
FATIMA SALEEM
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
INTRODUCTION
One of the 20th century’s major poets
Essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic
He won 1948 Nobel Prize in literature.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri and then moved to England in 1914.
The most remarkable poems
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
The Wasteland (1922)
The Hollow Men (1925)
As a modern poet:
– The Wasteland was published just after world war I.
– It introduced a new tone and sensibility in poetry.
– The poem depicts a cultural and spiritual waste land.
– People, physically and emotionally, living a kind of death
– Fragmented images
– No uniting belief in once transcendent God. Records the collapse in the
values of Western civilization.
– Sterile, unloving relations
– Cultural confusions
– Spiritual desolation
Eliot’s works demonstrate:
– the era’s sense of detachment
– fragmentation
– disillusionment
– lack of connection between individuals
– the stark alienation
– the sordid nature of the city and the industrialized world
– absence of possibility for connection
ELIOT AS A
‘medieval modernist’
– His admiration for the organic and spiritual community of the Middle Ages
– His impersonal conception of art
– His formalist views
– Medieval themes and style
– His use of rhythm and meter. No time for free verse writing
– He continues the tradition of dramatic monologue
– Intellectually more philosophical and complex
– Eliot uses images that shock and bewilder.
– Eliot’s works show nostalgia for the medieval times and a hint of interest in modern life.
– Religious issue was a big medieval theme. It is evident is Eliot’s poetry.
– Combines this medieval theme with contemporary issues of modern times.
THREE PRINCIPAL QUALITIES
OF ELIOT’S WORKS