Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings: Poetry before 1800
- Part II A New Nation: Poetry from 1800 to 1900
- Part III Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
- Chapter 22 The Twentieth Century Begins
- Chapter 23 Robert Frost and Tradition
- Chapter 24 T. S. Eliot
- Chapter 25 William Carlos Williams
- Chapter 26 Finding “Only Words” Mysterious
- Chapter 27 Marianne Moore and the Printed Page
- Chapter 28 The Formalist Modernism of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Helene Johnson, and Louise Bogan
- Chapter 29 The Romantic and Anti-Romantic in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens
- Chapter 30 Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and the East Coast Projectivists
- Chapter 31 Langston Hughes and His World
- Chapter 32 The Objectivists and the Left
- Chapter 33 “All the Blessings of This Consuming Chance”
- Chapter 34 Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell, and the Lost World of Real Feeling
- Chapter 35 Writing the South
- Part IV Beyond Modernism: American Poetry, 1950–2000
- Selected Bibliographies
- Index
Chapter 24 - T. S. Eliot
from Part III - Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2014
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- The Cambridge History of American Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Beginnings: Poetry before 1800
- Part II A New Nation: Poetry from 1800 to 1900
- Part III Forms of Modernism, 1900–1950
- Chapter 22 The Twentieth Century Begins
- Chapter 23 Robert Frost and Tradition
- Chapter 24 T. S. Eliot
- Chapter 25 William Carlos Williams
- Chapter 26 Finding “Only Words” Mysterious
- Chapter 27 Marianne Moore and the Printed Page
- Chapter 28 The Formalist Modernism of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Helene Johnson, and Louise Bogan
- Chapter 29 The Romantic and Anti-Romantic in the Poetry of Wallace Stevens
- Chapter 30 Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and the East Coast Projectivists
- Chapter 31 Langston Hughes and His World
- Chapter 32 The Objectivists and the Left
- Chapter 33 “All the Blessings of This Consuming Chance”
- Chapter 34 Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell, and the Lost World of Real Feeling
- Chapter 35 Writing the South
- Part IV Beyond Modernism: American Poetry, 1950–2000
- Selected Bibliographies
- Index
Summary
T.S.Eliot was the figure who defined modernist poetry for educated Americans. His isolated childhood had produced considerable alienation from quotidian society, making it necessary for him ultimately to find a sense of belonging only in a relation to transcendental domain. The Waste Land has five sections that are beautifully correlated with the movements of Beethoven's quartets. Each builds on juxtapositions and allusions to reflect a different aspect of spiritual crisis. The poem asks whether there is an alternative to this death by water, and so whether there is any possibility of reading water as baptismal. After The Waste Land Eliot was done with trying by secular poetry to establish a spiritual core for his culture. He devoted his secular energies to founding and editing the review The Criterion, which from 1922 to 1939 tried to represent the best writing in Europe about its cultural dilemmas.
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- The Cambridge History of American Poetry , pp. 542 - 556Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
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