T. S. Eliot Research Paper

By looking through a critical lens at T Stearns Eliot’s poetry in light of his 20th century, modernist context, much is revealed about his personal and the rapidly evolving societal beliefs of that era. Through his repeating motif of time and fragmentation throughout his poems, Eliot reveals the prevalent feelings of isolation while in society along with the need to hide one’s feelings and emotions in this degrading society. His exploration of the use of ambiguity and stream of consciousness by Eliot, which is a characteristic of modernist artists, allows his work to resound over decades while being interpreted and differently understood by every audience that encounters them.

Poetry can sometimes allow one to explore the unknown. However, in some works of poetry, one can realise that some known ideas or values remain relevant to current society. This is certainly applicable to T.S. Eliot’s poems, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Eliot’s manipulation of poetic techniques in both these poems allows the responder to realise that some ideas prevail in both modern and post-modern society. These poems explore the unknown phenomena of the obscurity regarding the purpose and meaning of life. This unknown phenomena causes the persona in both texts to resort to a sense of isolation or alienation. Eliot uses poetic techniques such as metaphors and personification to convey his ideas.

How has Eliot used both conventional and Modernist poetic techniques to represent his Modernist concerns?

Throughout history American poems have been analyzed for what they truly mean. Many people use their analysis to show others or find out for themselves what a poem means. There are even writers who's only job is to completely analyze a poem down to every single word. Sometimes an analysis can even help someone else write a poem. There are a lot of different genres of poems including: allegory; epic; fable; satire; tragedy; etc. However, sometimes poems of two genres can mash together. Meaning a poem could be tragic but also epic such as a poem written about a magical dragon who's mother dies. And two poems may be more alike or different than first thought. A great example of this happening is within the poems Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins and Design by Robert Frost.

            I think this style of writing is also a reflection of Eliot's feelings about the time.  Eliot was more of a Modernist than Victorian poet and as such held to beliefs like: there is no higher power in the universe, man is alone on this planet to govern his own affairs, everyone is truly alone, there is no unity, no support, for we live in a godless heartless world (Stacey Donohue).  The floating, confusing, jumbled mix of emotions and directions in this poem mirrors the modernist image of society.

Eliot is not solely criticising modern life in the poem, it also serves as a reflection of Eliot’s social context and his own life, a product of its time.

(T.S. Eliot Quotes.) TS Eliot was not only a poet, but a poet that wanted to change his world. He was writing in the hopes that it would give his society a reality check that would encourage them to change themselves and make their lives more worthwhile. Through his themes of alienation, isolation, and giving an example of a decaying society, TS Eliot wanted to change his society.

Eliot won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. He also won he Tony Award for Best Play in 1950. The play that he did to win the award was allied The Cocktail Party. Eliot won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1981 and he also won the Tiny Award for Best original score in 1983. He also won the Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical in 1983. Another award that T.S Elio won was the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Broadway Musical in 1983 and also won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play in 1950. Elio won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best foreign Play in 1950. Beside winning the the Nobel Prize in literature, Eliot won lots of awards for plays and musicals. Not also does he have many awards that he won, he also has a award that is named after him. All of these award proved that T.S Eliot received lots of recognition. T.S Eliot receive lots of recognition in the writing community. He was got lots of attention due to his poems that he wrote. The main poems that T.S Eliot wrote that gave him lots of recognition is The Waste Land,The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Four Quarters. T.S Eliot had others jobs besides being a poet. He was a banker at Lloyd's Bank. T.S Eliot was also a teacher at a point in his life. T.S Eliot was also a critic and editor. T.S Eliot served as a literary editor of the Egoist. The Egoist was was a feminist magazine from 1917-1919.

Interestingly, analysts take extremes when relating to the focus on Eliot’s poetic style—that is, they either put great emphasis on it or ignore it almost entirely. This is likely due to the poetic style greatly enhancing the tone and feeling of the poem, but not effecting its particular meaning bar some choice scenarios. One such scenario is at the beginning of the fifth section; the first stanza here reflects a nursery rhyme, giving a “sing-song effect” that Cahill relates to implying the uselessness of “mental happiness” in life (60), while analyst Robert Crawford points to similar “childish” undertones as a reflection of the theme of “degrad[ing]... essential ritual[s]” (Crawford). Crawford continues by noting that the ending stanza of the poem,due to its “typography, placing, and… its rhythm”, seems to reference this nursery rhyme, giving it the feeling of “chant” that is “universal” (Crawford). Notably, this feeling is only possible due to Eliot’s careful use of regular, song-like rhythm.

Eliot is a master artist, but of words rather than watercolors or pastels. The reader may not understand all the images, and might be sent searching through the texts that Eliot alludes

Having support from his close friend, Ezra Pound, Eliot had became well known in the international movement of avant garde (poetryarchive.org). The next few years in Eliot’s growing success was also a time of rising family issues. His father, Henry Eliot, passed away in 1919. Eliot was facing a “paroxysm of guilt” and at the same time, Vivien’s health was declining. He then went through a nervous breakdown, and spent the next three months on a strict rest. It was during this time that Eliot finished writing a piece that he had began working on in 1919 but never finished (english.illinois.edu). Finally, he was able to publish The Waste Land in 1922. It was “considered by many to be the single most influential poetic work of the twentieth century”

Although the entirety of Eliot’s poem reflects

   Thomas Stearns Eliot was not a revolutionary, yet he revolutionized the way the Western world writes and reads poetry. Some of his works were as imagist and incomprehensible as could be most of it in free verse, yet his concentration was always on the meaning of his language, and the lessons he wished to teach with them. Eliot consorted with modernist literary iconoclast Ezra Pound but was obsessed with the traditional works of Shakespeare and Dante. He was a man of his time yet was obsessed with the past. He was born in the United States, but later became a royal subject in England. In short, Eliot is as complete and total a

Q5 "Much of what Eliot writes about is harsh and bleak, but he writes about it in a way that is often beautiful". Comment fully on both parts of this assertion.

I explicitly agree that the poetry of T.S Eliot is unquestionably dominated by thought-provoking reflections which are complemented by powerful imagery, leading the reader into the state of mind of Eliot himself. Initially, I abhorred Eliot’s poetry. His poetry then, for me, represented a confusing and exceptionally difficult body of work and I found it similarly difficult to form any kind of genuine response to his poetry. In spite of this, over my past couple of readings, I have formed a muscular response to his literary work. Personally, I comprehend the poetry of T.S Eliot as being enigmatic and remarkable which I believe is shown through the power of Literary History. Eliot’s compelling use of literary allusions is incredibly conspicuous