T.S. Eliot is remembered today as a literary critic, poet, and editor. His poems have had a lasting influence on a generation of writers. Read more about T.S. Eliot.
‘The Waste Land’ signified the movement from Imagism – optimistic, bright-willed to modernism, itself a far darker, disillusioned way of writing.
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Ash Wednesday was the first major poem Eliot wrote after his conversion to Anglicanism. It was published three years after
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
A short and interesting poem, ‘Aunt Helen’ depicts the life and death of the speaker’s aunt. Through the thirteen lines
Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,
And lived in a small house near a fashionable square
Cared for by servants to the number of four.
Now when she died there was silence in heaven
‘Burnt Norton’ is the first poem in Four Quartets. Although it was first published in 1936, the poem appeared together
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
Within ‘Gerontion’ a reader will have to consider war as a major theme as well as religion and political upheaval.
Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
Journey of the Magi’ by T.S. Eliot describes the terrible conditions through which the Magi traversed to meet the Christ child.
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
‘La Figlia Che Piange’ by T. S. Eliot describes a speaker’s attempt to craft the perfect, yet tragic, love story and his obsession with its completion.
So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
‘Macavity: The Mystery Cat’ is about a fiendish feline character from T. S. Eliot’s light verse collection, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Macavity, the mastermind of criminal plots, knows how to cover his tracks.
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw—
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
T.S. Eliot’s poem, ‘Marina’, belongs to the group of poems which have been designated as “The Arial Poems” composed during
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
‘Morning at the Window’ by T. S. Eliot depicts the impressions of the lyrical voice as he looks outside his window and observes the streets.
‘Portrait of a Lady’ was first published in September of 1915 in Others: A Magazine of the New Verse. It
‘Preludes’ by T.S. Eliot is a six stanza poem that is divided up into four distinct sections. There is not
‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night’ by T.S. Eliot was published in Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917 and is a
In this poem, Eliot exposes the transient nature of love and admits that love is not often found in life, however the poem is an optimistic one because it encourages us to think positively.
‘Sweeney among the Nightingales’ (1918), one of Eliot’s modernist poems, first featured the morally degraded, spiritually hollow, and libidinous character of Sweeney, who, in this poem, is seduced by prostitutes in a pub.
‘Sweeney Erect’ was written and published in 1919 in Eliot’s collection, Poems. It is where the character of Sweeney makes his
‘The Hollow Men’ by T.S. Eliot is rich in symbols and meaningful images. The men are depicted as living dry, barren, and broken lives.
‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ is today considered one of T.S. Eliot’s most important contributions to modernism.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
‘The Naming of Cats’ by T.S. Eliot describes the names of cats and how they receive them. It is addressed to humans, with the speaker trying to teach the reader more about feline life.
T. S. Eliot’s ‘The Song of the Jellicles’ features the characteristics and nature of the Jellicle Cats, made famous by the musical adaptation, Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
‘Whispers of Immortality’ by T.S. Eliot describes the connection between death and sex and how ultimately death becomes the most important thing in life.
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