T. S. Eliot

Contents

Preface

A Note on Sources

Introduction

Part 1. 1888–1906: Origins

1. Eliot’s St. Louis and “The Head of the Family” ;

2. Sons and Lovers: Sex and Satan;

3. A Frail Youth, a Bookish Boy;

4. Early Landscapes, Later Poems

Part 2. 1902–1914: Early Influences

1. Eliot at Fourteen: Atheistical, Despairing, Gloomy;

2. Poetic Beginnings: Merry Friars and Pleading Lovers;

3. Missourian, New Englander: Double Identity;

4. A Soul’s Paralysis: “Denying the Importunity of the Blood”

Part 3. 1906–1911: Harvard: Out from Under

1. Prologue: A Problematic Student;

2. Bohemian Boston at the Turn of the Century;

3. Bohemian Harvard and Isabella Stewart Gardner (“Mrs. Jack”);

4. A Fellow Poet: Conrad Aiken;

5. “A Very Gay Companion”: Harold Peters;

6. Practicing to Be a Poet: From Omar’s Atheism to Laforgue’s Masks;

7. Poems Written 1906–1910

Part 4. 1906–1910: Harvard Influences: Teachers, Texts, Temptations

Teachers: 1. Irving Babbitt: Human Imperfectability;

2. Barrett Wendell: The Inexperience of America;

3. George Santayana: Philosopher of Reason;

4. William Allan Neilson: Poetic Theorist; Texts:

5. Dante and Eliot’s “Persistent Concern with Sex”;

6. Petronius’s Satyricon: A “Serene Unmorality”;

7. Symons/Laforgue: The Ironic Mask;

8. Havelock Ellis, “Sexual Inversion”;

9. John Donne: Thought as Experience; Temptations:

10. The Lure of Europe: Brooks’s The Wine of the Puritans;

11. “T. S. Eliot, the Quintessence of Harvard”

Part 5. 1910–1911: T. S. Eliot in Paris

1. The Primacy of Paris, 1910–1911;

2. Jean Verdenal: “Mon Meilleur Ami”;

3. Matthew Prichard: A Blurred Portrait;

4. Henri Bergson: A Brief Conversion;

5. Charles Maurras: The Action Française;

6. Finding the Personal in the Poem: Drafts of “Portrait” and “Prufrock”;

7. Poems Written 1911–1914

Part 6. 1911–1914: Eliot Absorbed in Philosophical Studies

1. Prologue: The Rise of Harvard’s Philosophy Department and the Santayana Controversy;

2. The Decline and Fall of Harvard Philosophy in Eliot’s Day and After;

3. Eliot and Oriental Philosophies and Religions;

4. Psychology as Philosophical, Religion as Psychological, Mysticism as Magical;

5. Eliot and the Elusive Absolute;

6. Epilogue: The Eliot Controversy,

Part 7. 1914–1915: American Chaos versus English Tradition

1. Philosophy in Marburg, War in Europe;

2. London Interlude: Pound and Russell;

3. Oxford, 1914–1915: Reconsidering Philosophy;

4. New Friends and Old: Culpin, Blanshard, Pound, Lewis;

5. The Mystery of Emily Hale: “The Aspern Papers in Reverse”

Part 8. 1915: An Inexplicable Marriage and the Consequences

1. A Sudden Marriage at the Registry Office;

2. Who Was Vivien?;

3. A Flurry of Correspondence, a Day of Decision;

4. An Unhappy Visit Home (Gloucester, July 24–September 4), a Disastrous Honeymoon (Eastbourne, September 4–10);

5. “Bertie” Russell’s “Friendship”;

6. “What I Want Is MONEY!$!£;!! We are hard up! War!”;

7. Hallucinations, Heavenly and Hellish Poetic Visions: “St. Sebastian” and “St. Narcissus”;

8. Poems Written 1914–1915

Part 9. 1916: Making Do, Finding Means, Expanding Connections

1. “The Most Awful Nightmare of Anxiety”; “Pegasus in Harness”;

2. The Triumph of Poetry over Philosophy;

3. Reviews and Essays, Teaching and Lecturing: Total Immersion;

4. A Widening Circle of Friends and Associates, Writers and Artists

Part 10. 1917–1918: T. S. Eliot: Banker, Lecturer, Editor, Poet, Almost Soldier

1. Eliot the Banker: March 19, 1917–November 1925;

2. Eliot the Extension Lecturer;

3. Eliot as Eeldrop;

4. Eliot the Assistant Editor: June 1917–December 1919, ;

5. Eliot the Poet, ;

6. America Enters War: April 6, 1917–Armistice Day, November 11, 1918;

7. “Writing . . . Again”: The French and Quatrain Poems;

8. Poems Written 1917–1918

Part 11. 1919–1920: Up the Ladder, Glimpsing the Top

1. Death of a Father;

2. Banking, Teaching, Editing, Writing: Money and Power;

3. Friendships and Relationships: Deeper and Wider;

4. A Voice from the Past; “An Encounter of Titans”; Moving Again;

5. Three New Books: Poetry and Prose;

6. “Gerontion”: Return of Fitzgerald’s Omar;

7. Poems Written 1918–1920

Part 12. 1919–1921: Notable Achievements, Domestic Disasters, Intimate Friends

1. Prologue: Paris and the Pension Casaubon, Paris Again in the Spring;

2. “A Long Poem . . . on my Mind for a Long Time”;

3. A Family Visit: Mother, Brother, Sister—Wife;

4. A Room of One’s Own, Wearing Makeup, Confidante Virginia Woolf;

5. Roommates, “Renowned Pederasts”: Kitchin, Senhouse, Ritchie

Part 13. 1922: Over the Top

1. “The Uranian Muse,” The Waste Land, and “il miglior fabbro”;

2. Publication of The Waste Land;

3. “Out into the World”: The Waste Land Reviewed;

4. Pound’s Financial Scheme for Eliot: “Bel Esprit";

5. Birth of The Criterion

Part 14. A Glance Ahead: The Making of an American Poet

1. T. S. Eliot and Walt Whitman;

2. An American Poet Discovers His American-ness

References to Works by T. S. Eliot

References to Works by Other Authors

Index