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April is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain . . .Published in 1922, The Waste Land was the most revolutionary poem of its time, offering a devastating vision of modern civilisation which has lost none of its power as we enter a new century.
Here, for the first time, is a fully scrutinized text of Eliot's poems, carefully restoring accidental omissions and removing textual errors that have crept in over the full century in which Eliot has been so frequently printed and reprinted. The edition also presents many poems from Eliot's youth which were published only decades later, as well as others that saw only private circulation in his lifetime, of which dozens are collected for the first time. The first volume respects Eliot's decisions by opening with his Collected Poems 1909-1962 in the form in which he issued it, shortly before his death fifty years ago. There follow in this first volume the uncollected poems from his youth that he had chosen to publish, along with such other poems as could be considered suitable for publication. The Poems of T. S. Eliot is a work of enlightening scholarship that will delight and inform all those who read Eliot for pleasure, as well as all those who read with pleasure and for study. Here are a new accuracy and an unparalleled insight into the marvels and landmarks from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Waste Land through to Four Quartets.
'Obviously something more than a successful play, it is the practical demonstration of a patently conceived theory of dramatic form, and as such of high historical interest.' Times Literary Supplement'Eliot has attempted here something very daring and well worth doing. He has taken the ordinary West End drawing room comedy convention - understatement, upper-class accents and all - and used it as a vehicle for utterly serious ideas.' Observer
A selection of poems and choruses read by T.S. Eliot himself, recorded in 1959.
Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) is a collection of poems by T.S. Eliot. Published following the successful appearance of ¿The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock¿ in the June 1915 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Prufrock and Other Observations established Eliot¿s reputation as a leading English poet and pioneering literary Modernist.Opening with ¿The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,¿ the collection begins with an invocation of Dante, whom Eliot saw as an important innovator of a polyphonic, referential poetry capable of interrogating and dramatizing the construction and representation of the self. The poem is written from the perspective of a repressed, despairing middle-aged man who meditates on his relationships with women and the regrets he has accumulated with age. In ¿Preludes,¿ a poem of urban malaise, Eliot ¿thinks of all the hands / That are raising dingy shades / In a thousand furnished rooms,¿ and reaches for an understanding of the world as ¿some infinitely gentle / Infinitely suffering thing.¿ Other poems include ¿Morning at the Window,¿ another brief vision of city life, ¿The Boston Evening Transcript,¿ a satirical reverie on time and community, and ¿Cousin Nancy,¿ a humorous lyric celebrating Miss Nancy Ellicott, who unabashedly ¿smoked, / And danced all the modern dances. Both personal and universal, global in scope and intensely insular, Eliot¿s poetry changed the course of literary history, inspiring countless poets and establishing his reputation as one of the foremost artists of his generation.With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of T.S. Eliot¿s Prufrock and Other Observations is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.
The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920) is a collection of essays by T.S. Eliot. Although Eliot is primarily recognized as one of the twentieth century's leading English poets, he was also a prolific and highly influential literary critic. This collection, which includes essays on Algernon Charles Swinburne, Hamlet, William Blake, and Dante, is central to Eliot's legacy and vision of art.In "Tradition and the Individual Talent," Eliot sheds light on his vision of the role of poet with respect to tradition. Well-versed in classical poetry, Eliot possessed a dynamic vision of poetic tradition that viewed the working poet as an extension of those who came before. The role of the poet, then, is to innovate while remaining in conversation with poets throughout history, to remain "impersonal" by surrendering oneself to a process involving countless others. In "Hamlet and His Problems," Eliot provides a critical reading of Shakespeare's iconic tragedy arguing that both the play and its main character fail to accomplish the playwright's true intention. Coining the concept of the "objective correlative," referring to the expression of emotion through a grouping of things or events, Eliot's essay is a landmark in literary scholarship central to the formalist movement known as the New Criticism. Concluding with essays on Blake and Dante, important spiritual and formal forebears for Eliot, The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism is central to T.S. Eliot's legacy as a leading intellectual and artist of the modern era. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of T.S. Eliot's The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.
The Waste Land (1922) is a poem by T.S. Eliot. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Eliot took a leave of absence from his job at a London bank to stay with his wife Vivienne at the coastal town of Margate. He worked on the poem during these months before showing an early draft to Ezra Pound, who helped edit the poem toward publication. The Waste Land, dedicated to Pound, includes hundreds of quotations of and allusions to such figures as Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Saint Augustine, Chaucer, Baudelaire, and Whitman, to name only a few.Divided into five sections-"The Burial of the Dead;" "A Game of Chess;" "The Fire Sermon;" "Death by Water;" and "What the Thunder Said"-The Waste Land is a complex poem that translates Eliot's fragile emotional state and increasing dissatisfaction with married life into an apocalyptic vision of postwar England. The poem begins with a meditation on despair before moving to a polyphonic narration by figures on the theme. The third section focuses on death and denial through the lens of eastern and western religions, using Saint Augustine as a prominent figure. Eliot then moves from a brief lyric poem to an apocalyptic conclusion, declaring: "He who was living is now dead / We who were living are now dying / With a little patience." Both personal and universal, global in scope and intensely insular, The Waste Land changed the course of literary history, inspiring countless poets and establishing Eliot's reputation as one of the foremost artists of his generation.With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.
When the New York Public Library announced in October 1968 that its Berg Collection had acquired the original manuscript of The Waste Land, one of the most puzzling mysteries of twentieth-century literature was solved.
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,It isn't just one of your holiday games;You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatterWhen I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.The first poem in Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is a brilliant introduction to the fabulous world of Cats, featuring names such as Bombalurina and Munkustrap - made famous by the recent film!The seventh gorgeous Cats picture book with lively and colourful illustrations by Arthur Robins. Perfect for reading aloud, singing or performing!
Murder in the Cathedral, written for the Canterbury Festival on 1935, was the first high point on T. S. Eliot's dramatic achievement. It remains one of the great plays of the century. Like Greek drama, its theme and form are rooted in religion and ritual purgation and renewal, and it was this return to the earliest sources of drama that brought poetry triumphantly back to the English stage.
In 1981 Eliot's poems were set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber as Cats, which went on to become the longest-running Broadway musical in history and is now a film starring Taylor Swift, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen, Rebel Wilson, Jennifer Hudson, Jason Derulo, Francesca Hayward and James Corden.
Youngsters are invited to join Cat Morgan, the swashbuckling pirate, as he sails the Barbary Coast in this sixth picture book pairing from Robins and Eliot's Old Possum Cats. Full color.
As editor and publisher, his work is unrelenting, commissioning works ranging from Michael Roberts's The Modern Mind to Elizabeth Bowen's anthology The Faber Book of Modern Stories.
Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were a very notorious couple of cats. As knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians, tight-rope walkers and acrobats. And when you heard a dining-room smashThen the family would say: 'It's that horrible cat!It was Mungojerrie!
We must find him or the train can't start!All aboard as Skimbleshanks, the Railway Cat, stars in the third picture-book pairing from Arthur Robins and T.
Was there everA cat so cleverAs magical Mr. Mistoffelees!Following Arthur Robins' criticallly acclaimed picture book of Macavity (already sold 10k) he turns his attentions to the magical Mr. Mistoffelees with delightfully hilarious results.
('Nobody else seemed to want the title afterward,' said Eliot of the series, 'so I kept it for myself.') That pamphlet series inventively paired an unpublished poem by a leading writer of the day with new artwork from an eminent artist.
Beautifully illustrated by Arthur Robins and with an appeal extending beyond Eliot fans, Macavity's Not There! will sit alongside classic lift-the-flap books such as Where's Spot? and Dear Zoo.
First published in 1939, T.S. Eliot's collection of cat poems, written originally to amuse his godchildren and friends, has become a favourite of children's literature.
In this magisterial volume, first published in 1932, Eliot gathered his choice of the miscellaneous reviews and literary essays he had written since 1917 when he became assistant editor of The Egoist.
'Each year Eliot's presence reasserts itself at a deeper level, to an audience that is surprised to find itself more chastened, more astonished, more humble.' Ted HughesPoet, dramatist, critic and editor, T. S. Eliot was one of the defining figures of twentieth-century poetry. This edition of Collected Poems 1909-1962 includes his verse from Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) to Four Quartets (1943), and includes such literary landmarks as The Waste Land and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.
Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T.S. Eliot's career as a poet. While containing some of the most musical and unforgettable passages in twentieth-century poetry, its four parts, 'Burnt Norton', 'East Coker', 'The Dry Salvages' and 'Little Gidding', present a rigorous meditation on the spiritual, philosophical and personal themes which preoccupied the author. It was the way in which a private voice was heard to speak for the concerns of an entire generation, in the midst of war and doubt, that confirmed it as an enduring masterpiece.
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