Criticism on T.S. Eliot--
Specific Works for Seminar Reports

Early Poetry | Early Critical Prose | The Waste Land | Poetry and Prose of Conversion; The Family Reunion | Four Quartets |  Late Prose



Each participant should do six of these reports (3 on Eliot; 3 on Woolf) during the seminar, writing a one-page summary to distribute to the rest of the seminar, preferably through e-mail.A PC-compaible electronic file must be sent or given to the teacher.)Some reports follow through a number of chapters in one book.One person can sign up for all chapters in a particular book.Repeating books are indicated by a U by the bullet.

This list is not complete.I have yet to update some sections and have to construct others.If you find an essay that you would rather report on, say one which is more relevant to your research, you may ask me to report on it.But be prepared to convince me that it is a really significant essay that other students need to know about. .I also mean these lists to be helpful to you in research projects; I’m listing the essays I’ve found most interesting.

Early Poetry – Sept 3
  • Bloom, Harold.  "Thematic Ananlysis of "La Figlia Che Piange" in  TSEliot [Bloom's Major Poets] 1999. 28-40 (Excerpts from  Matthiessen, Williamson, Ward, Bush, and  Pinkney)
  • U Schuchard, Ronald, appropriate chapter Eliot’s Dark Angel (1999)
  • U Riquelme, John Paul. Section on "Rhapsody on a Winter's Night" in Harmony of Dissonances: T.S. Eliot, Romanticism, and Imagination (1991), pp.44-61. (R)  MATT
  • U Mayer, John T. Chapter 3-5 of T.S. Eliot's Silent Voices (1989): 39-129. (R) 
  • Ellman, Maud. "The Spider and the Weevil: Self and Writing in Eliot's Early Poetry," Chapter 2 of The Poetics of Impersonality (1987): 62-90. (R)  JENNIFER
  • Menand, Louis, "Literary Honesty," Chapter One of Discovering Modernism: T.S. Eliot and His Context (1987): pp.13-28. (R)  CARI
  • Pinkey, Tony, "Wrestling with the Devil of the Stairs: Early Poems to Prufrock," Chapter 2 of Women in the Poetry of T.S. Eliot: A Psychoanalytic Approach. London: Macmillan, 1984: pp. 18-56. Not in CUL: EKS has book  AMY
  • U Jay, Gregory, Chapter 7 of T.S. Eliot and the Poetics of Literary History (1983), pp. 92-113. Not in CUL; EKS has book   WINSTON
  • U Gordon, Lyndall, Chapters 1-4 of Eliot's Early Years (1977) pp.1-85. (R)
  • U Kenner, Hugh, Part I+ of The Invisible Poet (1959) pp. 1-80. (R) 
  • U Smith, Grover. Chapter 1-2+ of T.S. Eliot's Poetry and Plays (1950): 1-33. (R) 
Early Critical Prose—Sept 17 
  • Shusterman, Richard. "Eliot as Philosopher." In The Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot, ed. A. David Moody (1994): 31-47. (R) 
  • Materer, Timothy. "T.S. Eliot's Critical Program." In The Cambridge Companion to T.S.Eliot, ed. A. David Moody (1994): 48-59.(R) 
  • Day, Gary. "Past and Present: T.S. Eliot's 'Tradition and the Individual Talent.'" Southern Humanities Review 28.1 (Winter 1994): 17 (10). 
  • U Menand, Louis, "'Poetry as Poetry'," Chapter Six of Discovering Modernism: T.S.Eliot and His Context (1987): pp.133-51. (R) 
  • U Miller, James E. Chapter 4 of T.S. Eliot's Personal Waste Land (1977). (R) 
  • Bornstein, George. "The Anti-Romanticism of T.S.Eliot. Chapter 3 of Transformations of Romanticism in Yeats, Eliot, and Stevens (1976): pp. 94-114. CUL does not have book; get from EKS. 
  • Miller, J. Hillis. "T.S. Eliot." from Poets of Reality. (1974) (R) 
  • Margolis, John D. "'To Disturb and Alarm the Public'," Chapter One of T.S. Eliot's Intellectual Development, 1922-39. (1972): pp. 3-30. (R) 
  • U "Criticism," in Hugh Kenner, The Invisible Poet (1959): 94-23. (R) 
The WasteLand – Oct. 1
  • U Schuchard, Ronald, appropriate chapter Eliot’s Dark Angel (1999)
  • Davidson, Harriet. "Improper Desire: Reading The Waste Land." In The Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot, ed. A. David Moody (1994): 121-131. (R)
  • Cuddy, Lois A. and David H. Hirsch. Introduction to Critical Essays on T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1991, pp. 1-24.Not in CUL; EKS has xerox 
  • U Mayer, John T. Chapters 10-11 of T.S. Eliot's Silent Voices (1989): 241- 91.(R) 
  • U Ellmann, Maud, "The Waste Land: A Sphinx without a Secret" Chapter 3 of The Poetics of Impersonality (1987): pp.91-113.(R) 
  • U Jay, Greg S. "'Tolling Reminiscent Bells': Love and Death in The Waste Land. Chaps 9, 10 and 11 of T.S. Eliot and the Poetics of Literary History (1983): 137-96. (R) Not in CUL; get book from EKS 
  • U Gordon, Lyndall. "The Waste Land Traversed," Chapter 5 of Eliot's Early Years (1977): pp. 86-119. (R) 
  • James Miller, T.S. Eliot's Personal Wasteland (1977)(R) 
  • U Smith, Grover. "Memory and Desire: 'The Waste Land'," Chapter 6 of T.S. Eliot's Poetry and Plays (1974): pp. 72-98 and Appendix: The Making of "The Waste Land" pp. 300-314. (R) 
  • U "The Waste Land," in Hugh Kenner, The Invisible Poet (1959): 145-82.(R) 
Eliot, Poetry and Prose of Conversion; The Family Reunion -- Oct. 22:
  • U Schuchard, Ronald, appropriate chapter Eliot’s Dark Angel (1999)
  •  Kwan?Terry,?John. “Ash Wednesday: A Poetry of Verification.” 132?41 IN Moody A. David (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot. New York : Cambridge UP, 1994. 
  • 'Beating a Drum in a Jungle': T. S. Eliot on the Artist as 'Primitive' Manganaro, Marc Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History, Durham, NC (MLQ). 1986 Dec., 47:4, 393?421  
  • Martz, Louis L. “'Ash Wednesday': Voices for the Veiled Sister:” 189?96 IN Cowan Laura (ed.). T. S. Eliot: Man and Poet, I. Orono : U of Maine P, 1990. . (Dante) 
  • PLUS ESSYAS ON FAMILY REUNION
Four Quartets --Nov. 16 and 23
  • Moody, A. David. "Four Quartets: Music, Word, Meaning, and Value." In The Cambridge Companion to T.S. Eliot, ed. A. David Moody (1994): 142-57. (R) 
·Martz, Louis L. “Origins of Form in Four Quartets”189?204 IN Lobb Edward (ed.). Words in Time: New Essays on Eliot's Four Quartets. Ann Arbor : U of Michigan P, 1993.
·Litz, A. Walton. “Repetition and Order in the Wartime Quartets.”179?88 IN Lobb Edward (ed.). Words in Time: New Essays on Eliot's Four Quartets. Ann Arbor : U of Michigan P, 1993.

·Brooker,?Jewel Spears. “From The WasteLand to Four Quartets: Evolution of a Method.”84?106 IN Lobb Edward (ed.). Words in Time: New Essays on Eliot's Four Quartets. Ann Arbor : U of Michigan P, 1993.

·Schuchard, Ronald. “'If I Think, Again, of this Place': Eliot, Herbert and the Way to 'Little Gidding' .”52?83 IN Lobb Edward (ed.). Words in Time: New Essays on Eliot's Four Quartets. Ann Arbor : U of Michigan P, 1993.

·Gordon, Lyndall. “The American Eliot and 'The Dry Salvages'.” 38?51 IN Lobb Edward (ed.). Words in Time: New Essays on Eliot's Four Quartets. Ann Arbor : U of Michigan P, 1993.

·Lobb, Edward.“Limitation and Transcendence in 'East Coker'.”20?37 IN Lobb Edward (ed.). Words in Time: New Essays on Eliot's Four Quartets. Ann Arbor : U of Michigan P, 1993.

  • Miller, James E., Jr. "Four Quartets and an "Acute Personal Reminiscence." In T.S.Eliot: Man and Poet. Cowan, Laura, ed. Orono, ME: National Poetry Foundation, 1990, pp.219-238. (R)
  • Gordon, Lyndall. "The Perfect Life." Chapter 3 of Eliot's New Life (1988), pp. 94-145. (R) 
  • U Ellmann, Maud, "The Figure in the Four Quartets," Chapter 4 of The Poetics of Impersonality (1987):pp. 114-132. (R) 
  • Helen Gardner, The Composition of the Four Quartets (1978) 
  • U Smith, Grover. "The Complete Consort: 'Four Quartets'," Chapter 18 of T.S. Eliot's Poetry and Plays (1974): pp.251-299. (R) 
  • Olney, James. Chapter 5 of Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography (1972): pp. 260-316. (R)
  • U "Four Quartets," in Hugh Kenner, The Invisible Poet (1959): 289-324. (R) 
Late Prose – Dec 3
  • Perl, Jeffrey M. "A Post-War Consensus." in T.S.Eliot: Man and Poet, Cowan,Laura, ed. Orono, ME: National Poetry Foundation, 1990, pp. 343-65. Not in CUL: EKS has xerox. 
  • Sparks, section iii of Chapter II of Sons of the Fathers 
  • PLUS MORE