Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot

David Tracy's 'Analogical Imagination: Theology and the Culture of Pluralism' introduced me to T. S. Eliot's essays in literary criticism and definitions of 'what is a classic?' 'what is tradition?' and how classic texts form a common culture for readers. The selections in this collection are accessible, readable in an evening or afternoon, and carefully selected. Highly recommended!

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I've recently taken a personal interest in T.S. Eliot. When I went to talk to one of my professors, an Eliot scholar, about Eliot's poems, he gave me a copy of The Selected Prose. I will admit that I was a little worried about reading prose written by a well-known poet, but luckily Eliot's prose writing is as virtuosic as his poetry. His essays are both easily enjoyable and incredibly beautiful, and I found myself noting passages for both their insight and the quality of the prose. This collection is helpfully split up into three types of essay, essays in generalization, appreciations of individual authors, and social and religious criticism, which are categories that Eliot described when looking back on his writing. This makes it easy to read the kind of essay you feel like reading at the moment while skipping things you might not be interested in, and makes the essays flow together nicely.I found the essays in generalization to be the most interesting, as they dealt with criticism, theory, aesthetics, poetics, and the use of poetry and criticism. His essay on "Verse Libre" was a short but thorough look at the misconceptions surrounding supposedly "free verse" poetry, and what makes poems without a strict meter or rhyme scheme good. Easy to read, and with lovely quotable passages like "Freedom is only truly freedom when it appears against the background of an artificial limitation," this essay should be assigned reading for poetry students everywhere. His essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" should likewise be required reading. In this essay, Eliot argues that modern writers can only be evaluated in light of their relation to the past, and that classics are made by how they fit into and change our perception of the course of tradition. Eliot's essays on criticism are equally useful, stressing that critics focus on the facts of the content and structure of a piece rather than writing florid essays about how a work made them feel. "When we do not know, or when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thoughts." With a brilliant mind and a way with words, Eliot is an excellent essayist on the subject of literature.While I loved his essays of generalization, I found the section on individual authors slightly less helpful, though not any less well-written. Because I had not read many of the authors he was writing on, I couldn't really appreciate the essays as well as I would have liked. On the other hand, his essay on a few poets made me eager to add them to my to-read list, and his praise of Joyce made me want to quit being such a chicken and pick up his books already. For those who may be more well-read than I, this section of the essays may be more useful.While I found this collection as a whole to be very informative and eye-opening, there were a few essays that I did not enjoy, and a few points about which I disagreed with Eliot. His emphasis on Latin being the most universal language to Westerners was a bit weird, and had a little too much classical studies bias for me to really buy into it completely. His essays on religion and culture were, at least to me, disappointing. He talked about Christianity as if it were a threatened minority, when of course Christians are both the majority of the population and of governments. His fears of the secularization of society and the adaptable nature of anything other than Christian morality seemed very close-minded to me, which was surprising to see in a man whose ideas are otherwise so expansive and cutting-edge. Since he was a convert to Anglicanism, I guess I can understand his need to do what he saw as defending Christianity, but I feel that he went too far and came off as close-minded. Luckily for us, his poems, even those that are overtly religious like The Four Quartets, lack that pedantic dogmatism and remain focused on the personal contemplative mysteries of his religion, and are therefore enjoyable by all.Overall, I would say that Eliot's essays are well worth reading. Even when I don't agree with his subject matter or think that his logic follows, the writing is always superb. His insights into literature, especially in the essays at the beginning of this collection, were enlightening and enthralling. If you at all interested in Eliot, who was an influential critic and cultural icon of his day as well as an incredible poet and playwright, I would highly recommend this collection.Rating: 4 starsRecommendations: If you're a literature geek like me, these might be the essays for you. I especially recommend the essays of generalization at the beginning of the book.

Purchased for Grad School! Good Edition!

excellent

An excellent collection of T.S. Eliot's prose--a prose that sparkles with all the wit, intelligence, and feeling that Eliot pours into his poetry. I found that even when the subject didn't particularly interest me, Eliot did. If you've only read his poetry and drama, I recommend checking out his prose. This collection of essays on literature, culture, and authors is a good place to start. This anthology covers a wide breath of Eliot's writing, and a wide number of topics.

Eliot's reputation has taken a beating in the last 20 years. He has been charged with anti-semitism, racism, elitism, and even misogyny. All of these charges are basically true. Nevertheless, as a critic his judgements are sound and dead-on. Read either "Traditon and the individual Talent" or "Dante" from this book and tell me if you think I am wrong. The book is worth the price for these two essays alone.

I found this book to be a useful compendium of essays that are usually scattered or incompletely represented in anthologies. It's an excellent supplement for a course on Eliot's work or to learn more about his critical perspectives and how they shifted over time. Very worthwhile.

Any university student of English Literature could do well to start with this book: it teaches a classical critical approach, and provides a bulwark against all the -isms which have dominated critical theory over the past 50 years.

As we consider about the affinity with literature, then, beyond it , dealing with culture, religion and humanity , it is too much for me to express precisely how valuable this book is. Referring to the prose by T.S Eliot, who is one of the geniuses in the 20th century, we might feel the prospective positive light at the goal of our own generation ..., its culture, the arts etc... This book has 11 pages of introduction ( written by Frank Kermode who is famous as the author of ''Shakespeare 's language'' ) , 5 pages of note and appendix A , B at the end of this book. The earlier part of the book is mainly focused on verse . As for Vers Libre, reading T.S Eliot's analytical view, I feel the difficulty on being released from the regulation similarly as in the case of our lives with the complete freedom. The force of gravity , which we can sense from familiar rhythm and manipulation of words in particular metric verse, it wouldn't be so easier to be created on free verse. We are introduced a lot of individual authors in the middle to the latter part . Dante ...., A kindness to the readers from Mr. Eliot . He is opening deftly the threshold of a classics because of his affection for literature. The future for the people who are excited by translated '' Divine Comedy '' can be the original Virgil being dreamt by his Latin rhythm . It is the very comprehensible ''appreciation'' of Dante being read after the essay '' What is a Classic '' in 1944. Milton ... Personally , Milton is a very demanding poet. Why I feel the essays as the one of the best of them is not only Mr. Eliot 's clear interpretation about how we can read them, but also his analysing of human sense. There is a fact of Milton's blindness , therefore the analysis can be said that it is not difficult to be reached , though, the author explores more into one of Milton's themes , God and Creation . In this book, the author hasn't forgotten about the friction to create and improve in each generation as well as the conflation . It leads us to consider about human history via literature. What about T.S Eliot in 21st century ? , I continuously imagined about it while I was reading .

excellent

分厚いが、英文としてはそれほど読みにくい、昔いものではない。エリオットの真の姿が浮かんでくる。自らも言っているが、かなり買いかぶられた面もある、ことも理解できる。

I don't like abridged versions. Unfortunately in this selection nearly half of the essays are abridged (e.g. from Baudelaire). And nothing about Blake. Very disappointed.