Verses on the Death of T. S. Eliot (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Joseph Brodsky
- First Published: 1970
- Type of Work: Elegy
- Genres: Poetry, Elegy
- Subjects: Authors or writers, Poetry or poets, Death or dying
The Poem
“Verses on the Death of T. S. Eliot” is a poem in three parts modeled on W. H. Auden’s 1939 elegy “In Memory of W. B. Yeats.” The classic elegy of Western tradition is a meditation on death, be it the death of a particular person or death as the inevitable end of all things mortal. At the same time, it “finds consolation in the contemplation of some permanent principle” (Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, 1974). Joseph Brodsky’s elegy, like Auden’s, mourns the death of a poet; unlike Auden’s, it takes considerable comfort—even...
[The entire page is 1447 words long]
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