T. S. Eliot

Essentially, this is an advocation to the reader to challenge him or herself. Eliot is saying that we are always capable of more than we think we are. Only those who are willing to keep going to a...

This statement is from T.S. Eliot’s poem “Little Gidding”, which is the last set of poems in Four Quartets. “Little Gidding” was first published in 1942 and was Eliot’s argument for humanity’s need...

In addition to ample doses of repetition, anaphora, and allusions to Sherlock Holmes and Napoleon, this comic poem uses the following poetic devices. Rhyming couplets convey a pleasing, sing-song...

I haven't read T.S. Eliot's essay "The Metaphysical Poets" (1921) in quite a long time and had to review it briefly to make sure I wasn't completely off base, but I recall Eliot's argument to be...

T.S Eliot's essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is very metaphysical in its concepts; definitions of his main points are only understood within the context of the quantum metaphysical...

Eliot's early poetry could certainly be described as modern in that he was actively responding to changes in Western society that took place after the First World War. Many of the old certainties...

One literary device that you might want to talk about in T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi” is allegory. Allegory is when a poem might have a second, alternate meaning. It’s almost as if the poem...

For T.S. Eliot and certainly other poets, writing poetry can indeed be an escape from emotion and personality. For others, poetry is actually a way to process their emotions and demonstrate who...

T.S. Eliot is regarded as such an important writer because he captured the feelings and attitudes of the early twentieth century in such a unique and, yet, authentic way. His poem, "The Love Song...

The primary distinction between the intellectual poet and the reflective poet in "The Metaphysical Poets" by T. S. Eliot is the capacity to think versus the capacity to feel. He gives the example...

Whatever else one may say of modernism, it was not a simple phenomenon, and many of its leading practitioners, including T. S. Eliot, held conservative attitudes. One aspect of modernism was a...

T.S. Eliot's quote strikes at a couple of points that he embodied in his work. The first is that there is not really an objective set of criteria that facilitates the communication of poetry....

As a poet, T. S. Eliot is known for his monumental, if few, works of sprawling and satirical verse. However, lesser known in the mainstream world is Eliot as the literary critic. The theory in your...

T.S. Eliot's "The Metaphysical Poets" was first published as a review of J.C. Grierson's Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the 17th Century. T.S. Eliot did far more than just review Grierson's book,...

Not all works of literature have a theme; some authors write merely to express a sentiment or to create an image. However, if we had to analyze T.S. Eliot’s “Macavity: The Mystery Cat” for theme,...

In T.S. Eliot's "Landscape" are the many images of nature, especially birds. There are about seventeen kinds of birds here. There is also the images are of children playing, a deer hunt, and...

During the 17th century, according to Eliot's hypothesis, a gap opened up in Western culture between thought and feeling. This was largely a by-product of the dawning of the Age of Reason, the...

As with all great artists, the appeal of T. S. Eliot is timeless. More than any other poet of his day and age, he pushed back the boundaries of what poetry was capable of, showing us a different...

In "The Winter Evening Settles Down," T.S. Eliot uses careful word choice suggesting a once-busy neighborhood that is now falling asleep: With the line "[...] smells of steaks in passageways,"...

A wood thrush is a bird common in the Northeastern part of the United States; it is known for its "loud clear song." In the poem, Eliot refers to hearing the wood thrush "singing through the fog"....

"Macavity: The Mystery Cat" by T.S. Elliot was printed in a collection of poems written between 1909 and 1962, and prior to his death in 1965. The poem is particularly humorous. The rhyme scheme...

Gus, although not one of my favorites from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, is an interesting character nonetheless. After reading this summary, I would suggest watching the excerpt from the...

"The Winter Evening Settles Down" is the first part of T.S. Eliot's "Preludes." It consists of thirteen lines written in free verse, with an irregular rhyme scheme and meter. The lengths of the...

The poem "Virginia," like the river it depicts, moves steadily onwards. It flows consistently from beginning to end. In seeking to capture the unique rhythms of the river's movement, Eliot resorts...

For love within a family, love that's lived inBut not looked at, love within the light of whichAll else is seen, the love within whichAll other love finds speech.This love is silent. T.S. Eliot...

It's difficult to respond to this question without seeming to express a critique of Eliot's verse that is not entirely positive. However, since Eliot has held an iconic status in the literary and...

This just means that you have to decide whether or not you like the poem, then you have to support your feelings with solid literary reasons. Here are some things to consider: Do you identify with...

T. S. Eliot's Objective Theory essentially states that a poem or piece of literature should have a sense of inevitability. The idea is that the feelings and emotions should be clear and directly...

T.S. Eliot was influential both as a poet and as a literary critic during the first half of the twentieth-century. Much of his work is a seminal force in the modernist movement, and he was highly...

The theme of universal brotherhood is one which rejects all racial, social, religious, economic or other forms of classification or heirarchy, and instead makes the argument that all men are of one...

In section II, there is alliteration of the hard "c" sound that begins the words "comes" and "consciousness" (II.1), the "s" sound that begins "stale smells" (II.2), the "s" sound the begins...

T. S. Eliot's most sustained and comprehensive statement of his own theories of literary criticism can be found in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920). In this work, Eliot...

The full title of the poem is "Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service." It was first published in 1920. Although at eight stanzas and thirty-six lines it's a relatively brief poem, it is an incredibly...

The poem employs several allusions: references to other people, places, texts, events, and so on. The speaker refers to John Webster and John Donne, both writers who pondered death in their works...

T. S. Eliot's poem "Marina" is based on a play by William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. In this play, the protagonist Pericles survives a rather improbable series of shipwrecks. In the...

If you have been assigned to analyze a poem strictly on its literary devices, you will not be analyzing the poetic devices (such as sound elements, rhyme, rhythm, repetition). You should be aware...

I'll try my hand at answering this question, but I hope that others give it a shot as well. I re-read the poem at the site that you gave, came up with my own interpretation of the Shadow, and then...

T. S. Eliot's "The Function of Criticism" puts forth the thesis that effective critics should shun interpretation as a tool of criticism, because interpretation is always from the critic's...

"The winter evening settles down" is the first line of the poem called "Preludes" by T.S. Eliot. The poem describes a sordid, grimy, lower-class neighborhood in an industrialized city in the early...

Let's look at the first stanza, shown below. I will put each accented syllable in bold and separate one metrical foot from another with a "|" symbol: Ma ca | vi ty's | a Mys | te ry Cat | he's...

The vocative "my daughter" in "Marina" is, in my opinion, the speaker's ship or boat. It is rather difficult to tell, but the poem suggests that the speaker is a sailor in all aspects of the word....

T.S. Eliot is perhaps best known for his long poem The Waste Land, published in 1922, which focuses on the alienation and aimlessness of the post-World War I generation. "The Hollow Men," a much...

T. S. Eliot was a modernist poet who often employed the technique of "stream-of-consciousness" writing in his poetry. To explain, modernist writers tended to be disillusioned and upset with the...

These poems are not so much an escape from or denial of emotion as they are mode of expressing it that is different from that of most poetry written prior to the year 1900. Eliot, in both...

Well, the third part of Eliot's Preludes seems to be addressing an unnamed "you" figure who's part of the neighborhood Eliot is decribing throughout the poem. The lines you've identified help us...

T. S. Eliot was one of the leading voices of Modernism and was close to the center of its complex web of reciprocal influences. At the beginning of his career, Eliot often took advice from the poet...

To write a critical analysis of a poem, we first want to make a decision on the overall theme of the poem. We then want to literally criticize the poem, meaning "judge [its] merits and and faults"...

T.S. Eliot was innovative in his use of language and developed unique methods for evoking emotion in the reader. Three examples are negative words that belie a cheery tone; classical and other...

Compare Eliot to JoyceEliot and Joyce compare favorably in that each was innovative and experimental, bringing new styles or forms to English literature. They contrast in that Eliot was prolific in...

You can be a recluse from life by not really doing much. However, everyone is going to die eventually. To me, this means that you might as well live your life, because you are not going to be...