Introduction

Summary

When T. S. Eliot died in London in 1965, he was widely regarded as the most important poet to have written in English in the twentieth century. His obituary in the London Times was entitled “The Most Influential English Poet of His Time” and in Life magazine, a memorial essay ended with “Our age beyond any doubt has been, and will continue to be, the Age of Eliot”. Although vociferously challenged, such assessments were still in place at the end of the century. In June 1998, Time magazine published a special issue on artists and entertainers of the past one hundred years. Picasso was named the artist of the century, Stravinsky the composer, Joyce the novelist, and Eliot the poet. This list is a reminder that Eliot is part of a watershed in the history of Western art, and that The Waste Land (1922), his early showpiece, is the century's signature poem. Eliot was also a formidable literary critic, and his “Tradition and the Individual Talent” is perhaps the century's most noted essay in criticism. In the 1930s and 1940s, he turned to verse drama and social and religious criticism and made significant contributions to those genres as well. In the 1950s and 1960s, he became the focal point for a reaction against Modernism, and for several decades after his death, it became as fashionable to vilify him as it had once been toz praise him.