The twin concerns of primitive and metropolitan life nourished T.S. Eliot's imagination through his childhood and student years and developed to mould and underpin his writing. Ranging from Dr Sweany of St Louis and Eliot's intense interest in anthropology to his interest in Victorian urban writing and popular American models, this book throws new light on Eliot's major works, particularly on The Waste Land and Sweeney Agonistes. In understanding how a great poet obsessively and continually brought together `savages' and the sophisticated as well as slum-dwelling members of modern urban society, we can see his work afresh as possessing remarkable and profound excitement as well as unusual integrity.
Reviews
'Crawford's study is illuminating ... Crawford's book establishes anthropology as the major external influence on Eliot's poetry ... a new Scottish poet-critic is announced therefore, and his contribution could be immense. We could do with more' Glasgow Herald
'a powerful and stimulating book' Times Higher Educational Supplement
'an important contribution to the still evolving perception of Eliot's work and eminently readable' Cencrastus
`it is ... from Eliot's non-literary reading that Crawford retrieves the most illuminating information' Brendan Jackson, The English Association
`an important contribution to the still evolving perception of Eliot's work and eminently readable' Thom Nairn, Cencrastus
'fine study' English Studies



Book Information
ISBN 9780198122517
Author Robert Crawford
Format Paperback
Page Count 264
Imprint Clarendon Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Dimensions(mm) 215mm * 135mm * 15mm