Discovering Modernism: T. S. Eliot and His Context
Marked with the rhetoric of the lecture hall, this book is nevertheless a penetrating analysis of the philosophical and critical context that enabled T. S. Eliot to compose "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and The Waste Land, the two works it discusses most thoroughly. Menand is particularly successful in demonstrating the continuity of 19th-century ideas, largely because of the abiding reputations of such critics as Walter Pater and William Hazlitt, thinkers who profoundly affected the work of Eliot and Ezra Pound. Menand's thesis is that Eliot correctly analyzed the contradictions inherent in Modernist thought and that his genius lay in transforming those very contradictions into "literary opportunities." Recommended for all research collections. Daniel L. Guillory, English Dept., Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill.Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.