Reflecting the surge of critical interest in Eliot renewed in recent years, A Companion to T.S. Eliot introduces the 'new' Eliot to readers and educators by examining the full body of his works and career. Leading scholars in the field provide a fresh and fully comprehensive collection of contextual and critical essays on his life and achievement.* It compiles the most comprehensive and up-to-date treatment available of Eliot's work and career* It explores the powerful forces that shaped Eliot as a writer and thinker, analyzing his body of work and assessing his oeuvre in a variety of contexts: historical, cultural, social, and philosophical* It charts the surge in critical interest in T.S. Eliot since the early 1990s* It provides an illuminating insight into a poet, writer, and critic who continues to define the literary landscape of the last century

Notes on Contributors viiiPreface xivAcknowledgments xviAbbreviations Used for Works by T. S. Eliot xviiPart I: Influences 11 The Poet and the Pressure Chamber: Eliot's Life 3Anthony Cuda2 Eliot's Ghosts: Tradition and its Transformations 15Sanford Schwartz3 T. S. Eliot and the Symbolist City 27Barry J. Faulk4 Not One, Not Two: Eliot and Buddhism 40Christina Hauck5 Yes and No: Eliot and Western Philosophy 53Jewel Spears Brooker6 A Vast Wasteland? Eliot and Popular Culture 66David E. Chinitz7 Mind, Myth, and Culture: Eliot and Anthropology 79Marc Manganaro8 "Where are the eagles and the trumpets?": Imperial Decline and Eliot's Development 91Vincent SherryPart II: Works 1059 Searching for the Early Eliot: Inventions of the March Hare 107Jayme Stayer10 Prufrock and Other Observations: A Walking Tour 120Frances Dickey11 Disambivalent Quatrains 133Jeffrey M. Perl12 "Gerontion": The Mind of Postwar Europe and the Mind(s) of Eliot 145Edward Brunner13 "Fishing, with the arid plain behind me": Diffi culty, Deferral, and Form in The Waste Land 157Michael Coyle14 The Enigma of "The Hollow Men" 168Elisabeth Däumer15 Sweeney Agonistes: A Sensational Snarl 179Christine Buttram16 "Having to construct": Dissembly Lines in the "Ariel" Poems and Ash-Wednesday 191Tony Sharpe17 "The inexplicable mystery of sound": Coriolan, Minor Poems, Occasional Verses 204Gareth Reeves18 Coming to Terms with Four Quartets 216Lee Oser19 "Away we go": Poetry and Play in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats 228Sarah Bay-Cheng20 Eliot's 1930s Plays: The Rock, Murder in the Cathedral, and The Family Reunion 239Randy Malamud21 Eliot's "Divine" Comedies: The Cocktail Party, The Confidential Clerk, and The Elder Statesman 251Carol H. Smith22 Taking Literature Seriously: Essays to 1927 263Leonard Diepeveen23 He Do the Critic in Different Voices: The Literary Essays after 1927 275Richard Badenhausen24 In Times of Emergency: Eliot's Social Criticism 287John Xiros CooperPart III: Contexts 29925 Eliot's Poetics: Classicism and Histrionics 301Lawrence Rainey26 T. S. Eliot and Something Called Modernism 311Ann Ardis27 Confl ict and Concealment: Eliot's Approach to Women and Gender 323Cyrena Pondrom28 Eliot and "Race": Jews, Irish, and Blacks 335Bryan Cheyette29 "The pleasures of higher vices": Sexuality in Eliot's Work 350Patrick Query30 "An occupation for the saint": Eliot as a Religious Thinker 363Kevin J. H. Dettmar31 Eliot's Politics 376Michael Levenson32 Keeping Critical Thought Alive: Eliot's Editorship of the Criterion 388Jason Harding33 Making Modernism: Eliot as Publisher 399John Timberman Newcomb34 Eliot and the New Critics 411Gail McDonald35 "T. S. Eliot rates socko!": Modernism, Obituary, and Celebrity 423Aaron Jaffe36 Eliot's Critical Reception: "The quintessence of twenty-fi rst-century poetry" 436Nancy K. Gish37 Radical Innovation and Pervasive Infl uence: The Waste Land 449James LongenbachBibliography of Works by T. S. Eliot 460Index 463