Date of Award

Summer 1984

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Program/Concentration

English

Committee Director

Philip D. Raisor

Committee Member

Charles O. Burgess

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E64N63

Abstract

Throughout his career, T. S. Eliot developed his central poetic doctrine, the theory of poetic impersonality. Because of the importance of this theory to Eliot, a question is raised about its importance to his own poetry. Some recent critics, examining Eliot's poetry in the light of his memoirs and biographies, have found that Eliot was not governed by his theory. My thesis is designed to continue this investigation which so far has been done incompletely and randomly.

This investigation finds that Eliot suffered from a congenital double hernia, from his disastrous first marriage, and from general poor health. Furthermore, in his early major poems, Eliot develops the themes of alienation, sterile sexuality, and conversion, which emerge from these biographical elements. Thus, in fact, Eliot is not impersonal in his poetry, but expresses indirectly his own suffering.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/29c3-tq67

Download

Share

COinS