Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T12:18:35.601Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - “Mature poets steal”

Eliot's allusive practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2006

Get access

Summary

“The borrowed jewels he has set in its head do not make Mr. Eliot's toad the more prepossessing”: so wrote an early reviewer of The Waste Land, affronted by the bold allusions from which Eliot's poetry was built. Those allusions, reinforced by Eliot's own notes to The Waste Land, have never ceased to affront; even today they account for Eliot's still formidable reputation as a “difficult” poet, and several generations of sourcehunting critics have reinforced that impression. Eliot sometimes played this game himself (“Immature poets imitate,” he quipped early in his career, “mature poets steal” [SE [1950], p. 182]), but other times he was dismayed that readers found the surface difficulties of his poems prohibiting. And while it's true that knowledge of Eliot's models and sources does enrich a reading of his poetry, it is ultimately more important to understand the nature of Eliot's allusive practice - to ask not only what is the source? but why does Eliot allude? and how do we experience the allusion?

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×