Moody, Anthony David.
Tracing T. S. Eliot’s Spirit: Essays on His Poetry and Thought.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Discusses Eliot’s quest for the world of the spirit, with attention to the religions and cultures of America, India, and Europe.
North, Michael.
Reading 1922: A Return to the Scene of the Modem.
New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Discusses the cultural climate of the year in which
The Waste Land
and
Ulysses
were published,
The Great Gatsby
was set, the Fascists took over in Italy, the Irish Free State was born, the Harlem Renaissance reached its peak, and Charlie Chaplin’s popularity peaked.
Sigg, Eric.
The American T. S. Eliot: A Study of the Early Writings.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Discusses the significance of Eliot’s American heritage, which is often overlooked; elucidates links between Eliot’s work and that of Henry James, Henry Adams, and George Santayana.
Skaff, William.
The Philosophy of T. S. Eliot: From Skepticism to a Surrealist Poetic,
1909-1927. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. A study of the philosophical backdrop to Eliot’s life and poetry.
Svarny, Erik.
‘The Men of 1914’: T. S. Eliot and Early Modernism.
Milton Keynes, U.K., and Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press, 1988. Examines Eliot’s work in relation to his contemporaries, especially Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, and T. E. Hulme.
Essay Collections
Brooker, Jewel Spears, ed.
T. S. Eliot and Our Turning World.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001. Essay topics include ‘Shakespeare/Dante and Water/Music in
The Waste Land,’
’T. S. Eliot and the Feminist Revision of the Modern(ist) Canon,’ ‘Buddhist Epistemology in T. S. Eliot’s Theory of Poetry,’ and ’T. S. Eliot and Heraclitus.’
Bush, Ronald, ed.
T. S. Eliot: The Modernist in History.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Essay topics include ‘Eliot’s Women/Women’s Eliot,’ ‘The Price of Modernism: Publishing
The Waste Land,’
‘The Allusive Poet: Eliot and His Sources,’ and
‘Ara Vos Prec:
Eliot’s Negotiation of Satire and Suffering.’
Olney, James, ed.
T. S. Eliot: Essays from the Southern Review.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. Essay topics include ‘Eliot at Oxford,’ ‘The Significance of T. S. Eliot’s Philosophical Notebooks,’ ‘Substitutes for Christianity in the Poetry of T. S. Eliot,’ and several personal reminiscences.
Readers’ Guide
Southam, B. C.
A Guide to the Selected Poems of T S. Eliot.
Sixth edition; first U.S. edition. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996. A comprehensive overview with extensive annotations.
Critical Editions
Eliot, Valerie, ed.
The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts Including the Annotations of Ezra Pound.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. Reproduces drafts
of The Waste Land,
showing the editing done by Ezra Pound and discussing the history of the poem’s composition and publication.
Ricks, Christopher, ed.
Inventions of the March Hare: Poems, 1909-1917.
New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996. Presents numerous drafts of Eliot’s early work, published and previously unpublished, with discussion of the poems’ evolution.
Other Works Cited in the Introduction
Eliot, T. S. ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent.’ 1919. Reprinted in Eliot’s
The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism.
London: Methuen, 1920.
___. ‘Hamlet and His Problems.’ 1919. Reprinted in Eliot’s
The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism.
London: Methuen, 1920.
___.
Dante.
London: Faber and Faber, 1929.