The Poems of T.S. Eliot I

Resumen del libro

This critical edition of T. S. Eliot's poems establishes a new text of the Collected Poems, 1909 1962, rectifying accidental omissions and errors that have crept in during the century since Eliot's astonishing debut, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. As well as the masterpieces, The Poems of T. S. Eliot: Volume I contains the poems of his youth, which were rediscovered only decades later; others that circulated privately during his lifetime; and love poems from his final years, written for his wife, Valerie. Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue have provided a commentary that illuminates the imaginative life of each poem.

Calling upon Eliot's critical writings as well as his drafts, letters, and other original materials, Ricks and McCue illustrate not only the breadth of Eliot's interests and the range of his writings but how it was that the author of Gerontion came to write Triumphal March and then Four Quartets. Thanks to the family and friends who recognized Eliot's genius and preserved his writings from an early age, the archival record is exceptionally complete, enabling us to follow in unique detail the progress of a mind that never ceased exploring.

Biografía del autor

Nacido en St. Louis (Missouri), aunque proveniente de una antigua familia puritana de Nueva Inglaterra, Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) se instaló en Londres en 1915 y acabó adoptando la nacionalidad británica. En su labor poética, y con el apoyo de Ezra Pound, fue un pionero del vanguardismo y de las corrientes que dieron su impronta a la poesía moderna. Eje de la vida poética en lengua inglesa desde la publicación en 1922 de su poema "The Waste Land", la cumbre de su obra son los cuatro cuartetos (Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages y Little Gidding) que publicó sucesivamente entre 1936 y 1942 y fueron reunidos en un volumen en 1943.<br> T. S. Eliot recibió el Premio Nobel de Literatura en 1948.