T. S. Eliot

Late in his life T. S. Eliot, when asked if his poetry belonged in the tradition of American literature, replied: “I’d say that my poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America than with anything written in my generation in England. That I’m sure of. . . . In its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America.” In T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, James Miller offers the first sustained account of Eliot’s early years, showing that the emotional springs of his poetry did indeed come from America.

Miller challenges long-held assumptions about Eliot’s poetry and his life. Eliot himself always maintained that his poems were not based on personal experience, and thus should not be read as personal poems. But Miller convincingly combines a reading of the early work with careful analysis of surviving early correspondence, accounts from Eliot’s friends and acquaintances, and new scholarship that delves into Eliot’s Harvard years. Ultimately, Miller demonstrates that Eliot’s poetry is filled with reflections of his personal experiences: his relationships with family, friends, and wives; his sexuality; his intellectual and social development; his influences.

Publication of T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet marks a milestone in Eliot scholarship. At last we have a balanced portrait of the poet and the man, one that takes seriously his American roots. In the process, we gain a fuller appreciation for some of the best-loved poetry of the twentieth century.

Late in his life T. S. Eliot, when asked if his poetry belonged in the tradition of American literature, replied: "I'd say that my poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America than with anything written in my generation in England. That I'm sure of. . . . In its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America." In T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, James Miller offers the first sustained account of Eliot's early years, showing that the emotional springs of his poetry did indeed come from America.

Born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri, T. S. Eliot grew up along the Mississippi River, only a few miles down river from Hannibal, the boyhood home of another great American writer, Mark Twain. Miller recounts Eliot's early years in St. Louis schools and follows him in the summers as he vacationed with his family in their Gloucester, Massachusetts, home perched on the Atlantic Ocean's edge. In 1905 at the age of seventeen, Eliot left the Midwest for what would prove to be a lasting separation-attending Milton Academy in Massachusetts for one year and then Harvard for nine years, as an undergraduate and as a graduate student in philosophy. The first time he ventured abroad was 1910, when he spent a crucial year studying in Paris and forming a deep friendship with the Frenchman Jean Verdenal. It was not until 1914, when Eliot was 26 years old, that he left America for England-and found reasons to stay there permanently, becoming a British citizen in 1927.

Miller challenges long-held assumptions about Eliot's poetry and his life. Eliot himself always maintained that his poems were not based on personal experience, andthus should not be read as personal poems. But Miller convincingly combines a reading of the early work-from his earliest poems through 1922, the year The Waste Land was published-with careful analysis of surviving early correspondence, accounts from Eliot's friends and acquaintances, and new scholarship that delves into Eliot's Harvard years. Ultimately, Miller demonstrates that Eliot's poetry is filled with reflections of his personal experiences: his relationships with family, friends, and wives; his sexuality; his intellectual and social development; his influences.

Publication of T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet marks a milestone in Eliot scholarship. At last we have a balanced portrait of the poet and the man, one that takes seriously his American roots. In the process, we gain a fuller appreciation for some of the best-loved poetry of the twentieth century. Eliot may have lived most of his life abroad, but he was and continued to be an American poet.

Library Journal

In his 1977 work, T.S. Eliot's Personal Waste Land: Exorcism of the Demons, Miller (English, emeritus, Univ. of Chicago) attempted to analyze Eliot's poems based on the writer's experiences despite Eliot's own insistence that his own poetry was impersonal. At the time, critics had reservations about Miller's conclusions because insufficient information was available to back them. Since then, however, Eliot's early letters and several reputable biographies (e.g., Lyndall Gordon's T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life, Peter Ackroyd's T.S. Eliot: A Life) have been published, which Miller uses to document and expand upon his thesis. His original book focused on Eliot's poetry; this new volume concentrates on his life and provides a "biographical interpretation" of the poems he'd written through 1922. While the aforementioned biographers are British, the American Miller builds a case for defining Eliot as an American poet despite his thoroughly British lifestyle. This scholarly study sheds new light on Eliot's early poems but is marred somewhat by repetition, excessive cross-referencing, and occasional factual errors (e.g., a line from the "Hail Mary" is attributed to the Lord's Prayer). Of interest to academic libraries.-Denise J. Stankovics, Rockville P.L., Vernon, CT Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.