Loosely based on the Arthurian legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King, "The Waste Land", which first appeared in 1922, is a landmark work of Modernist poetry. Containing hundreds of allusions and quotations from other works, The Waste Land is marked by a disjointed structure which moves between voices and imagery without a clear delineation for the reader, a hallmark of Modernist literature. Arguably Eliot's most famous work, the theme of the...

The most discussed poet of our time, T. S. Eliot is perhaps also the most important figure in the modern poetic tradition. "In ten years' time," wrote Edmund Wilson in Axel's Castle, "Eliot has left upon English poetry a mark more unmistakable than that of any other poet writing in English." In 1948 Mr. Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize "for his work as a trail-blazing pioneer of modern poetry." This book is made up of six individual titles: Four...

The last major verse written by Eliot and what Eliot himself considered his finest work, Four Quartets is a rich composition that expands the spiritual vision brought out in The Waste Land. Here, in four linked poems, spiritual, philosophical, and personal themes emerge through symbolic allusions and literary and religious references from both Eastern and Western thought. Four Quartets is the culminating achievement by a man considered the greatest...