T.S. Eliot: A Lifetime of Old Age (Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics)

Beginning with the works Eliot is known to have read as a youth, and examining his first unpublished poems, the book explores the origins of his concern with old age. It shows that the theme occurs with surprising frequency in the writings of a young man – a quarter of the poems in Eliot’s first published collection contain references to old age. It establishes the significance of “old men” throughout his canon; as the subject of three dramatic monologues; as “the most important personage” (Eliot) in ’The Waste Land’; and as the perspective behind Four Quartets. For the first time this theme is identified and shown through close reading and analysis of its use to be a recurring and significant aspect of Eliot’s poetry.