Eliot Critics

Question 1

Eliot’s knowledge about philosophy and theology

Answer 1

Eliot knows so much philosophy and theology that I do not see how he can write poetry at all.

Question 2

What is a poet’s business according to Eliot?

Answer 2

Eliot demonstrated that a poet’s business is not just reporting feeling, but extending feeling, and creating a shape to convey it.

Question 3

What sensibility is present in Eliot’s work?

Answer 3

A sensibility sharply aware of ‘the disorder, the futility, the meaninglessness, the mystery of life and suffering.

Question 4

What is notable about the writing process of Eliot’s poetry?

Answer 4

Nearly every line of it was written while looking into the eyes of the demon.

Question 5

How does Eliot’s poetry depict moments?

Answer 5

Each moment is an isolated, fragmentary image, producing its own effect, including suggestions of some larger action or situation of which it is but an arrested moment.

Question 6

What should not be inferred from Eliot’s portrayal of the city in his poetry?

Answer 6

one should not infer a naive primitivistic longing for the preindustrial world. Eliot’s indictment of the present age is spiritual rather than sociological.

Question 7

What emotions are depicted in Eliot’s poetry?

Answer 7

There is no joy, no exultation, not even pleasure except the pleasure which is shown as spurious.

Question 8

What themes dominate Eliot’s poetry?

Answer 8

There is an awareness of what is bewildering and terrifying in modern life - sterility, inaction, detachment and despair dominate Eliot’s poetry.

Question 9

How is Prufrock characterized in Eliot’s work?

Answer 9

Prufrock is an insecure, socially paralysed narrator.