The first two poems of this collection -- "Burnt Norton" and "East Coker" -- are among the greatest extended poems written in English in the 20th Century, or in any other century for that matter. The last two -- "The Dry Salvages" and "Little Gidding" -- contain, hands down, some of the worst episodes ever produced by any major poet, though these should by no means be included amongst the worst poems. The sins these later poems share in common are the related ones of flagging inspiration and patchiness, both of which can be seen as having their root in Eliot's attempt to take the 5-part prototype of "Burnt Norton," the first of the bunch to be written, and to will the others into being by using it as their model. If, however, this is failure, then we should all be so fortunate to be such failures.

Anyway, despite obvious flaws, "Four Quartets" is one of the landmarks of modernist poetry. Basically, the poems are meditations on time and eternity and, most importantly, the excruciatingly difficult task of trying to attain a little "consciousness" therein. Those, however, who feel no great kinship with philosophical poetry -- who indeed feel that poetry should express "no ideas, except in things," are perhaps never going to warm up to this collection. For those, on the other hand, who believe that poetry is one of the primary tools for grappling with the verities, then what else can I say except pounce on this collection? Oh, it's going to take many readings, much time and a great deal of thinking to plummet the furthest recesses of this profoundly great art, but then again what more could you ask for from poetry?

By the way, if you've never heard the recordings of Eliot reading these works, then you simply haven't lived.

By far the crowning of T.S. Eliot's poetry. The evanescent equilibrium point between a whole set of couples of antagons. The present is such a point, but demultiplied by a myriad of other couples. Past-Future, Has-been-Might-have-been, and this point is movement, constantly moving between those antagons. It gives you a vertigo, the vertigo we feel in front of the present that is a constantly moving equilibrium point. Fascinating. Men are no longer hollow but they are unstoppable motion. They are some light, fine and fuzzy moving line between all the antagons of human nature, of nature as for that. Then a long and rich metaphor of life with the sea, neverending movement that ignores past and future but is pure present and nothing else. Men and women can only worship this everlasting present motion, time and place that is no time, no place and no motion, just unstable energy burnt in its own existence.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

This, quite frankly, is the best poem of the 20th century, and it gets better everytime you read it. From the apparent darkness of the first stanzas of Burnt Norton to the broadening towards lucidity of the last lines, there is much to love, much to admire, and much to quote. You will find lines that speak to the heart directly: you will also find, after numerous readings, splendid little details, which reveal the craftiness with which Eliot handled this superb adieu - for it is the last great work in poetry he has written. The greatest achieve of Eliot in Four Quartets, is the way he manages to reach out to the greatest poet in history, who lived a number of centuries ago, and have the language speak with his tongue, simultaneously admitting that Dante's world view cannot be copied in today's world - but that does not mean that his form of structure and vivid allusions should not be employed: in this poem, the Trecento and the century of the atomic bomb have found common ground to behold each other as not quite congenial, yet deeply related brothers. The past is not dead - it's not even past yet.

I bought this book when it came out in 1995. It is a critique of interpretative criticism from Eliot to Derrida, finding unlikely parallels in the academic response to the two writers' work.

I found it a very clear and biting analysis of the current position of 'theory' in lit crit and academia. It is very clearly written, lively in its argument, and helpful if you are looking for a reasoned attack on all the irritating bogies of 'theory'.

(It is worth making the point, however, that Derrida is mainly a philosophical critic, and cannot necessarily be held responsible for much of the nonsense written by the poorer advocates of 'theory'; and so anyone looking for a fuller critique should probably stick to Christopher Norris's 'Derrida'. Or even read Derrida himself - 'Aporias' demonstrates his approach.)

But this author can write. As his argument involves a major criticism of the motives of European and American academics and their 'careers', it probably helps that he teaches in Australia!

If you are a Cats fan and feeling withdrawal symptoms since the musical closed on Broadway, you have several choices to feel better. You can fly to London and see the show there. You can watch the terrific videotape of the show. Or for a smaller investment in time and money, you can read your copy of this delightful book. Although billed as a children's book, this book is really for children of all ages who love T.S. Eliot's work.

Researchers constantly find that reading to children is valuable in a variety of ways, not least of which are instilling a love of reading and improved reading skills. With better parent-child bonding from reading, your child will also be more emotionally secure and able to relate better to others. Intellectual performance will expand as well. Spending time together watching television fails as a substitute.

To help other parents apply this advice, as a parent of four I consulted an expert, our youngest child, and asked her to share with me her favorite books that were read to her as a young child. Mr. Mistoffelees with Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer was one of her picks.

Our daughter has seen Cats so many times that she cannot remember the number. Some of our happiest experiences came when she and I went to the show together, having worn out the rest of the family's interest years earlier. Each time she saw the show, Mr. Mistoffelees was her favorite character. After reading the poem here, you, too, will become more taken with Mr. Mistoffelees.

This book contains two poems from T.S. Eliot's 1939 collection of poems, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. The musical was based on these poems. In this version, the poems are beautifully enhanced by very colorful, well-composed, and witty art by Errol Le Cain. This book won a Parent's Choice award in 1991.

Mr. Mistoffelees is "The Original Conjuring Cat" and can perform many wonderful and funny tricks. His best trick is to produce "seven kittens right out of a hat." After you see him at work, you'll say

"Oh!

Well I never!

Was there ever

A cat so clever

As Magical Mr. Mistoffelees!"

If you are like me, you'll sing the verses as you read them.

Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer were "a very notorious couple of cats." "As knockabout clowns, quick-change comedians, tight-rope walkers and acrobats they had an extensive reputation." "They were highly efficient cat-burglars as well, and remarkably smart at smash-and-grab." If anything was missing or awry, "Then the family would say: 'It's that horrible cat!'"

After you have bathed in the beautiful glow of T.S. Eliot's good humor and been warmed by the reflected light of the illustrations, I suggest that you consider writing some children's verse yourself. And the best way to do it well, is to enlist a child to help you. However the poetry turns out, you'll have wonderful memories together.

"And there's nothing at all to be done about that!"

Simone Weil's "The Need For Roots" demonstrates the purest understanding of Christ's teaching that I have ever come across. One need not be religious to grasp or identify with this brilliant work.

This book is held together by Christ's beatitudes, parables and prayers as a way of emphasizing the need for spirituality, not organized religion, in our lives. Weil insists on vital obligations of the soul (all of which are explained in brief detail) and the importance of spirituality and self-respect in all things.

According to Weil, everything we do is to be approached with the same intense religiosity that pervaded ancient Greek culture. Love of money and glory have buried spirituality in modern societies world-wide. One of Weil's many solutions was to completely reexamine the uses of education in order to instill this spiritual understanding of human existence.

As with all great thinkers, there are countless facets of Weil's thought. The Need For Roots, therefore, is not an easy read. I found myself reading over sentences and paragraphs several times-not out of frustration, but out of an imense craving to fully understand the saintly beauty of her words.

Those who make the effort to read this book attentively will come away with a powerful, fresh perspective of life, including an understanding of the necessity of both joy and pain. Anyone with a soul should read this book.

In "The Need For Roots," Simone Weil cultivates perhaps the purest, most spiritual definition of Christianity ever put into words. She despises group thought, i.e., organized religion, while constantly referencing the words of Jesus Christ as being the essence of Christianity and a crucial model for living a "well-rooted" life.

One need not be religious at all to identify with the type of religiosity expressed in this book. Simone Weil is no preacher. Going to church every Sunday does not impress her. Dropping money in the priest's basket does not impress her. Love, on the other hand, does. And not just love of God or of religion, but love of eveything we do in life. She stresses the need for love of truth, learning, physical labor and love for what she defines as "the good."

Religion, for Simone Weil, should not just be limited to the church. Simone Weil believes that every aspect of life, everything we do, such as the pursuit of science or knowledge, should be as religious an experience as it was for the ancient Greeks; a civilization she draws reference to many times throughout the book.

Her deep spirituality is strewn throughout these pages, and wakes up the mind to the hypocrissy, spiritual crisis, and moral "uprootedness" of human nature in the modern world. In the midst of stressing this deeply spiritual message, Simone Weil attempts to open the reader's eyes to newer, less narrow-minded definitions of patriotism and greatness, as well as noting the various fundamental uses of education. For Simone Weil, education is not just a kid going to school and trying to get a good grade. Education is for those who have a love of truth, a love of knowledge and an understanding of the importance those virtues carry. It is up to a well-rooted, healthy society to instill those virtues in each individual.

Like the works of most complicated thinkers, this is no easy read. There are many different ideas spiraling around the core of spiritualism emphasized in "The Need For Roots." Simone Weil is extremely intellectual. It is unthinkable that she attained this level of brilliance by the time of her premature death at the age of 33. Most people will find themselves reading over paragraphs several times before fully understanding them. In the introduction, T.S. Elliot suggests that one reading of the book is insufficient, and he may be correct. Anyone who thinks they have grasped this book fully after reading over it once is either lazy, or, if they are correct, a freak of nature. However, the hard work required to tap into Simone Weil's stream of thought is well worth it. This is truly one of the most inspiring and provocative books I have read. While it was written in 1943 and adressed specifically to the state of France under the Vichy government, much of this book still remains crucially relevant today, perhaps even more so.

If this book is read with discernment, rather than in the casual mode in which we often read, I guarantee that a permanent tatoo of Weil's deep passion for humanity will be left on the soul.

Two major contributions to the analysis of the modern society can be found in Weil's works. In his "Essay on the causes of freedom and oppression" of the early 1930s she had given a vision of why we are left unsatisfied by progress, substituting social oppression for natural one. Here, while in London just before dying, she gets to such a deep understanding of contemporary social and spiritual problems that has very few comparisons in this century. We needs roots, she assumes, and we find them belonging to alive communities feeding our souls. An entire programme of reform of modernity is developed from this assumption, and it is applied in detail to postwar perspectives in France. According to some of us, this is still a guidebook for understanding what can be done now, a source of inspiration for rethinking how modern societies could be eventually reconverted to serve human needs, instead of representing Plato's image (dear to Simone) of the apocalyptic Great Beast.

T.S. Eliot raises some intriguing questions in Choruses from the Rock concerning the knowledge we may lose in information or the wisdom we may lose in knowledge. Patricia Sloane's book belies these losses, for in her book no knowledge is lost in information and no wisdom is lost in knowledge. This book is by far the most amazing piece of scholarship it has ever been my pleasure to come across. Ostensibly about a couple of Eliot's early poems, the book is packed with insights into so many different threads of history and literary history that it would be impossible to list them all even in a much longer review. I would not hesitate in calling Patricia Sloane the most careful reader of them all. The book is full of surprises every step of the way, and the surprises always strike the reader as exemplifying the art of reading at its very best. I would call what Patricia Sloane does the art of "corrective" reading, for she shows us in innumerable and always highly convincing ways that readers who have found innuendoes of anti-Semitism in some of T.S. Eliot's poems have simply missed the point. The so-called anti-Semitic passages are actually criticisms of anti-Semitism, occasionally in the most playful of ways. One of the things this amazingly scholarly and wonderfully readable book does is to explore and expose the nature of prejudicial readings that find fault not because the fault is in the text but because they read the fault into the text. Patricia Slaone traces with easy-going relentlessness all the intricate connections that can possibly be found in Eliot's poems - between Eliot and Dante, on the one hand, or Eliot and James Joyce, on the other. These connections then highlight innumerable others, implicating Homer as well as the Bible in refreshing new connections that finally culminate in the largest possible context the human mind is capable of holding. While reading this book I kept saying "yes, of course," though what I found myself assenting to is not so much an example of Alexander Pope's famous observation about what often was thought but never so well expressed, but a completely new arrangement of this observation, for reading Patricia Sloane's first volume in a projected trilogy strikes the reader more in the nature of what never was thought until Patricia Slaone has finally expressed it. And now that she has, we cannot help but think it. Her book on T.S. Eliot is probably the best out there. I am certainly looking forward to the volumes to follow.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in Eliot's poetic method in general, especially of the earlier work, and obviously the Bleistein poems in particular. A must read for any academic whose work touches upon (supposed) anti-Semitism, the Bleistein and Sweeney poems, and Eliot's method of allusion and satire. I'm looking forward to reading the next two volumes in the series of which this is the first.

Arwin

(Shyamal Bagchee, who wrote the introduction, is the Vice-President of the T. S. Eliot Society and the founder of the Yeats-Eliot Review.)

I became familiar with Eliot's work chronologically, learning something new at each step. "Prufrock" introduced me to modern poetical structure, "The Waste Land" showed me how literary allusion can enrich verse, "Ash-Wednesday" refreshed the world of religious poetry, and the supernal "Four Quartets" was for me a metaphysical insight of the greatest beauty.

Eliot is without a doubt the finest poet of the 20th century, perhaps the finest poet ever. His contributions to the poets who came after him, and to literature in general, are persistently evident. Eliot doesn't always succeed, and many of his poems seem trite and pretentious, but when he succeeds he hits dead on with poetry perfect in form, balance, and sound. There is the man here, the poet as reflected in his own work, but there is also common human experience through looking at history ("The Waste Land") and meditating on Man's relationship with the Divine and the eternal (Ariel Poems, and most of his output after 1928).

The most discussed, frequently invoked 20th-century poet in both American as well as British literature academic arenas (the advantage of a St. Louis birth place and brief Harvard education), Eliot offers toe-holds, certainties, and assurances to readers even as he satisfies their need to proclaim their own latter-day modernity. Compare Eliot to his immediate predecessor, Mathew Arnold, the man-of-letters, poet, and cultural critic of his time. Like Eliot's, Arnold's poetic output was relatively modest, and his cultural criticism, like Eliot's, exposed the barrenness, fragmentation, excessive subjectivity and self-consciousness of the present while proclaiming the triumphant unity, objectivity, and visionary perspective of an earlier poetry.

But whereas Arnold lays upon the reader the onerous project of reclaiming Greek epic and tragedy, Eliot asks us merely to make touch with the archetypal landscape of the unconscious self and to reclaim the concrete and clever poetry of Shakespeare's immediate descendants, the "Metaphysics." And whereas Arnold in his poetry struggles to overcome his own romanticism, more often than not demonstrating an inability to produce poetry capable of rising above repetitious elegy and brooding despair, Eliot's offers us a body of work that is remarkably coherent, whole, of a piece.

In the poetry from "Prufrock" through "The Wasteland" and "Hollow Men," the themes and patterns of the collective unconscious provide a solid, dependable substratum to the motifs, the repeated cultural "fragments," the objective correlatives which occur and recur until, more than in any other poetry, they lodge indelibly, memorably in the reader's consciousness. In the poetry from "Ash Wednesday" to "Four Quartets" the seemingly unconnected images and objective correlatives achieve grammatical order and thematic coherence through their elevation to the sacramental, to a vision of the "word" not as the product of the self's struggle with the deep regions of the unconscious but as the incarnation of meaning descending from higher realms of purification and grace.

As the foremost representative, even prototype, of literary "modernism," Eliot's work is at the same time as neat and tidy a body of poetry as that produced by any other poet--orderly to the point of being anal. It's little wonder that he retains his interest and popularity. It's smaller wonder yet that the guy was incapable of understanding let alone appreciating a work as resistent to ready explanation, as "messy" as "Hamlet."

T.S.Eliot Collected Poems are beyond any words of a common person like me.

Simply put, THE WASTE LAND is one of the strangest, most complicated, and interesting poems ever written. Try reading an unannotated version of the poem and you will see why even TS Eliot scholars need a little help with some of the images and literary references Eliot uses. This NORTON CRITICAL EDITION of THE WASTE LAND is an essential book for any Eliot fan, new or old. It provides you with practically every single piece of literature, history, and music that inspired Eliot to write his manifesto of the Lost Generation. If you have any questions concerning THE WASTE LAND, this is the book you need...this is the book you want. Buy it and realize how well-read you are not.

Literature scholars universally recognize Eliot's "Waste Land" as one of the most influential poems of the 20th century. The poem draws on a wealth of images, everything from classics of Western literature to Tarot cards, from anthropology to Eastern sacred texts. The title refers to the barren land of the Fisher King in Arthurian legend; both the king and the land eventually find redemption through the Holy Grail. Through a masterful use of language and symbols, Eliot brilliantly portrays the problem of meaning in the modern world --- and the way to deeper meaning!

Unfortunately, many of Eliot's references are arcane, and not easy for the lay reader to pursue. For example, few modern readers happen to have a copy of Webster's play "White Devil" or excerpts from Shackleton's account of the Antarctic expedition readily available on their shelves. Hence, the virtue of this particular edition: in addition to Eliot's original poem and original notes, this book includes the relevant passages from every single work Eliot quotes in the "Wasteland", all translated into English. For the first time I have seen in print, this book allows the reader to understand this magnificent poem in light of the full scope of its allusions. A triumphant achievement!

Do I really need to say how important Eliot is? Simply put, this is the dividing line. Poetry has never been the same since. Beyond that, the Norton Critical edition does an excellent job assisting us by providing the reader with many of the sources this excellent poem was based on, as well as many responses to this poem in one neat and nifty book! Plus the poem is thrown in just for kicks. Buy the book! Love the book!

This authoritative volume of his poetry & plays is essential to every poetry collection. The first poem in his first published book, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, was astonishing to its first audiences & is now known as one of the greatest 20th century poems ever. Read any book of essays that includes 20th century poetry; that poem is talked about in it. But I don't mean to be reviewing as though T. S. Eliot was a man of one poem; he was a writer of such severe genius throughout his career that poetry since him has all been in his shadow. Within 10 years of his career, he had had a profounder influence on poetry as we know it than anybody else. Writer of incredibly dense poems, one might argue that with his wild & totally new ideas about he was the godfather of language poetry, but he was also had a fierce love for tradition, in his self-exile from the U.S. to England.

I became familiar with Eliot's work chronologically, learning something new at each step. "Prufrock" introduced me to modern poetical structure, "The Waste Land" showed me how literary allusion can enrich verse, "Ash-Wednesday" refreshed the world of religious poetry, and the supernal "Four Quartets" was for me a metaphysical insight of the greatest beauty.

Eliot is without a doubt the finest poet of the 20th century, perhaps the finest poet ever. His contributions to the poets who came after him, and to literature in general, are persistently evident. Eliot doesn't always succeed, and many of his poems seem trite and pretentious, but when he succeeds he hits dead on with poetry perfect in form, balance, and sound. There is the man here, the poet as reflected in his own work, but there is also common human experience through looking at history ("The Waste Land") and meditating on Man's relationship with the Divine and the eternal (Ariel Poems, and most of his output after 1928).

HOWEVER, this edition of his "collected works," COMPLETE POEMS AND PLAYS: 1909-1950 lacks several last poems which can be found in COLLECTED POEMS 1909-1962. I recommend that edition, as tt is worth missing out on Eliot's plays in order to have a truly complete collection of his sublime verse.

In spite of the drawbacks of the arrangement in this volume (as described by other reviewers infra), this remains a must-have volume for anyone interested in contemporary poetry. T.S. Eliot's *best* works are all collected here, in a readily readable and comprehensible form. I remember reading and re-reading and re-reading my copy as a youngster and it still enjoys both a place of honor on my shelf as well as the even greater honor of frequent use and perusal. Let's face it, you can't come to terms with contemporary poetry without an understanding of T.S. Eliot, and this is probably the best place to start that effort because of the comprehensive (though not exhaustive) nature of this collection. You simply have to have this volume if you are a lover of contemporary poetry.

This book contains the poetry that inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical. Edward Gorey's illustrations do full justice to the characters, my two favorites are Macavity and the Jellicles. If you've ever wished you could be a cat, these are the cats you'll wish you could specifically be. Yes, each of them all in order! Purr-sonaly (couldn't resist!) I can't make up my mind between Old Deuteronomy or the Rum Tum Tugger. >^oo^<

If you've read The Wastland or any of the other, more substantial poems by T.S Eliot, you may be shocked at Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. But don't be fooled, even in the simple subject matter there is genius in Eliot's writing.

This is the only poem book of Eliot's that I own and it's a great deal of fun to read. My favorite cat is Macavity. If you've seen the musical Cats (which I haven't), here's the inspiration. This is also a great first book to get younger people interested in poetry. The language Eliot uses is flowery and catchy, and the subject matter is centered on those cute furballs. Enjoy.

"Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats," by T.S. Eliot, is a book of poems about cats. The basis for the wildly successful musical "Cats," the book stands on its own as a delightful work of literature. The poems are accompanied by wonderful illustrations by Edward Gorey.

This book is hilarious and very enjoyable. Eliot's words leap and dance across the pages with a zany musicality. Gorey's accompanying artwork is whimsical and full of interesting details. Eliot has created some great feline characters: the fearsome Growltiger, dapper Bustopher Jones, Magical Mr. Mistoffelees, and more.

Yes, these poems are great fun to read. But if you are inclined to look closer and analyze them at a deeper literary level, you will find that each one is a masterpiece of poetic craftsmanship. Eliot uses a wonderful variety of meters, rhyme schemes, and various poetic effects. Each poem stands on its own, and together they form an effective artistic unity.

Also noteworthy is the very "English" flavor of the book, which Eliot achieves by spicing his poems with many references to English geography and cultural history. Highly recommended, whether or not you like cats.

The Waste Land, published in 1922 and considered one of the major works associated with modernism. This poem deals despairingly with the state of post-World War I society, which Eliot saw as sterile and decadent. Numerous references to religious imagery, mythology and literature of the past are used ironically to point out the comparative emptiness of Eliot's time.

The Waste Land is sometimes considered to be the greatest poem of the twentieth century. This collection from Dover (at an amazing price) includes this and several other of Eliot's poems. The Waste Land, however, is considered to be his masterpiece, his 'epic,' in a sense. In fact, it is interesting to compare Eliot's bleak vision of a land of waste to other, earlier epics.

The poem is in some sense a warning, in another sense a cry of despair. The image of the wasted land, of the spiritually degenerate human race, is depressing, yet the poem ends with a glimmer (albeit faint) of hope--salvation is possible, however unlikely. I am no expert on this poem, and like most people understand only fragments of it, but what I have gained from the poem I have found to be very enlightening, and very stirring.

Eliot draws many references from the old legend of the Fisher-King, and an idea of what this legend is about (in all its many forms) is useful in interpreting the poem. This is undoubtedly one of the classics in both English literature and modernist writings, and very worthwhile for anyone who is willing to take the time to study it.

T.S. Eliot wrote "The Waste Land" against the backdrop of a world gone mad-- searching for reason inside chaos, and striving to build an ark of words by which future generations could learn what had gone before, T.S. Eliot explores that greatest of human melancholy-- disillusionment. This is a difficult poem, but one well-worth exploring to its fullest. The inherent rhythms of Eliot's speech, the delightful, though sometimes obscure, allusions, and intricate word-craft, create an atmosphere of civilization on the edge-- in danger of forgetting its past, and therefore repeating it. In the end, only the poet is left, to admonish the world to peace, to preserve the ruins of the old life, and to ensure that future generations benefit from the disillusions of the past.

"Prufrock" is perhaps the best "mid-life crisis" poem ever written. In witty, though self-deprecating and often downright bitter, tones, Eliot goes on a madcap but infinitely somber romp through the human mind. This is a poem of contradictions, of repression, of human fear, and human self-defeat. Technically, "Prufrock" is brilliant, with a varied and intricate style suited to the themes of madness, love, and self-doubt.

Buy this. You won't regret it. If you're an Eliot fan, you probably have it anyway. If you're not, you will be when you put it down.