T.S. Eliot Critical Quotes

poem + themes

The Lovesong Of J. Alfred Prufrock

“tortured psyche of modern man - eloquent, neurotic, emotionally stilted” - George Williamson

Eliot’s sex life was a “sad and desolate place” Louis Mendand

“the position of the alien was always one that appealed to him” Ackroyd

Preludes

“negotiates and renegotiates” other poets’ voices in new contexts - Andrew Green

“establishes the utter hollowness and disenchantment of a war engulfed modern life” - Chakroborty

“growing sense of rootlessness” - Chakroborty

The Hollow Men

“Trying to speak a christian language but lacks the ability” - Seamus Perry

“a fleeting glimpse of a way out of emptiness” - Hillis Miller

“the utter hollowness and disenchantment of a war-engulfed modern life” - Chakraborty

The Journey of the Magi

“the Ariel poems meditate on spiritual growth” - Ronald Bush

Portrait of a Lady

“he is concerned that he will have to live forevermore with a recollection of his moral complacency” - Peter Cash

“Repeated acts of ventriloquism” - Andrew Green

“they are talking in different languages” - Seamus Perry

“clash of a life of culture and the unaccommodated life underneath” - Perry