Material Detail

This video was recorded at YALE ENGL 310 - Modern Poetry with Professor Langdon Hammer. The early poetry of T.S. Eliot is examined. Differences between Pound and Eliot, in particular the former's interest in translation versus the latter's in quotation, are suggested. Eliot's relationship to tradition is considered in his essay, "Tradition and the Individual Talent." The early poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is read, with emphasis on the poem's resistance to traditional forms and its complicated depiction of its speaker's fragmentary consciousness. Reading assignment: T.S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "Preludes," "Gerontion," "Sweeney Among the Nightingales"; Norton: from The Metaphysical Poets, from Hamlet, Tradition and the Individual Talent (pp. 941-53) Resources Section Activity: T.S. Eliot [PDF] Section Activity: Eliot and Proust [PDF] Section Activity: Eliot and Wordsworth [PDF]

Disciplines:

• Arts