Time present and time past
Fifty years after his death, a long-awaited new biography sheds light on one of the 20th century’s most elusive poets
Young Eliot: From St Louis to The Waste Land. By Robert Crawford. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 512 pages; $35. Jonathan Cape; £25.
WHEN Thomas Stearns Eliot died in 1965 few other poets could claim to match his achievement. “The Waste Land”, a difficult and richly allusive work that first came out in 1922, had been hailed as one of the finest poems of his generation. A cottage industry of academic criticism had sprung up around it. But since Eliot’s death, little has been known of the life that led up to its creation. His widow (and executor), Valerie Eliot, refused to authorise any biographies; the poet’s reputation became tarnished with accusations of anti-Semitism. Some 50 years on, a new biography sheds light on a tricky, brilliant writer.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "Time present and time past"
From the February 14th 2015 edition
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