A monumental event in Eliot scholarship.
Pegasus Award for Criticism 2016
This critical edition of T. S. Eliot's Poems establishes a new text of
the Collected Poems 1909-1962, rectifying accidental omissions and
errors that have crept in during the century since Eliot's astonishing
debut, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." As well as the
masterpieces, the edition contains the poems of Eliot's youth, which
were rediscovered only decades later, others that circulated privately
during his lifetime, and love poems from his final years, written for
his wife Valerie Eliot.
Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue have provided a commentary that
illuminates the imaginative life of each poem. Calling upon Eliot's
critical writings, as well as his drafts, letters, and other original
materials, they illustrate not only the breadth of Eliot's interests and
the range of his writings, but how it was that the author of "Gerontion"
came to write "Triumphal March" and then Four Quartets. Thanks to the
family and friends who recognized Eliot's genius and preserved his
writings from an early age, the archival record is exceptionally
complete, enabling us to follow in unique detail the progress of a mind
that never ceased exploring.
Following the collected and uncollected poems of the first volume, this
second volume opens with the two books of verse of other kinds that
Eliot issued: the children's verse of Old Possum's Book of Practical
Cats and his translation of St.-John Perse's Anabase. This volume
then gathers the verses Eliot contributed to the learnedly lighthearted
exchanges of Noctes Binanianæ and others for intimate friends or
written off the cuff. Each of these sections has its own commentary.
Finally, and pertaining to the entire edition, there is a comprehensive
textual history that contains not only variants from all known drafts
and the many printings but also extended passages amounting to hundreds
of lines of compelling verse.
"I do not know for certain how much of my own mind he
invented."--William Empson
