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'Where are the eagles and the trumpets?': the strange case of Eliot's missing quatrains. (T.S. Eliot)

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From: Twentieth Century Literature
Date: 19930622
Author:Alderman, Nigel

A re-evaluation of T.S. Eliot's quatrains written between 1917 and 1917 is presented. Eliot regarded his quatrains highly although literary critics have dismissed them as imitative. However, despite lack of literary acclaim the quatrains were well-received by other poets. The quatrains should be considered as a distinct body of work rather than as part of Eliot's poetic progression.

T. S. Eliot rated the quatrain poems he wrote between 1917 and 1919 among his best and most important work. Shortly after the publication of The Waste Land, for example, he wrote to his brother, Henry: "I ...

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