One of the most influential poets of the twentieth century, T. S. Eliot is generally regarded as a leading exponent of the literary movement which came to be known as Modernism. In this volume, Harriet Davidson collects key recent essays by such internationally renowned critics as Terry Eagleton, Sandra Gilbert, Jacqueline Rose, Jeffrey Perl, Christine Froula, Maud Ellmann, and Michael North, placing Eliot's work centrally in the context of postmodern critical theory.

    Eliot's writing is often perceived as incompatible with or resistant to new theoretical approaches, but this volume demonstrates the continuity between Eliot's own theoretical writings and contemporary theory, and illuminates his poetry with imaginative readings from deconstructive, Marxist, psychoanalytic, and feminist perspectives. Headnotes to the essays and a bibliography which lists other informative readings make this book an invaluable guide to all students of twentieth-century poetry, and to scholars interested in the relationship between critical and creative writing.

    General Editors' Preface  Acknowledgements  Introduction: To Theorize the Theorist: Eliot and Postmodern Criticism  Part One: Eliot the Theorist  1. Richard Shusterman, "The Concept of Tradition: its Progress and Potential"  2. Jeffrey M. Perl, "The Language of Theory and the Language of Poetry: The Significance of T.S. Eliot's Philosophical Notebooks, Part Two"  Part Two: Postructural Readings  3. Michael Beehler, "Semiotics/Psychoanalysis/Christianity: Eliot's Logic of Alterity"  4. Maud Ellmann, "The Waste Land: A Sphinx without a Secret"  Part Three: Ideological Readings  5. Terry Eagleton, "Ideology and Literary Forms: T.S. Eliot"  6. John Xiros Cooper, "Reading the `Seduction' Fragment"  7. Michael North, "The Dialect in/of Modernism: Pound and Elite's Racial Masquerade"  Part Four: Elite and Sexuality  8. Sandra Giblet, "Costumes of the Mind: Transvestism as Metaphor in Modern Literature"  9. Christine Formula, "Elite's Grail Quest, or, the Lover, the Police, and the Waste Land  10. Jacqueline Rose, "Hamlet-the Moan Lisa of Literature"  Notes on Authors  Bibliography and Further Reading  Index

    Biography

    Harriet Davidson is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA.