Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A modern classic - buy now!, 1 Nov 2001
By A Customer
Summarising the numerous strengths, wonders and delights of this collection in a way that properly reflects the scope, magnitude and genius of T.S. Eliot's poetry is an impossible task. Yet, ever since being given a page of 'The Waste Land' to analyse at A-Level (when I remember my initial reaction was very different - less exultation, more indignation!), Eliot's poetry fascinated me and still continues to fascinate; its wonderful images, characters and ideas foregrounding the chaos of modernism in illustrating the turbulent climate of the early 20th century .Critics of Eliot damn his work for its difficulties - and one cannot deny that its complicated diversions into technical and structural experimentation, mythical reference and multilingual commentary do initially intimidate. The beauty of Eliot's poetry is that it grows with you. Crib notes in the margins of my original copy show how many interpretations are offered by Eliot's strange and strangely affecting verse, and how working with, and analysing, the poem over a period of time reaps rich rewards. The timescale of work in this collection is also fascinating. Eliot's early poems, such as "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock" and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" sow seeds of malcontent, followed by the bawdy disturbing works of Poems 1920. 'The Waste Land' is, predictably but genuinely, a great meeting point of all Eliot's talents in its depiction of despair and disenchantment, but maybe not as fine a work as 'Four Quartets' which appears towards the end of the collection - a four part work written through the mid-30s to early forties. Eliot's conversion to Christianity in the late twenties infuses his later poems, giving them a sense of faith, hope and clarity which is seldom found in his earlier works. This is a modern classic - buy it and love it!
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Is there a better modernist poet? No, 17 May 2006
The word genius is over used, but T.S. Eliot was definitely a genius, this is amply reflected in his poetry. Eliot was and still is the dominant figure in modernist poetry, his complicated poetic structure would I'm sure make this a nightmare to analyse if studied, but at the same time is also wonderful to read. It was poets like Eliot showing the world that you didn't need tight, rigid structures and rhymes to create great poetry, indeed try reading some of the poetry out loud, it's beautiful to just listen to. Many will find most of the joy of Eliot's poetry in how wonderful it sounds, and how brilliantly crafted it is, as the meaning of most of the poems will be buried under so many obscure references to things that it will make it impossible to work some of them out.
'The Waste Land' is the most famous Eliot poem, and understandably so, in my opinion, the book is worth buying for this poem alone. 'The Waste Land' is divided into five parts and contains some wonderful, thought provoking imagery throughout, whilst at the same time being flooded with references to obscure pieces of literature from throughout the ages. You will need to buy a set of notes if you want to understand all of the references, but the sense of satisfaction you get from recognising something Eliot is referring to is immense, and you have to read it through first time unaided. (I got a couple of the Hamlet references, that was about it.)The poem is wonderfully crafted and a joy to read, and an even greater joy if you understand it.
But he was by no means a one-poem-wonder, I would highlight 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' as being the pick of the rest of the poems, along with 'The Four Quartets,' a four part poem that is absolutely wonderful.
This is to take nothing away for any of the other poems, this edition contains them all and is well worth the money. If you like poetry, and you want to read something that isn't rigidly written, that conatins some wonderful imagery and really makes you think, then buy this now, you wont regret it.
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6 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An "essential book" that really is essential, 3 Jul 2001
By A Customer
Eliot can be annoying. I'm an emotional person, and the lack of emotions in these poems (apart from his last poem, addressed to his 2nd wife: "lovers whose bodies smell of each other...") is difficult for me. But still, you can't have everything. These are the poems of one of the most careful poets of any time. Rather than writing poems in the same way all his life he decides to change the way the poems work. The poems after 'The Waste Land', for example, make little use of the famous collage technique. What surprised me when I first read this book was how Romantic Eliot's poems are. And there are some occasional poems which are quite amusing. The range is incredible.
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