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T. S. EliotA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The form of the poem is at once conservative and radical. There are no fixed stanza forms. Each section, identified by its own title, maintains its own stanzaic sequencing, thus creating a feeling of fragmentation. Grounded in the classical expressions of Renaissance and Elizabethan verse, Eliot uses one of that era’s signature forms—blank verse, a grand and stately verse form designed to elevate speech into august poetic form without the singsong-y distractions of insistent regular rhyming. Deftly, Eliot imbeds subtle rhyming echoes within and between lines to enhance the aural experience, but the poem is largely unrhymed. Although blank verse can use any one of a number of formal structures, Eliot uses part iambic pentameter—one of the most traditional and recognizable verse forms recalling the iconic tragedies of William Shakespeare and the grand verse meditations of John Milton.
That Eliot uses such an elevated form to recreate the moral corruption of a world adrift in inanities—bored and amused to spiritual paralysis by its own irrelevancy—creates the irony central to the poem’s scathing indictment of its era. Each line alternates between stressed and unstressed syllables, lending itself to elevated recitation and allowing for dramatic pauses and subtle emphasis.
By T. S. Eliot
Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday
T. S. Eliot
East Coker
East Coker
T. S. Eliot
Four Quartets
Four Quartets
T. S. Eliot
Journey of the Magi
Journey of the Magi
T. S. Eliot
Little Gidding
Little Gidding
T. S. Eliot
Mr. Mistoffelees
Mr. Mistoffelees
T. S. Eliot
Murder in the Cathedral
Murder in the Cathedral
T. S. Eliot
Portrait of a Lady
Portrait of a Lady
T. S. Eliot
Preludes
Preludes
T. S. Eliot
Rhapsody On A Windy Night
Rhapsody On A Windy Night
T. S. Eliot
The Cocktail Party
The Cocktail Party
T. S. Eliot
The Hollow Men
The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T. S. Eliot
The Song of the Jellicles
The Song of the Jellicles
T. S. Eliot
Tradition and the Individual Talent
Tradition and the Individual Talent
T. S. Eliot