A Reader's Guide to T.S. Eliot: A Poem-By-Poem Analysis (Reader's Guides) [Paperback]

George Williamson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press; 1st Syracuse University Press ed edition (February 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815605005
• ISBN-13: 978-0815605003
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #185,769 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Cull your highschool essays from here.., March 3, 2003

By 

George Carless (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Reader's Guide to T.S. Eliot: A Poem-By-Poem Analysis (Reader's Guides) (Paperback)

I've not been well pleased by this book. Though some of its insights are valuable, and though it is somewhat well researched and fairly comprehensive, it's a chore to read. The author has a style that borders on the incomprehensible -- one feels that he is one of these people who uses tortuous turns of phrase in the mistaken belief that they'll make him seem sophisticated. As a result, the text is disjointed and difficult, its arguments meandering and ill-defined. Williamson has some good ideas, and probably knows what he means, but doesn't get his points across clearly -- it's almost as though he's trying to emulate Eliot's style (or to merely restate the poetry as prose) and, frankly, one often feels as though Williamson has ideas above his station.

In short, this has all of the hallmarks of high school essay-writing -- perhaps the author has spent too long in the company of his students. Using 'difficult' language is neither big nor clever if it serves only to obfuscate meaning; here, the wealth of double-negatives, run-on sentences and unexplained, bewildering conjecture is simply not helpful to the reader of an already difficult poet. If the reader works at it, he or she will gleam some benefit from this book - but there are far better, and better written, works out there. If in doubt, take a look at the excerpts on this site -- it may be that the rather purple prose will appeal to some readers; but I regret that where I had hoped for intelligent discourse, I instead found awkwardly adolescent writing that thought itself more clever than it actually was.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nothing wrong with the way this book was written, December 25, 2005

By 

Ivan Yager "Ivan Yager" (Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Reader's Guide to T.S. Eliot: A Poem-By-Poem Analysis (Reader's Guides) (Paperback)

"No one has examined the poems more sensitively or set down his results more lucidly. His analyses of 'The Waste Land' and of many other poems are the most complete, reliable, and forthright yet written; they are the product of a deep and long knowledge of Eliot's work."

--Richard Ellman