Customer Reviews

Selected Essays

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T.S. Eliot was the dominant figure in modernist literature not just because of his poetry, but also because of his criticism which changed our view of English literature in ways which can still be felt today. He resurrected the forgotten John Donne and had him eclipse John Milton as idol of poetry. He showed that Shakespeare was not the only playwright of his time. He was brillitant at explaining what made modernist literature different from its perdecessors.

Eliot's style is a pleasure to read compared to what passes as lit crit today. Many of his insights may seem outdated, but any student of literature will find fascinating views, especially about Elizabethan literature.

I was very surprised that I got through this book. It is not every day that a person will pick up a collection of essays on Classical, Elizabethan and other types of literature, for enjoyments sake. Eliot really outdid himself with his reviews of the literature that he was surrounded by. The definite reads, if you do not want to go through all the essays, are the essays "Dante", "Hamlet and his Problems" and "A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry". "Dante" is a beuatiful study on both the "Divina Comedia" and "Vita Nouva". "Hamlet" is a putdown on the play that everyone "loves" so much--with the exception of the writer of this sentence. "Dialogue" is a well crafted arguement of the essence of the poetic plays and how they fit into modern--it was written in 1922--times. This book is pure genius, although at points rather "holier-than-thou." Eliot was a genius and he makes sure to let you know it in his essays.

The Collected essays are quite useful to my study. They help readers to get further understanding about Eliot's thinking and insight to politics and society in seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Also, Elito clearly elucidates his idea in logical writing which may be benefitial to readers' writing.