Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Also available in print.

Thesis (M. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Diss.--München, 1956. / Bibliography: p. 11-16.

Thesis (M.A.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Keith Cushman; submitted to the Dept. of English. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 13, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 60-62).

Thesis (M.A.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2007. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Michael Sexson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 88-90).

One of the most unique and striking features of T. S. Eliot's poetry up to and including The Waste Land is its imagery. Far from being mere decoration, the images in these poems play a vital role in the process of poetic communication. This paper attempts to examine in some detail Eliot's image, the important influences which contributed to its development, and its function in these poems. The poems of Prufrock and Other Observations show that Eliot had perfected his own "imagism" before coming into contact with Imagist theories through Ezra Pound in 1914, These poems reveal Eliot's characteristic method of using images—which are mainly precise renderings of an urban scene—as "objective correlatives" for a wide range of thoughts and feelings, in order to dramatize the plight of the poem's speaker. It was through a close study of such figures as Charles Baudelaire, Jules Laforgue, the Jacobean dramatists, the Metaphysical poets and the philosopher Henri Bergson, that Eliot discovered his own poetic voice. Although he knew little before 1914 of the Imagists— notably T. E. Hulme, who was to influence him much later— Eliot's "imagism" shows certain similarities, in theory and practice, with the work of this important poet and theoretician. These similarities are examined in this paper to help define Eliot's own "imagism". After 1914, Ezra Pound played an important part in the development of Eliot's imagery. In general, Pound showed Eliot methods for extending to the limit the impersonality which was already a feature of Eliot's poetry. This led, through a mutual interest in the poems of Théophile Gautier, to Eliot's satirical poems in the Poems 1920 volume. These poems juxtapose concepts in the form of concrete images, many of which are drawn from a wide variety of literary sources. But Eliot was restricted by Gautier's rhyming quatrain: in the satires, dramatic intensity is sacrificed for excessive superficiality and undue complexity. "Gerontion," however, marks a return to the energy of the Prufrock poems by using images to present an awareness of individual and cultural neurosis. Finally, The Waste Land marks a climax in Eliot's development by fusing and harmonizing methods previously acquired, and achieves unity through a complex pattern of images, many of which grow out of the preceding poems. At their best, these images are not only precise sensual experiences but powerful expressions of feelings and thoughts. As such, they give ample proof that the image in Eliot's poetry is the primary means of poetic expression. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

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The thesis consists of a selection of original poems and an essay on the literary relationship between Matthew Arnold and T. S. Eliot. The poems are loosely related in theme; they are the responses of the poet to the various forces in his upbringing, such as literature, religion and the American Southwest. The essay compares the literary criticism of Arnold and Eliot, the foremost critics of their respective periods, with special attention to Eliot's criticism of Arnold. The conclusion is that despite this criticism Eliot accepted Arnold's major critical precepts and perpetuated in his own work Arnold's central concerns about literature and culture.

T.S. Eliot's statement that myth is an ordering device in literature 'is constantly belied by his use of myth in his own poems'. This is the belief of the American critic Richard Chase, noted for his work on myths and mythological themes in English and American literature. Whether or not Chase is right must emerge from the chapters which follow. The purpose will be to examine the effects of the use of myths and mythological patterns on Eliot's work in general, rather than to annotate individual mythological allusions. Simply to recognise an allusion is to raise a question, not to answer one: for we have then to decide what the writer hope to achieve by its use, and whether or not he has succeeded. Unless they lead on to such questions, lists of sources contribute little to our understanding of a work. Far more important than incidental allusions are the mythological themes and patterns on the larger scale, which reveal themselves in recurrent allusions and in basic patterns of symbolism. Again, merely to recognise such a pattern is inadequate: in every case a discovery of its function in both the poem's (or play's) structure and the poet's technique should be our main concern. ... Eliot himself has made it clear that in his case the use of myths and mythological patterns has often been a fully conscious, even self-conscious process. Therefore we may apply to his work the questions mention by Norman: what functions the myths fulfil within individual works; and why Eliot uses them in the first place. This last question leads us back to a more fundamental one; why do many writers, especially modern ones, use myths 'in the first place'? The problem involves discussion of the relation between myths and literature and of the nature of myths themselves, this forms the material of the first chapter. The other chapters will deal with some of Eliot's works, attempting to explain and analyse his use of myths in them, and to illustrate its importance in each case.