Synopses & Reviews
Review
"...rich and rewarding study...Badenhausen's sensitive, meticulously argued study does much to persuade us that in light of current world events Eliots' paradoxical ruminations on the function of art as a socially unifying force in times of great discord merit renewed critical attention." - English Literature in Transition, Elisabeth Daumer, Eastern Michigan University
Synopsis
Richard Badenhausen examines the crucial role that collaboration with other writers played in the development of T. S. Eliot's works from the earliest poetry and unpublished prose to the late plays. He demonstrates Eliot's dependence on collaboration in order to create, but also his struggle to accept the implications of the process. In case-studies of Eliot's collaborations, Badenhausen reveals the complexities of Eliot's theory and practice of collaboration. Examining a wide range of familiar and uncollected materials, Badenhausen explores Eliot's social, psychological, textual encounters with collaborators such as Ezra Pound, John Hayward, Martin Browne, and Vivienne Eliot, among others. Finally, this study shows how Eliot's later work increasingly accommodates his audience as he attempted to apply his theories of collaboration more broadly to social, cultural, and political concerns.
Synopsis
Richard Badenhausen examines the crucial role that collaboration with other writers played in the development of T. S. Eliot's works from the earliest poetry and unpublished prose to the late plays. He demonstrates that Eliot depended on collaboration in order to create, but also struggled to accept the implications of the process. In case-studies of Eliot's collaborations (with Ezra Pound on The Waste Land, with John Hayward, and with his first wife Vivienne Eliot), Badenhausen reveals for the first time the complexities of Eliot's theory and practice of collaboration.
Synopsis
Richard Badenhausen examines the crucial role collaboration with other writers played in the development of T. S. Eliot's works from the earliest poetry to the late plays. In case-studies of Eliot's collaborations with Pound, Hayward, and with Vivienne Eliot, Badenhausen reveals the complexities of Eliot's theory and practice of collaboration.
About the Author
Richard Badenhausen is Professor and Kim T. Adamson Chair at Westminster College in Utah and directs the Honors Program there.
Table of Contents
Introduction: reaching the stillness of music; 1. 'Speaking as ourselves': authorship, impersonality, and the creative process in the early essays; 2. A conversation about 'the longest poem in the English langwidge': Pound, Eliot, and The Waste Land; 3. 'Helping the poets write for the theatre': the transitional essays on collaboration, community, and drama; 4. A dramatist and his midwives: Eliot's collaborations in the theater; 5. The possum and the 'creating critick': Eliot's collaboration with John Hayward; Conclusion: Placing collaboration in perspective: voice and influence in the late essays.