The waste land A biography of a poem

This probing "biography" of The Waste Land explores the interrelation of creativity and trauma that informed T. S. Eliot's masterwork while emphasizing the poet's many debts to his contemporary, Ezra Pound. Despite a century of critical explication, The Waste Land remains an enigma, its mood of disillusionment palpable despite a fragmentary, allusive form. Eliot's discouraging, fragmented life--a trying day job, an unhappy marriage, and a strained relationship with his extended family--provides clues. But the poem was also an emancipation, a repudiation of poetic structures Eliot had spent decades internalizing in favor of a sophisticated, new polyphonic style. And it was Pound, constant cheerleader and tirelessly supportive editor, who stoked the coals, even at the expense of his own literary output. Pound "listened for the poem that [Eliot] heard within himself" and recommended changes that would shrink the text by half. The two poets would eventually part ways. Eliot's health and productivity would wane; Pound declined into a mad fascination with Mussolini. But Hollis makes a compelling case for crediting Pound with helping shape a twentieth-century landmark poem.

Honoring the centenary of T.S. Eliot's modernist masterpiece, biographer Hollis (Now All Roads Lead to France) offers an illuminating account of the making of The Waste Land. Searching out the pieces "of the jigsaw puzzle that would become The Waste Land," Hollis blends rich characterization and historical background to create a vivid picture of the London literary scene from the end of WWI to 1922 that takes in the writers, journals, and publishers that influenced Eliot's work. Hollis allots great attention to Ezra Pound, who, he argues, is essential in a consideration of Eliot, as the "confluence that existed between the minds of the two poets" was central to Eliot's work. Hollis also traces Pound's influence in several of Eliot's poems and examines in detail how The Waste Land was shaped by Pound's editorial eye and "perceptive... direction." The book gains traction when Eliot gets to the actual writing of the poem, as Hollis describes the laborious early drafts and deleted lines, as well as the sections he completed "almost whole, with barely any correction." Hollis's sharp prose sings and is poetic in its own right, and images of typeset pages and manuscripts in Eliot's handwriting help bring the work to life. This fascinating and brilliantly researched history will delight Eliot's fans. (Dec.)

Norton celebrates the centenary of T.S. Eliot's magisterial The Waste Land with three key titles. Thought lost until its 1968 acquisition by the New York Public Library, the original manuscript of the poem proved to be much longer than the standing version and was published in facsimile in 1971, as edited by Eliot's widow, Valerie. The Waste Land Facsimile is a new edition including an appendix of recently discovered corrections she intended to make and an afterword by Faber poetry editor Matthew Hollis; it comes from the Norton imprint Liveright--especially appropriate as The Waste Land was first published in the United States by Boni & Liveright. Costa Biography winner Hollis also weighs in with The Waste Land: A Biography of a Poem, which reconstructs the poem's creation and shows how strife between the poet and Vivienne, his wife at the time, imbues the writing. In The Hyacinth Girl, Gordon (T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life) revisits the relationship between Eliot and Emily Hale, a drama teacher to whom he wrote more than 1,000 letters and who can be seen as the source of The Wasteland's "memory and desire."