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T. S. Eliot: The Design of His Poetry
A comprehensive interpretation of the poetry of T. S. Eliot with full analyses of all the longer poems.
- GenresPoetry
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1949
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 9, 2025
T.S. Eliot: The Design of His Poetry
This is probably the most useful and insightful analysis of literary works that I’ve ever read; though I should mention that I’ve only read the chapters on The Waste Land and Four Quartets, as well as the final chapter.
Drew focuses on the overall flow, development, sense, and meaning of the poems, rather than going through them reference by reference and simply telling you what Eliot’s sources are without telling you what each reference means. (How many of us have taken that tiresome approach to The Waste Land, without being much the wiser for it?) Her insights are deep and convincing, and you end up with a much deeper and more holistic understanding of the poems than you get from most analyses.
Sometimes she does falter a bit; the chapter on The Waste Land is a little less good once the Thunder speaks, for example. But I’ve found this book to be a lot more useful than, for example, Martin Scofield’s T. S. Eliot: The Poems (which certainly has its moments) and Stephen Spender’s book.
Note: One review here reduced the book to “archaic Jung mumbo-jumbo”, and says that the substance of Eliot’s work is skimmed over. This makes me wonder if the reviewer has even read the book, or if he knows anything about Eliot.
Eliot was interested in Jung’s work, and Jung’s ideas informed Eliot’s poetry; there’s no reason why Drew shouldn’t talk about Jung; she would in fact be remiss if she didn’t. (Note that Eliot’s commitment to Jung’s thought was limited by his greater commitment to Christianity; where he saw a conflict between the two, he stuck with Christianity.)
Furthermore, Drew only mentions Jung rarely and briefly (though her comments on him are quite interesting); to make it sound like that’s all there is in her book is absurd. Her writing on the broader substance of Eliot’s work is deep and insightful, and this is easily the most useful book on Eliot I’ve come across.
And finally, the fact that Jung’s work is over the reviewer’s head doesn’t make it "mumbo-jumbo"; Eliot obviously didn’t see it that way, and nor does Drew. Nor is it archaic; Jung’s work continues to thrive and to be developed by analytical psychologists around the world; it’s a living, growing body of thought.
This is probably the most useful and insightful analysis of literary works that I’ve ever read; though I should mention that I’ve only read the chapters on The Waste Land and Four Quartets, as well as the final chapter.
Drew focuses on the overall flow, development, sense, and meaning of the poems, rather than going through them reference by reference and simply telling you what Eliot’s sources are without telling you what each reference means. (How many of us have taken that tiresome approach to The Waste Land, without being much the wiser for it?) Her insights are deep and convincing, and you end up with a much deeper and more holistic understanding of the poems than you get from most analyses.
Sometimes she does falter a bit; the chapter on The Waste Land is a little less good once the Thunder speaks, for example. But I’ve found this book to be a lot more useful than, for example, Martin Scofield’s T. S. Eliot: The Poems (which certainly has its moments) and Stephen Spender’s book.
Note: One review here reduced the book to “archaic Jung mumbo-jumbo”, and says that the substance of Eliot’s work is skimmed over. This makes me wonder if the reviewer has even read the book, or if he knows anything about Eliot.
Eliot was interested in Jung’s work, and Jung’s ideas informed Eliot’s poetry; there’s no reason why Drew shouldn’t talk about Jung; she would in fact be remiss if she didn’t. (Note that Eliot’s commitment to Jung’s thought was limited by his greater commitment to Christianity; where he saw a conflict between the two, he stuck with Christianity.)
Furthermore, Drew only mentions Jung rarely and briefly (though her comments on him are quite interesting); to make it sound like that’s all there is in her book is absurd. Her writing on the broader substance of Eliot’s work is deep and insightful, and this is easily the most useful book on Eliot I’ve come across.
And finally, the fact that Jung’s work is over the reviewer’s head doesn’t make it "mumbo-jumbo"; Eliot obviously didn’t see it that way, and nor does Drew. Nor is it archaic; Jung’s work continues to thrive and to be developed by analytical psychologists around the world; it’s a living, growing body of thought.
September 26, 2012
It has a really quaint bibliography and refers to some of the texts Eliot wrote off of, which is nice; but it gets caught up too much in the archaic Jung mumbo-jumbo and becomes so generalized from these comparisons that the substance and intellect of Eliot's work gets skimmed right over.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews