T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect LifeLyndall Gordon's biographical work on T. S. Eliot has won many dramatic accolades. In this "nuanced, discerning account of a life famously flawed in its search for perfection" (The New Yorker), Gordon captures Eliot's "complex spiritual and artistic history . . . with tact, diligence, and subtlety" (Boston Globe). Drawing on recently discovered letters, she addresses in full the issue of Eliot's anti-Semitism as well as the less-noted issue of his misogyny. Her account "rescues both the poet and the man from the simplifying abstractions that have always been applied to him" (New York Times), and is "definitive but not dogmatic, sympathetic without taking sides. . . . Its voice rings with authority" (Baltimore Sun). Praised by Cynthia Ozick as "daring, strong, psychologically brilliant", Gordon's study remains true to the mysteries of art as she chronicles the poet's "insistent search for salvation". |
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - stillatim - LibraryThingI'm very surprised by the positive reviews, and just a bit dismayed by the critical ones. Dear readers, if you're going to be shocked that people were anti-semitic before the war, or that men raised ... Read full review
T.S. ELIOT: An Imperfect Life
User Review - KirkusVeteran biographer Gordon ballasts Eliot's listing reputation with a weighty volume that combines—with heavy revisions and some new additions—her well-received partial biographies Eliot's Early ... Read full review
Contents
Early Models | 1 |
A New England Student | 23 |
Beyond Philosophy | 51 |
Eliots Ordeals | 95 |
The horror the horror | 147 |
Conversion | 192 |
Enter Beatrice | 233 |
The Mystery of Sin | 283 |
Enter the Furies | 312 |
The Perfect Life | 338 |
Lady of Silences | 392 |
Fame and Friends | 436 |
A Prophets Mission | 472 |
the Unfamiliar Name | 496 |
Appendices | 537 |
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Bibliographic information
| Title | T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life |
| Author | Lyndall Gordon |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | W. W. Norton & Company, 1999 |
| ISBN | 0393047288, 9780393047288 |
| Length | 721 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |