Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
T. S. Eliot
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Standard Name: Eliot, T. S.
Used Form: Thomas Stearns Eliot
TSE
, an American settled in England, was the dominant voice in English poetry during the first half of the twentieth century, as well as an immensely influential critic. His early experimental poems excel at catching an atmosphere or mood, often a moment of stasis and self-doubt. The Waste Land, a brilliant collage of fragments, has been seen to express the fears of a whole society about the threatened end of culture and amenity called civilization. After Eliot's conversion to Christianity his poetry moved to sombre investigations of the spiritual life: of time, fate, decision, guilt, and reconciliation. Meanwhile his criticism grappled with the the relation of past to present in terms of the contemporary relationship to tradition. TSE
also wrote lively comic verse, and in theatrical writing he moved on from pageant and historical religious drama to symbolic representation of spiritual issues through events in banal daily life.
ES
had many friendships, and there were few notables in the artistic world whom she did not meet. Her friendships were quite volatile, with frequent quarrels, sometimes caused by the practical jokes and the heightened...
EU
and her husband led active social lives, often entertaining friends and colleagues at their home. Blanche Alethea Crackanthorpe
introduced her to Marie Belloc Lowndes
, who became a friend of Underhill and called her...
Friends, Associates
H. D.
After her move to England, Ezra Pound
introduced HD to his circle of friends, many of whom were important figures in the modernist movement. They included W. B. Yeats
, T. S. Eliot
,...
Friends, Associates
Virginia Woolf
They developed a relationship that was competitive yet sustaining and essential to both. In August 1920 Woolf commented on Mansfield in her diary: a woman caring as I care for writing is rare enough I...
Friends, Associates
Harriet Shaw Weaver
As editor, HSW
attempted to recruit Storm Jameson
for the paper, but Jameson unhappily could not accept a full-time position. She also began to acquaint herself with contributors, such as H. D.
, whom she...
Friends, Associates
Virginia Woolf
Leonard Woolf wrote to Eliot, whose Prufrock and Other Observations he had read, to invite him to send some work to the Hogarth Press
. The letter led to a meeting, and ultimately to the...
Friends, Associates
Marianne Moore
MM
corresponded with T. S. Eliot
from 1921 until the year before his death. She was a friend of H. D.
and of Bryher
, and her editors believe that every one of her five...
Friends, Associates
Ruth Pitter
RP
knew T. S. Eliot
well enough to enjoy a courtly encounter with him at a bus stop, but she felt his great innovations had not necessarily been a good thing for English poetry, and...
Friends, Associates
Cecily Mackworth
Her literary circle in Paris was highly eclectic: the many camps in which she had friends included the Surrealist rump, the incoming Existentialists, and the Communists (who were mostly ex-Surrealists).
Harriet Shaw Weaver
had approached the Hogarth Press
about publishing Ulysses in April 1918, but the Woolfs declined, mainly because they could not have printed so massive a work themselves and because Leonard could find...
Friends, Associates
Hannah Arendt
HA
's journalistic and editorial work meant that she met almost everyone who belonged to the intellectual scene in New York, as well as those just passing through, like T. S. Eliot
. Those who...
