T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, 1888–1922

By James E. Miller Jr.

Late in his life T. S. Eliot, when asked if his poetry belonged in the tradition of American literature, replied: “I’d say that my poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America than with anything written in my generation in England. That I’m sure of. . . . In its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America.” In T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, James Miller offers the first sustained account of Eliot’s early years, showing that the emotional springs of his poetry did indeed come from America.

Miller challenges long-held assumptions about Eliot’s poetry and his life. Eliot himself always maintained that his poems were not based on personal experience, and thus should not be read as personal poems. But Miller convincingly combines a reading of the early work with careful analysis of surviving early correspondence, accounts from Eliot’s friends and acquaintances, and new scholarship that delves into Eliot’s Harvard years. Ultimately, Miller demonstrates that Eliot’s poetry is filled with reflections of his personal experiences: his relationships with family, friends, and wives; his sexuality; his intellectual and social development; his influences.

Publication of T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet marks a milestone in Eliot scholarship. At last we have a balanced portrait of the poet and the man, one that takes seriously his American roots. In the process, we gain a fuller appreciation for some of the best-loved poetry of the twentieth century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PSUPress
• Release date: Aug 24, 2005
• ISBN: 9780271033198

Book preview

Reviews for T. S. Eliot

[stillatim · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

There's plenty of information in this book. But just so you know what you're getting: it's not a narrative biography. It's not even a biography really. It's more like a digest of the first volume of T. S. Eliot's letters, read with an eye to 'proving' that Eliot was homosexual. This all leads to much use of the biographer's 'must have' and 'surely,' as in, "Given that Eliot had gay friends, Eliot must have been homosexual" or "Given that Eliot powdered his face and read Havelock Ellis, he surely was homosexual." That's my digest of the book, in which wherever there's a tube, there's a phallus, and wherever there are two men, there's gay sex. Being 'homosexual' is a fixed attribute, apparently, kind of like being six foot two. None of that silly sexuality is a continuum nonsense here.
Even if we leave aside its from tendentiousness, the argument is circular. One example of the general argumentative strategy: we're told on 283 that "It is possible to read "Eeldrop and Appleplex as quite revelatory of Eliot's psyche." Miller then provides a reading of the story which concludes that "although this short story has regrettably been forgotten, it is of interest for the light it sheds on Eliot's life." That is if you approach a text as telling us something about a poet's life, then that text will tell you something about that poet's life. Extraordinary insight! And all the more upsetting, because I would like to know more about this story, which really has been forgotten.

Okay, I could rant all day. Point is, you might want to look at this in a library if you're writing a paper about Eliot's early poetry. There's plenty of facts here. But it by no means suggests, let alone proves, that Eliot was an 'American Poet,' nor that homosexuality was an enormous influence on his poetry. And the writing is so atrocious that I must caution everyone against trying to read it all the way through.