'He had recommended T.S. Eliot to the War Office in 1918, and continued to praise his poetry and his periodical, the "Criterion"'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett Print: Serial / periodical
Friday 14 February 1931: 'Janet Case yesterday [...] I suppose over 70 now [...] She
clings to youth. "But we never see any young people" & so reads Tom Eliot &c'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Janet Case Print: Book
'T. S. Eliot's The Rock. A Pageant Play had been performed at Sadler's Wells Theatre 28 May-9 June [1934] in aid of the Forty-Five Churches Fund of the Diocese of London, and was published at the same time. V[irginia] W[oolf] only read it, and expressed her views in a letter to Stephen Spender'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Tuesday 17 January 1939: 'Yesterday I went to the London Library [...] read Tom [Eliot]'s swan song in the Criterion [...] home & read Delacroix journals; about whiich I could write: I mean the idea is that its among the painters not the writers one finds stability, consolation. This refers to a sentence of his about the profundity of the painter's meaning; & how a writer always superficialises.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Serial / periodical
Thursday 16 March 1939: 'Yesterday in Bond Street where I finally did lay out £10 on clothes, I saw a crowd round a car, & on the back seat was a Cheetah with a chain round his loins. I also found a presentation copy of Tom's Family Reunion; & sucked no pleasure from the first pages.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Wednesday 22 March 1939: 'Tom sent me his play, Family Reunion. No, it don't do. I read it over the week end. It starts theories. But no... You see the experiment with stylised chatter isnt successful. he's a lyric not a dramatic. But here theres no free lyricism. is caught back by the character [...] A clever beginning, & some ideas; but they spin out: & nothing grips: all mist -- a failure: a proof hes not a dramatist. A monologist.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
'I have pleasure in stating that Mr. T.S. Eliot (whom I understand to be a candidate for a commission in the Quartermasters or Interpreters Corps) has an intimate knowledge of the French language. Also that he is a writer of distinguished merit, for whose work personally I have a great admiration.'
Unknown
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Arnold Bennett
Leonard Woolf to T. S. Eliot, 5 May 1930:
'You are the only living poet I can read twice; only in your case I cannot stop at twice & go on rereading until something from outside intervenes to stop me. The usual thing happened to me the other evening with Ash Wednesday. It is amazingly beautiful. I dislike the doctrine, as you probably know, but the poetry remains & shows how unimportant belief or unbelief may be.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Leonard Woolf Print: Book
' "Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality." This [T. S. Eliot, Sacred Wood, p52] seems sound, but "emotions which he has never experienced will serve his turn as well as those familiar to him" is surely nonsense. He recovers in "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But of course only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from those things."'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
'Meeting held at 22 Cintra Avenue: 23.6.36
Francis E Pollard in the Chair.
1. Minutes of last read and, with the addition of No. 7, approved.
7. Frank Pollard then introduced the subject for the evening, Modern Authors. [...]
8. There followed a series of talks, in most cases acompanied by readings: these were in the
order named
Janet Rawlings, on E. H. Young’s “Miss Mole’
Dorothy Brain, on T. S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral”
R. H Robson on some Poems of W. H. Auden
V. W. Alexander on René Bazin’s “La Terre qui meurt” and “Les Oberlé”, and finally
Charles Stansfield on Winifred Holtby’s “South Riding.”'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Dorothy Brain Print: Book
'Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park. Jan 27th 1942
J. Knox Taylor in the Chair.
1. In the absence of the Secretary the minutes of the last meeting were read by
Alice Joselin.
2. With reference to Minute 6 of the last meeting, i.e. the selection of books for
reading this year, it was decided that as two of the selected books could not be
procured, Margaret Dilks and Mary S. W. Pollard should be asked to select two
alternatives from the last list. The minutes were then approved and signed.
4. After partaking of coffee, the excellence of which & the enjoyment thereof,
being in no way impaired by the introduction of powdered milk, (despite our host’s
perturbation at this war-time inclusion!) we settled down with eager expectations
and interest to the main business of the evening.
5. The subject was a provocative one “Modern Poetry” & we very gladly welcomed
Kenneth Nicholson into our midst, as he had kindly consented to come & talk to us
about modern poetry & to lead us into the strange regions of this somewhat
unknown world.
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins & W. B. Yeats were apparently the leaders in breaking
away from the old traditions of poetry-making, & of setting up a new form, even
expressing a new spirit. We then listened to poems of T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen &
W. Auden, & saw how this new way progressed & was elaborated.
We were bewildered, astounded & intrigued by turns! Through the intracacies [sic]
of “sprung rhythm”, down the “arterial roads” of poetical imagery of the early
1920’s to the more apparently intelligible sombreness of recent poetry, we were
led gently but inexorably, by our persuasive speaker, to see & realise that
however strangely we might regard this literature of our age, we must
acknowledge the urgency & sincerity of what the modern poet had to say.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Kenneth F. Nicholson Print: Book
Meeting held at School House, Leighton Park. Jan 27th 1942
J. Knox Taylor in the Chair.
1. In the absence of the Secretary the minutes of the last meeting were read by
Alice Joselin.
2. With reference to Minute 6 of the last meeting, i.e. the selection of books for
reading this year, it was decided that as two of the selected books could not be
procured, Margaret Dilks and Mary S. W. Pollard should be asked to select two
alternatives from the last list. The minutes were then approved and signed.
4. After partaking of coffee, the excellence of which & the enjoyment thereof,
being in no way impaired by the introduction of powdered milk, (despite our host’s
perturbation at this war-time inclusion!) we settled down with eager expectations
and interest to the main business of the evening.
5. The subject was a provocative one “Modern Poetry” & we very gladly welcomed
Kenneth Nicholson into our midst, as he had kindly consented to come & talk to us
about modern poetry & to lead us into the strange regions of this somewhat
unknown world.
6. Gerard Manley Hopkins & W. B. Yeats were apparently the leaders in breaking
away from the old traditions of poetry-making, & of setting up a new form, even
expressing a new spirit. We then listened to poems of T. S. Eliot, Wilfred Owen &
W. Auden, & saw how this new way progressed & was elaborated.
We were bewildered, astounded & intrigued by turns! Through the intracacies [sic]
of “sprung rhythm”, down the “arterial roads” of poetical imagery of the early
1920’s to the more apparently intelligible sombreness of recent poetry, we were
led gently but inexorably, by our persuasive speaker, to see & realise that
however strangely we might regard this literature of our age, we must
acknowledge the urgency & sincerity of what the modern poet had to say.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Kenneth F. Nicholson Print: Book
