Words Alone: The Poet T. S. Eliot - Hardcover

Denis Donoghue

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300083297 ISBN 13: 9780300083293

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2000

Synopsis

When Denis Donoghue left Warrenpoint and went to Dublin in September 1946, he entered University College as a student of Latin and English. A few months later he also started as a student of lieder at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. These studies have informed his reading of English, Irish, and American literature.

Now in this volume, one of our most distinguished readers of modern literature offers his most personal book of literary criticism. Donoghue's Words Alone is an intellectual memoir, a lucid and illuminating account of his engagement with the works of T. S. Eliot -- from initial undergraduate encounters with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to later submission to Eliot's entire writings. "The pleasure of Eliot's words persists", Donoghue says, "only because in good faith it can't be denied".

Submission to Eliot, in Donoghue's case, involves the ear as much as it does the mind. He is a reader who listens attentively and a writer whose own music in these pages commands attention. Whether he is writing about Eliot's poetry or confronting the (often contentious) prose, Donoghue eloquently demonstrates what it means to read and to hear a master of language.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Donoghue has found a new way of combining autobiography and criticism, and the justification for the experiment is the maturity -- the wisdom -- of his commentary on Eliot's poetry. Resolutely a Christian himself, he does something slightly unusual and comments on the poems with a Christian intimacy, but his work is always illuminated by a decisiveness and strength that will make it valuable to all intelligent readers." -- Frank Kermode

"A probing and wide-ranging examination of Eliot's poetry that treats the work with respectful seriousness." -- New York Times Book Review

"Superb." -- Steven Moore, Washington Post Book World

A New York Times Book Review Notable Book

About the Author:

Denis Donoghue is University Professor and Henry James Professor of English and American Letters at New York University. His book The Practice of Reading, published by Yale University Press, received the Robert Penn Warren/Cleanth Brooks Award for literary criticism. He is also the author of Walter Pater: Lover of Strange Souls, Warrenpoint, and many other books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0300083297
• ISBN 13: 9780300083293
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352