T.S. Eliot and Prejudice

This is an examination of T.S. Eliot's poetry in which the author considers the works against a background of the social and political problems of prejudice. Eliot was writing at a time of great contradiction in thought; never has the accusation of prejudice been stronger, and yet never has there been so wide an agreement that no understanding of anything is possible without preconceptions. Christopher Ricks is author of "Milton's Grand Style", "Tennyson", "Keats and Embarrassment" and "The Force of Poetry".

Ricks has written not merely a fine study of T.S. Eliot but an interesting work of criticism that combines the best of New Criticism (a strict reading of texts and keen awareness of ambiguity) and of Deconstruction (a sensitivity to the way the text undercuts itself and deliberately frustrates simplistic "reader responses"). Ricks does an admirable job of explicating Eliot's "Prufrock," and in all his readings he gives fresh evidence of the highly complicated mind Eliot brought to bear on even the titles of his work. This is not another tired discussion of Eliot's racial prejudices (which Ricks nicely contrasts with those of Pound) but a profound inquiry into the nature of writing about prejudice, a kind of minefield where "even the demolition squad sows its own bombs." Recommended for all larger collections.
- Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill.
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