You are currently viewing Preludes | The Keynote of Eliot’s Poetry

Preludes | The Keynote of Eliot’s Poetry

Preludes: Introducing Eliot

“Preludes” means an introduction. Eliot’s Preludes is not just an introduction to his own poetry, but of an entire generation of poets and philosophers. To study Eliot’s “Preludes,” is to allow oneself the initiation that Eliot found necessary, to understand the more complex network of images which abound his longer poems.

Preludes I

The winter evening settles down

With smell of steaks in passageways.

Six o’clock.

The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

And now a gusty shower wraps

The grimy scraps

Of withered leaves about your feet

And newspapers from vacant lots;

The showers beat

On broken blinds and chimney-pots,

And at the corner of the street

A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps.

Read the full article

Watch the Video Lecture

preludes
Click for Video Lecture

Leave a Reply