T. S. Eliot and the Mother

This interdisciplinary book emphasises the importance of T. S. Eliot's mother, Charlotte, to his life and works. Drawing on revealing new Eliot materials, Geary rethinks the poet's ambivalence toward women in the context of mother-son ambivalence, showing how his search for belief and love converged with a developing maternal poetics.

List of contents

Introduction
1 ‘There Will be Time to Murder and Create’:
Creative/Destructive Ambivalence in T. S. Eliot’s Early Poetry
2 Maternal Allegory:
Death and the Mother, Faith and Revelation in Ash-Wednesday
3 Ash-Wednesday: A Poetics of the Maternal Body
4 Recognition in ‘Marina’ and ‘Coriolan’:
Sea-Changes in Eliot’s Thinking on the Maternal
5 ‘Everything Has Always Been Referred Back to Mother’:
The Melodramatic Staging of Ambivalence in The Family Reunion
Conclusion: T. S. Eliot’s Stabat Mater

About the author

Matthew Geary is an independent scholar in English Literature, Modernism, Psychoanalysis, Feminist Philosophy, Critical Theory, and Maternal Studies.

Summary

This interdisciplinary book emphasises the importance of T. S. Eliot’s mother, Charlotte, to his life and works. Drawing on revealing new Eliot materials, Geary rethinks the poet’s ambivalence toward women in the context of mother-son ambivalence, showing how his search for belief and love converged with a developing maternal poetics.

Product details

• Authors: Matthew Geary
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.05.2023
• EAN: 9780367760472
• ISBN: 978-0-367-76047-2
• No. of pages: 320
• Series: Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; English, LITERARY CRITICISM / Poetry, LITERARY CRITICISM / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Reference, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Women, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 19th Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature, LITERARY CRITICISM / Feminist, Feminism & feminist theory, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary theory, Feminism and feminist theory, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000