Eliot, T. S.

A fine collection of 11 typed letters signed ("T. S. Eliot"), 16 pages on 12 leaves (most 10 x 8 1/4 in.; 254 x 210 mm) on Faber & Faber letterhead, London, 31 August 1939–11 August 1948, to E. J. H. Greene (Paris, Caen, and Edmonton, Alberta); horizontal and vertical fold on each sheet.  2 typed envelopes and fragments of 2 others, 1940–48.

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T. S. Eliot reflects on French influences on his poetry in a superb cache of unpublished letters to E. J. H. Greene, a young Canadian writing a dissertation on the poet.  The correspondence begins at the end of August 1939 with Eliot thanking Greene for sending from Paris as promised a volume by the 19th-century French satirical poet Laurent Tailhade: "Tailhade is, by the way, very soothing war-time reading.  He wears well."  Writing to Greene who is in Caen by mid-September 1939, Eliot ends another letter with a brief postscript: "I should be interested if you come across the name of Eliot in the Calvados.  I have been told that persons of the name are not unknown — dans des situations modestes."  A month later, Eliot is writing to correct Greene's chronology of his early poetry, including "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" 1910–11 ("begun at Harvard, and finished at Munich").  The letter also includes a revealing paragraph on the importance of Jules Laforgue on the poet's early work.  Moving into 1940, Eliot discusses the importance for him of Charles Murras, writer and principal thinker of the far-right Action Française movement, and Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritan. Other writers mentioned include Claudel, Gide, Daudet, Bergson, Bloy, Péguy, and Santayana.  Of a far more important influence on his work, he writes, "Baudelaire's critical work, especially his art criticism, I have always very much admired.  I say always, but I cannot remember when I first began to read it.  Perhaps not till the early 'twenties."

After a hiatus of seven years, the correspondence resumes again on 30 June 1947, with Greene in Canada, at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.  Returning to the subject of French influences on his early writings, Eliot remarks, "My present impression is that I read a good deal of Rimbaud within the same year in which I made the acquaintance of Laforgue.  At that time, however, from perhaps 1908 until 1912 I was so much under the influence of Laforgue that Rimbaud could have made only a slighter impression.  In subsequent years however I have certainly reread Rimbaud as well as Mallarmé a number of times.  Whereas Laforgue is a poet to whom I have felt no need to return."  In this and the subsequent letters of 1947–48, the poet mentions Corbière, George Meredith, Claudel, Alain-Fournier ("I took private lesson in French from Alain-Fournier in the course of which he directed my reading in several directions"), his time at Harvard, Oxford, and in Germany, and a lecture on Poe he is giving in Marseilles.  Perhaps most interesting of all, Eliot remarks, "Whether I had Mallarmé at all consciously in mind in the beginning of the fifth section of Burnt Norton I cannot now tell." 

The correspondence ends with Eliot congratulating Greene on completing his dissertation at the Sorbonne and agreeing to read it.  Upon reading the paper, Eliot writes, "I have read your dissertation with much interest.  It seems to me quite thorough and exhaustive and an admirable piece of work that should leave no scope for any other study of the subject …. I also hope it will be published."

Included with the collection is a draft of a letter written by Greene to Eliot on 21 November 1947 from Paris.

A highly important and hitherto unknown collection of letters written by Eliot primarily during the early years of World War II, clearly outlining the formative French influences on his thought and writings.