It makes sense in many ways to start with T S Eliot in the series: he's got a good claim to be the most accomplished and is surely the most influential of the poets included (although arguably it's Pound who was most influential, working through Eliot). Both The Waste Land and Four Quartets stand out among the poetry of the time and his other works on their own would be sufficient to make Eliot a significant minor poet (by his own definition). That he was also a major essayist, publisher and dramatist only adds to his lustre.
Craig Raine's introduction is curious: it's a well-turned short piece that manages to approach Eliot with a degree of freshness (no small achievement, that). It also covers a range of Eliot's aspects, from the humorous (often overlooked) to the erudite (no contradiction) to the nature poet. This latter is perhaps the most striking angle in the piece and not one I'm quite convinced by. Eliot seems to me to be someone who is highly skilled at imitating the way that poets write about nature, rather than a nature poet directly. He also uses nature to get to some other point, rather than as an object of attention of intrinsic interest. But it's true that he's very accomplished at describing it, even in passing.
However, although the introduction is interesting and fresh, it does obstruct the reader at the same time as trying to draw them in. He gets a little distracted by academic and literary historical associations (it can't be helpful to refer to which reader's guides are 'required' to read Pound and Joyce, for example). Which isn't to say that the reference points aren't exactly the right ones - but perhaps he is assuming that his readers are more comfortable with glancing references to Browning than is the case? And, unless I'm huncommonly iggorant, 'The staminate and pistillate, /Blest office of the epicene' is not exactly 'easy to appreciate'.
A couple of other provocative statements which (as he no doubt intended) it is difficult to let lie: that 'all contemporary poetry when it is contemporary is initially baffling to its readers' (I'll come back to this one separately) and this gem:
'...a postmodern poetic school led by J H Prynne whose purpose is to be difficult... (not difficult to be difficult, actually).'
I'm not sure that saying it's their purpose to be difficult is a fair characterisation (though clearly, they don't go out of their way to avoid it). But the aside in brackets is a neat point which would be usefully remembered by all of Pound's (and Eliot's) heirs. I doubt whether the heavily armoured knight of obscurity J H Prynne is likely to feel such a pin-prick, though.
But enough of Mr Raine (though he once did Eliot's former job as Editor at Faber, we should not let him occupy the great man's place here). It's an interesting and rounded selection from Eliot's work. It would have been easy to have dwelt only on the big famous poems (and they are the famous ones for a reason). But having some of the shorter, more whimsical pieces does help make sense of Eliot's style when it's in its Sunday best. Even at full pitch, he's playful and (whisper it) on occasion irrelevant (which is part of the pleasure). Apart from anything else, La Figlia Che Piange is one of the loveliest poems I know.
That said, it brings me to one particular issue (admittedly hard to avoid when selecting from Eliot): having two of the first three poems starting with an epigram in a foreign tongue is a little off-putting (perhaps a note or two would have been helpful?). I suppose that feeling of frustration that an otherwise powerfully expressive poem has been held at arms length because of a scrap of Latin is an essential part of the experience of reading Eliot for the first time. But it's not very user-friendly, particularly given the distribution through a national newspaper.
Another intriguing feature of this selection which makes good use of theguardian's involvement is the inclusion of selections from early reviews. It's amusing to hear (ok I'll say it: 'the greatest poem of the Twentieth Century': there) described as 'The Waste Land an accident in which poetry has been wounded to death'. It's illuminating too; not just in a 'ooh weren't they wrong' kind of way. Eliot and his fellow High Modernists did do a lot of damage to widespread enjoyment of poetry. Some folks just don't dig that Greek 'n' Latin vibe.
There's amusement too in the statement (just listen to all the self-satisfied and consternated undertones) 'we [sic] cannot think that an acquaintance with "The Golden Bough," Verlaine, Nerval, St Augustine, Marvell, Kyd, Virgil and Dante displays any deep erudition'. Righty-ho. Still, you'd think that if he was that well read he'd realise that Mr Eliot's not actually too shabby, all in all. Doh!
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