Allen Tate/ T.S. Eliot Symposium

Collection

Identifier: MSS.0735

Staff Only

Scope and Content Note

These papers concern the publication of a Symposium on T.S. Eliot edited by Allen Tate and published as a Seymour Lawrence Book by Delacorte Press in 1966 with the title T. S. Eliot: The Man and His Work: A Critical Evaluation by 26 Distinguished Writers.

After the death of Eliot on January 4, 1965 Allen Tate brought together these twenty- six essays in reminiscence and tribute to Eliot and his contribution to twentieth century literature. The book is the hardcover edition of the special Winter issue of The Sewanee Review devoted to the late poet which sold out completely its 4500 issues shortly after it appeared. Among the 27 contributors to this collection are I.A. Richards, Stephen Spender, Ezra Pound, C. Day Lewis, Helen Gardner, and Conrad Aiken. Photographs of Eliot are included in the book.

This small collection (0.2 linear feet) consists primarily of correspondence concerning the actual permissions and publication details and editorial work involved in the publication of this book.

Dates

multiple

Language of Materials

English

Biographical Notes

T.S. Eliot (1888 – 1965) was born in St. Louis Missouri and educated at Harvard and later at the Sorbonne and at Merton College, Oxford. He became a British citizen in November of 1927, the same year he converted to Anglicanism; even so he always acknowledged the profound influence of his American roots on his writing.

He was a poet, a playwright, and a critic and received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948, and a commemorative stone installed in 1967 in the Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey in London. He is generally regarded as the most influential poet of the twentieth century having published such masterpieces as:

The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock, The Wasteland, Ash Wednesday, The Four Quartets, Murder in the Cathedral, and O’Possum’s Book of Practical Cats which was the basis for the hit musical Cats.

Allen Tate (1899 - 1979) graduated from Vanderbilt in 1922. He was invited to join the Fugitive poets and later went on to join the Agrarian group and contributed to both I’ll Take My Stand (1930) and Who Owns America? (1936). He taught at a number of universities including Princeton and the University of Minnesota, and was editor of The Sewanee Review from 1944 - 46. Tate was a distinguished teacher, critic, novelist and poet and was honored in many ways for his work including holding the Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress from 1943 - 44. Allen Tate’s friendship with T.S. Eliot spanned thirty- six years, and his work to bring together the essays honoring Eliot is his enduring tribute to this great poet.