"Intensity by association": T. S. Eliot's Passionate Allusions1

• Published in: Modernism/modernity (Baltimore, Md.) Md.), 2013-11, Vol.20 (4), p.709
• Main Author: Bush, Ron
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: American literature; British & Irish literature; Criticism; Eliot, T S (Thomas Stearns) (1888-1965); Literary criticism; Modernism; Poetry; Pound, Ezra (1885-1972); Public speaking; Reading
• ISSN: 1071-6068; 1080-6601

The two poets' understanding of the essential obscurity at the core of modernist 711 literary allusion and of the way that poetry communicates forms an important part of the critical pas de deux between them, which transpired from 1925, when Eliot first read Principles (LII, 589, 649), to 1927, when he reviewed its successor Science and Poetry, a review that prepared the ground for the heavy influence of Richards on the Norton lectures.11 This dialogue has come down to us largely in terms of the problem of poetry and belief that Eliot, energized by his recent conversion to the Anglican church, explored in his 1927 review and in the Norton lectures (particularly in "Shel- ley and Keats").12 But focusing primarily on poetry and belief effaces the character of Richards's earlier and more significant contributions to Eliot's views about how modern poetry means and how it communicates-contributions that surface in Eliot's review when he praises Richards's "penetrating and highly valuable criticism of contemporary poetry.