Editing T. S. Eliot (section)

===Responses to his poetry===
The writer Ronald Bush noted that Eliot's early poems like "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", "Portrait of a Lady", "La Figlia Che Piange", "Preludes", and "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" had "[an] effect [that] was both unique and compelling, and their assurance staggered [Eliot's] contemporaries who were privileged to read them in manuscript. [Conrad] Aiken, for example, marveled at 'how sharp and complete and [[sui generis]] the whole thing was, from the outset. The wholeness is there, from the very beginning.'"<ref name="english.illinois.edu" />

The initial critical response to Eliot's ''The Waste Land'' was mixed. Bush noted that the piece was at first correctly perceived as a work of jazz-like syncopation—and, like 1920s [[jazz]], essentially iconoclastic."<ref name="english.illinois.edu"/> Some critics, like [[Edmund Wilson]], [[Conrad Aiken]], and [[Gilbert Seldes]] thought it was the best poetry being written in the English language while others thought it was esoteric and wilfully difficult. Edmund Wilson, being one of the critics who praised Eliot, called him "one of our only authentic poets".<ref name="Wilson, Edmund 1922">Wilson, Edmund, "The Poetry of Drouth". ''The Dial'' 73. December 1922. 611–16.</ref> Wilson also pointed out some of Eliot's weaknesses as a poet. In regard to ''The Waste Land'', Wilson admits its flaws ("its lack of structural unity"), but concluded, "I doubt whether there is a single other poem of equal length by a contemporary American which displays so high and so varied a mastery of English verse."<ref name="Wilson, Edmund 1922"/>

Charles Powell was critical in his assessment of Eliot, calling his poems incomprehensible.<ref>Powell, Charles, "So Much Waste Paper". ''Manchester Guardian'', 31 October 1923.</ref> And the writers of ''Time'' magazine were similarly baffled by a challenging poem like ''The Waste Land''.<ref>''Time'', 3 March 1923, 12.</ref> [[John Crowe Ransom]] wrote negative criticisms of Eliot's work but also had positive things to say. For instance, though Ransom negatively criticised ''The Waste Land'' for its "extreme disconnection", Ransom was not completely condemnatory of Eliot's work and admitted that Eliot was a talented poet.<ref>Ransom, John Crowe. "Waste Lands". ''New York Evening Post Literary Review'', 14 July 1923, pp. 825–26.</ref>

Addressing some of the common criticisms directed against ''The Waste Land'' at the time, Gilbert Seldes stated, "It seems at first sight remarkably disconnected and confused... [however] a closer view of the poem does more than illuminate the difficulties; it reveals the hidden form of the work, [and] indicates how each thing falls into place."<ref>Seldes, Gilbert. "T. S. Eliot". ''Nation'', 6 December 1922. 614–616.</ref>

Eliot's reputation as a poet, as well as his influence in the academy, peaked following the publication of ''The Four Quartets''. In an essay on Eliot published in 1989, the writer [[Cynthia Ozick]] refers to this peak of influence (from the 1940s through the early 1960s) as "the Age of Eliot" when Eliot "seemed pure zenith, a colossus, nothing less than a permanent luminary, fixed in the firmament like the sun and the moon".<ref>{{cite magazine|first=Cynthia |last=Ozick| url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1989/11/20/t-s-eliot-at-101|title=T.S. ELIOT AT 101|magazine=[[The New Yorker]]|date=20 November 1989|access-date=1 December 2016}}</ref> But during this post-war period, others, like Ronald Bush, observed that this time also marked the beginning of the decline in Eliot's literary influence:
{{Conservatism UK}}
{{blockquote|As Eliot's conservative religious and political convictions began to seem less congenial in the postwar world, other readers reacted with suspicion to his assertions of authority, obvious in ''Four Quartets'' and implicit in the earlier poetry. The result, fueled by intermittent rediscovery of Eliot's occasional anti-Semitic rhetoric, has been a progressive downward revision of his once towering reputation.<ref name="english.illinois.edu"/>}}
Bush also notes that Eliot's reputation "slipped" significantly further after his death. He writes, "Sometimes regarded as too academic ([[William Carlos Williams]]'s view), Eliot was also frequently criticized for a deadening [[neoclassicism]] (as he himself—perhaps just as unfairly—had criticized [[John Milton|Milton]]). However, the multifarious tributes from practicing poets of many schools published during his centenary in 1988 was a strong indication of the intimidating continued presence of his poetic voice."<ref name="english.illinois.edu"/>

Literary scholars, such as [[Harold Bloom]]<ref>Bloom, Harold. ''The Western Canon: Books and Schools of the Ages''. NY: Riverhead, 1995.</ref> and [[Stephen Greenblatt]],<ref name=Norton>Stephen Greenblatt, et al. (eds), ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2''. "T.S. Eliot". New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.: NY, NY, 2000.</ref> acknowledge Eliot's poetry as central to the literary English canon. For instance, the editors of ''The Norton Anthology of English Literature'' write, "There is no disagreement on [Eliot's] importance as one of the great renovators of the English poetry dialect, whose influence on a whole generation of poets, critics, and intellectuals generally was enormous. [However] his range as a poet [was] limited, and his interest in the great middle ground of human experience (as distinct from the extremes of saint and sinner) [was] deficient." Despite this criticism, these scholars also acknowledge "[Eliot's] poetic cunning, his fine craftsmanship, his original accent, his historical and representative importance as ''the'' poet of the modern [[Symbolism (arts)|symbolist]]-[[Metaphysical poets|Metaphysical]] tradition".<ref name=Norton />