This paper intends to reveal that Eliot’s life has a good influence on his poems, especially appearing in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats which was published in 1939. But a version of it was announced by Faber and Faber, as “Mr. Eliot’s Book of Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats as Recited to him by the Man in White Spats,’ in the spring of 1936. Therefore we need to feel out the period from before and between 1936 to 1939, when Eliot suffered fromdomestic problems ashe tried to divorce his wife Vivienne, and Vivienne herself was confined to the mental hospital Northumberland House in 1938. So this paper deals with his personal experiences (or situations and accidents) happening through his unhappy marriage, especially the emotional conflicts between him and his wife Vivienne in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

T. S. Eliot has been known as a poet and critic for being so serious and moralistic that he might teach his readers. Yet, he published Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats in 1939 for children, especially for his friends. In this sense, this poetry is aimedat amusing children with an allegory of a variety of cats. Usually, the style that children like lies in amusement in form and satirical language in use. Eliot knew it; so it is an interesting task to examine the significance of the old possum, his nickname, from the poetry for children, and the poet hidden behind the nickname. The Old Possum poetry appears to take into account what children like: a poetry collection of amusement and seriousness put together for children using lively rhythms and regular rhymes according to the characteristics of practical cats. The poetry shows a variety of each cat’s characters and habits, which, the poet believes, practically reflect various forms of human life. Above all, Eliot tried to associate practical cats in profound meditation with himself as a thoughtful, yet invisible poet and critic just like the wild, yet shy animal: a metaphor of the old possum in poetry.

In the case of T. S. Eliot, the difference between the use value of literature and its exchange value stems from the philosophical difference between the inner value of literature and its outer value. In the view of literature from an economic value, its exchange for money means the exchange of cultural and literary capital. Yet, it is not easy to ignore Marx’s concern the about the disturbing author’s consciousness of social criticism and his/her communication with reader’s when a literary work exceeds its worth by a critic in terms of commodity fetishism. But, if insight about human beings and society turns out to be a property of capital as a productive added-value, its literary worth is so satisfying that the fetishism of the reader as a consumer for the book cannot be an irrational action towards the market. From such a view, the study of economics of literature in the case of Eliot, gives us an instance in which we can find the use value of humanities in literature and its exchange value in terms of economics. As a poet, critic, and publisher, Eliot can be a most valuable person in literary history necessary for the study of literature in the light of economics. This paper examines Eliot through the effect of unity between literature and economics on the study of economics of literature and its positive elements in market, such as literary production, publication, distribution, and consumption.

T. S. Eliot uses many biblical passages throughout his poetry. Although he changed his faith from the Unitarian church to the Anglican Catholic church in 1927, he extensively uses the Bible to extend poetic significance of his poems. Before he converted into an Anglican Catholic, he mainly incorporates biblical text into his poetry to strengthen religious authority. One of the most important poems in which he poeticizes biblical text is “The Burial of the Dead” of The Waste Land. In The Waste Land, Eliot consistently mixes the prophetic messages of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, and John to achieve relative interpretation in “The Burial of the Dead.” However, he does not follow traditional, universal, and absolute interpretations of the Bible in the context of his poetic theme. Rather, he takes biblical text as one of many pluralistic religious poetics. In this sense, his biblical interpretation is plural, relative, and flexible. By using a pluralistic interpretation of the Bible, he extends his poetry into more mythic, philosophic, universal, and religious authority.

This paper intends to reveal that Eliot’s life entered a profound influence upon his earlier poems, especially in the unpublished work, Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917, which was edited by Christopher Ricks in 1996. Eliot said that there might be the experience of a child of ten, a small boy peering through sea-water in a rock-pool, and finding a sea-anemone for the first time: the simple experience (not so simple, for an exceptional child, as it looks) might lie dormant in his mind for twenty years, and re-appear transformed in some verse-context charged with great imaginative pressure. This paper deals with the personal experiences of his early years, from his boyhood to the time when he returned for the autumn term of 1911 and enrolled as a graduate student in philosophy; that is, the inhibiting circumstances from Unitarianism, the emotional conflicts between him and his parents from preparing for Harvard University, and from his mother’s opposition to studying abroad in Paris in 1910. In his poetry, Eliot reveals his passion for studying abroad in Paris that he kept in his mind even before graduation from Harvard University, and he also expresses his circumstances through his poems indirectly, something which he would not dare communicate directly to his strict family. For example, in the situation that he already had lost interest in Boston, the streets already seemed so boring and also it seemed the “Mandarins” says the oppressed feelings of his family that had been against the abroad study. He also expresses himself as a clownesque or a marionette, which even can’t make any decision about themselves.

T. S. Eliot’s The Varieties 01 Metaphysical Poelry(1993) shows that his interest in metaphysical poetry was not only focused on the seventeenlh century, but it also extended mainly from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries, so as to examine how a new metaphysical poetry co띠d come into being in his own time. Eliot’s study of Dante Alighieri, John Donne, and Jules Laforgue had both theoretical and pra띠cal purposes. Theoretical1y, he wanted to give a more comprehensive and historical explanation of how sensibility was divided into thought and feeling, and practical1y, he needed to find a new voice for his own metaphysical poetry, although accepting tbat divided sensibility was not to be completely reconciled again. Wbat Eliot meant by “metapbysicality" covers bis own bighest standard of poetry by wbicb the poet sho비d at least consider in his or her background “배e problem of Good and Evi1." In bis current generation, Eliot diagnoses, the problem is almost “forgotlen," whicb is far worse than it being in doubt or disbelief. He tbought evil could even be “a backdoor to Christianity" as in Baudelaire. In his pursuit for contemporary metapbysical poetry, Eliot found some examples in French poetry sucb as Baudelaire, Laforgue, and Corbière. Especially in the poetry of Laforgue he discovered a new ironical voice, which came oul of the chasm between bis “innate craving for order" and his consciousness of an irrecoverably degeneraled sensibility in tbe world.

This paper examined how the English Renaissance drama influenced Eliot's early poelry. Many critics like Hugh Kenner and Grover Smith insisted the relalionship between Eliot' s poetη and the English Renaissance drama, but they didn’t tell concretely how Eliot’s poetry was affected by the English Renaissance drama. First, I Iried to examine how the English Renaissance drama affected Eliol's poetry in terms of the form. As some critics indicaled Eliot was a poet who tended to improve the traditional English verse forms and use them. So he learned the blank verse form in lhe English Renaissance drama, improved and used il in his poems especially “Gerontion.'‘ And he used some lechniques like repetition he showed in Ihis poem in his several poems such as “The Love Song of J A lfred PrufTock," and “La Figlia Che Piange." Besides, Eliot used tbe English Renaissance drama as lhe significant source of allusions in his poems. For example, lines 5 and 6 of “Whispers of Immortality" can be associ ated witb Flamineo’s speech of John Webster’s The While Devi/ V. iv. Thus, Eliot Iried to put the concept of tbe deatb in life tbis speech implied in his poem. And he tried to show the speakers' self-dramatization in his early poems Ihat appeared in main characters’ speech in the English Renaissance drama by using these allusions. Thus, he attempted to sho\V the speakers' narcissistic mind that he thought tbe modem men had.

The main aim of Ihis article is 10 examine the significance of Ibe cily’s nighl in Eliot' s early poems, such as “The Little Passion." “Goldfish," "Prufrock’s Pervigilium," “Suile Clownesque," and “Rhapsody on a W indy ight." In these poems, Ihe cily’5 nigbt becomes the conlest zone in whicb bOlh the melropolis’s beauty and ugliness, and ils seduClion and hOTTor cúnf1iclingly coexist. Eliot" 5 f1anuers, who 51roll on urban slreels al night, are shocked (0 confront (he horror of high modemÎ(y. To some of them, as In “Prufrock’s Pervigilium.‘’ it is nol jusl the darkness of “problemalic" modemily bUI that of Iheir own inside Ihal Ihey encOunler 31 Iheir slrolling. A nother agenda that E liot" 5 early poems register is lhe urban nigh I as a gendered time-space, in which bOlh urban landscape and female bodies are transfigured inlo spectacular objecls under Ihe gaze of the desiring males. lnstead of foregrounding Ihe agenda of desire and sexualilY, Eliot's Oanuers, however, conslantly erase their OWIl desire by deployill8 l.be sLrategy of disavowal. In “Suite Clownesque," Lhe speaker’s lransgressive desire is effaced by lbe self.deconstructive parody of his perforrnative acts. “The Lillle Passion" presenlS anolher type of disavowal by displacing Ihe speaker's scxual desire into his own self.projecled Iragic characterizalÎon. Ralher l.han opening up a new/meaningful horizon of experience, lhe lransgressive desire in Eliot’5 poems is recaptured by lhe logic of modemity and lhc cily’s nighl, as exemplified in Ihe prostitule-moon in “Rhapsody on a Windy Nighl." becomes a lelling sign of Ihe “ugly" city.