I at first found it quite difficult to find the right way to approach this work of T.S. Eliot’s without attempting tackle the whole of the immense body of literature and cultural ideas Eliot involves in his work. However, in exploring contemporary movements to that of Modernist poetry I saw that Eliot was using the same distortion of reality as the Surrealist painters of that time to achieve the same goal, the creation of a new lens through which the audience could observe the world and the scenes these artists were describing. From this idea I explored just a few of the many ways in which Eliot forms this lens, whether that be through literary reference and association or various poetic devices.
F. VAUGHAN IMMERWAHR is a rising junior studying Economics and Art History in the College of Arts and Sciences. He was born and raised in Seattle, WA. He would like to thank Professor Tandon for all his help with each step of the writing process, throughout the semester. Professor Tandon was consistently able to provoke strong engagement with the material of study and always showed a genuine interest in the success of his students’ work.