Of the many different kinds of anti-Semite, T. S. Eliot was the rarest kind: one who was able to place his anti-Semitism at the service of his art. Anthony Julius's critically acclaimed study looks both at the detail of Eliot's deployment of anti-Semitic discourse and at the role it played in his greater literary undertaking. Julius's seminal study has provoked a reassessment of Eliot's work among poets, scholars, critics and readers, which will invigorate debate for some time to come.
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Be sure to check the notes!!!:
The dishonest approach used by Julius throughout this book is characterized by the quotation on page xiii that refers to a personal confrontation in South Africa between Eliot and a Mrs. Millen. The confrontation simply never happened. Julius refers to this item several times in the body of the text. He explains the fabrication in a footnote as "at best, a melodramatic and telescoped version of the truth." No, it is a lie. It refers to a meeting that never happened and the quote has not been removed or... more info
Devastating critique of anti- Semitic Eliot:
I studied the work of Elliot in graduate school. I knew the Anti- Semitic passages, and thus held myself distant from the cult of Elliot worship. Nonetheless reading Julius' deeper probing into Eliot's Anti-Semitism I am angry at myself for not being more outraged. It turns out that Eliot did not want Jewish readers. He scorned us.
The lines of 'Burbank with a Baedaker, Bleisten with a cigar' and other lines from 'Gerontion' would fit in well with Nazi propaganda.
Apparently Eliot was as... more info
T.S. Eliot and the Aesthetics of Anti-Semitism:
Anthony Julius has written the most objective and informative work to date on the anti-semitic aesthetics of Eliot's early poetry. Though the author is an admirer of Eliot, he is not the least bit apologetic about his attempts to come to the grips with the literary consequences of an anti-semitic aesthetic. Julius takes a cue from deconstruction when he notes that any attempts to remove or downplay anti-semitic elements in Eliot's poetry will only serve to destroy the thematic body of Eliot's vast literary... more info
