On Poetry and Poets

T. S. Eliot was not only one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century—he was also one of the most acute writers on his craft. In On Poetry and Poets, which was first published in 1957, Eliot explores the different forms and purposes of poetry in essays such as “The Three Voices of Poetry,” “Poetry and Drama,” and “What Is Minor Poetry?” as well as considerations of the works of individual poets, including Virgil, Milton, Byron, Goethe, and Yeats. As he writes in “The Music of Poetry,” “We must expect a time to come when poetry will have again to be recalled to speech. The same problems arise, and always in new forms; and poetry has always before it . . . an ‘endless adventure.’”



Table of Contents
Preface

ON POETRY
The Social Function of Poetry
The Music of Poetry
What Is Minor Poetry?
What Is a Classic?
Poetry and Drama
The Three Voices of Poetry
The Frontiers of Criticism

ON POETS
Virgil and the Christian World
Sir John Davies
Milton I
Milton II
Johnson as Critic and Poet
Byron
Goethe as the Sage
Rudyard Kipling
Yeats