Poetry and Drama

London: Faber & Faber, 1951 First English edition, first impression. One of 10,000 copies. Publisher's red cloth, with spine lettered in gilt; in its original blue and red dust jacket, with 7s. 6d. price to front flap. About fine book, with light offsetting to endpapers, and light spotting to a few pages at front and rear; very good or better unclipped dust jacket, with light wear to spine ends, some toning to spine and panel edges, and some spotting to rear panel. Overall, a pleasing copy. Gallup A57. This book contains T. S. Eliot's Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture, delivered on November 21st, 1950 at Harvard University. The first lecture in an annual series, it explores "the use of poetry for dramatic purposes, and the effect of the dramatic purpose on poetry." In the second section of the lecture, Eliot critically examines his own use of poetry and prose in dramatic works like Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Family Reunion (1939). T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) is recognized as perhaps the greatest of all the modernist poets, whose groundbreaking works "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," The Waste Land (1922), and Four Quartets (1936 - 1942) had a seismic impact on the literary landscape. Eliot was also extremely influential as a literary critic and changed the lens through which poetry was viewed and understood, with essays including "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (1919). In 1948, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. . First English Edition. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Dust Jacket Included.