T. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary
Form
Anthony Julius
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 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. He analyses the anti-Semitic
poems and examines the figure of the
'free-thinking Jew' which appears in the
prose works, and in conclusion he considers
whether Eliot's post-war work made
amends for this aspect of his earlier
writings.
Arguing About Art and Anti-Semitism
"Julius, 39, a Ph.D.. in literature as well as a lawyer, turns out to be a relentless prosecutor, a
deep-digging scholar and a powerful literary critic." --Newsweek
"Anthony Julius has a new slant on the evidence... He proves himself at times a greater, and
always a more honest, admirer of Eliot than those who habitually plaster him with saintliness...
Julius's book is mould-breaking without being merely an act of debunking... What is extremely
rare, if not unique, is Julius's assertion that Eliot's dismissive disdain was not a dramatic device
or even an ill-advised lapse on the great man's part, but an integral and seminal aspect of his
imagination. ...genuinely enlightening."-- Frederick Raphael, The Weekly Standard
"Anthony Julius's book is the most searching consideration of the whole question so far. It
would be valuable if only for its thoroughness, for the tenacity with which Julius tracks down
his material and pursues his arguments. But it also has the merit--an uncommon one--of attending
to the claims of literature and the claims of social decency simultaneously."--John Gross, The
Sunday Telegraph
"...sharp, elegant, morally insistent."--The New Yorker
"T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form...has become the cause of hot debate in literary
circles and lecture halls, and many feverish Fleet Street column inches... The fight for the soul of
T.S. Eliot, the literary icon, looks set to run and run."--The Independent on Sunday
"Other critics have been aware of Eliot's anti-Semitism, but none has confronted it as Mr. Julius
does."--The Daily Telegraph
"Julius's argument is base solely on the texts, peeling off the layers of allusion and reference to
show, as he puts it, that Eliot's was the rarest kind of racial prejudice: 'One who was able to
place his anti-Semitism at the service of his art'."--The Guardian
"...a painstakingly researched and fiercely argued volume... Julius has forced us to rethink some
of our most fundamental, received ideas about art, ideas that for years protected Eliot from the
sort of scrutiny found in these pages. He has made us reconsider the fences we routinely
construct between the aesthetic and ideological impulses, the old-fashioned belief that poetry
'discloses essential truths' about the world, our eagerness to forgive artists their moral failings,
and, most notably our inclination (or desire) to believe that art redeems. He has written an
important--and long overdue--book."--The New York Times
"Julius's argument about the poems in Ara Vos Prec seems to me unassailable: they are poetry
and they are anti-Semitic, and the two qualities have a place within a very specific tradition of
anti-Semitic literary thought. His claim that anti-Semitism casts a shadow on Eliot's writing
after 1922 is right as well. And in the end, even his refusal to concede grounds to exculpatory
arguments seems just. For indifference is not defense."--Louis Menand, The New York Review
"...[a] brilliant, passionately concentrated 'adversarial reading' of Eliot's work... By detailing
the scope of Eliot's anti-Semitic remarks and images, and by examining what several critical
generations have made of them, Julius breaks down the protective barriers that have been
erected around Eliot's work... A combination of steely fair-mindedness and evident admiration
for Eliot's art makes his study read at times like a judge's summing up...a long overdue act of
critical justice... Eliot studies will never be the same post-Julius. His account must be read both
for its sustained critical intelligence and scholarship, and as a means of extending one's unease
about the moral basis--if there is one--of Eliot's work. ...Julius's study is only the beginning of a
long process of revisionist criticism."--Tom Paulin, The London Review of Books
"The originality of Julius's book lies in his willingness to raise such questions... This is a
refreshing analysis of recent cultural history, enlivened by a rare indignation and power of
synthesis."--Peter Ackroyd, The Times
Contents: 1. Introduction; 2. 'Gerontion', Criticism, and the Limits of the Dramatic Monologue;
3. 'Sweeney Among the Nightingales', 'Burbank', and the Poetics of Anti-Semitism; 4. 'Dirge', 'A
Cooking Egg', The Waste Land, and the Aesthetics of Ugliness; 5. Free-Thinking Jews,
Persecuted Jews, and the Anti-Semitism of Eliot's Prose; 6. Making Amends, Making
Amendments.
Subject: literature
1995 6 X 9 320 pp.
Paperback available! 0-521-58673-9 $18.95 |
