“I have a feeling that having a relationship with an American woman helped him to uncover his past in a way.” “He was really thinking more about the United States and his childhood during the period where he was in correspondence with Hale,” says Dickey. Whatever else she was, Hale was a link to the life Eliot had left behind in the United States as a young man, Dickey said. “What role did she play in his emotional life?”Įliot’s letters to Hale began after that first marriage ended. “Was this an epistolary romance they would carry across the Atlantic?” Dickey said. Dickey said the letters could reveal just how close he and Hale were and if the two ever considered marriage. Eliot”, said the poet was deeply ashamed of his marriage to his first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, whom he was with for more than 15 years. The letters could also reveal details about Eliot’s conversion to Anglicanism, something he deeply cherished, Dickey says.ĭickey, who served as one of the editors on “The Complete Prose of T.S. “His relationship with her seems to be deep and meaningful and it's a door he chose not to open,” she said. The poem is named after a home in England that Eliot visited with Hale in 1934. The first poem in the “Quartets” series, called “Burnt Norton,” piques the interest of enthusiasts of the poet, says Eliot scholar Frances Dickey, because of lines that suggest missed opportunities and what might have been with his muse. His best known works include “The Waste Land,” “The Hollow Men” and “Four Quartets.” More: In defense of 'Cats': Critics, keep your paws off this holiday surprise It was then turned into a feature film starring an ensemble cast that includes Judi Dench and James Corden just released in December. The play opened in London first in 1981 and then on Broadway the next year. Alfred Prufrock” became his first professionally published poem.Įliot's 1939 book of whimsical poetry, “Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats,” was adapted into “Cats," the award-winning musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Louis in 1888 and gained notoriety as a poet early in life. Their relationship “must have been incredibly important and their correspondence must have been remarkably intimate for him to be so concerned about the publication,” Cuda says. Hale died four years later.īiographers say Eliot ordered Hale's letters to him be burned. In 1956, Hale donated the letters under an agreement they wouldn’t be opened until 50 years after either her or Eliot’s death, whichever came second. universities, including Scripps College in California. Eliot was already living in England and Hale taught drama at U.S. The two met in 1912 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but did not rekindle their friendship until 1927. Lifelong friends, Hale and Eliot exchanged letters for about 25 years beginning in 1930. It’s momentous to have these letters coming out.” “I don’t know of anything more awaited or significant. “I think it’s perhaps the literary event of the decade,” says Anthony Cuda, an Eliot scholar and director of the T.S. Students, researchers and scholars can read the letters at Princeton University Library starting Thursday. Many consider Hale to not only be his close friend, but also his muse, and they hope their correspondence will offer insight into the more intimate details about Eliot’s life and work. Eliot to confidante Emily Hale will be unveiled this week, and scholars hope they will reveal the extent of a relationship that's been speculated about for decades. After more than 60 years spent sealed up in a library storage facility, about 1,000 letters written by poet T.S.
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