"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper." Those famous concluding lines of T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" have resonated with readers for nearly a century. As with "April is the cruelest month," from The Waste Land and "Do I dare disturb the universe?," from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," Eliot's words have permanently entered our cultural bloodstream. Through the poems in this volume, representing his first four published collections, Eliot reshaped modern literature with a daring and overpowering vision of a decaying civilization and the urgent need for spiritual renewal.
Contributor Bio(s)
T. S. (Thomas Stearns) ELIOT (1888-1965) was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and spent many of his adult years in England. He worked for a bank while writing poetry, teaching, and reviewing, and was recognized as a major force in the literary world with his publication of The Waste Land in 1922.
