Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic and “one of the twentieth century’s major poets.” Born in St. Louis, Missouri in the United States, he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927.

Education as if Truth Mattered

By |2022-08-25T12:54:22-05:00August 24th, 2022|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Education, Evelyn Waugh, Featured, G.K. Chesterton, Great Books, Joseph Pearce, StAR, T.S. Eliot, Timeless Essays|

If the twenty-first century is to produce more great men and more great books, it will have to restore a true education; and a true education is an education as if truth mattered. The title of this essay, “Education as if Truth Mattered,” is taken from the subtitle of Christopher Derrick’s book, Escape from Scepticism: [...]

On Being Conservative

By |2022-08-23T14:48:35-05:00August 23rd, 2022|Categories: Conservatism, Edmund Burke, Family, Jane Austen, Marriage, Philosophy, Robert Nisbet, T.S. Eliot, Timeless Essays|

To be a conservative is first and foremost to defend or to conserve something good: to protect family, neighborhood, local community, and region. Louis de Bonald Of the many attempts to define conservatism in recent decades, one of the most compelling is Robert Nisbet’s: “The essence of this body of ideas is the protection [...]

A People Without History: T.S. Eliot’s Critique of Evolutionary History

By |2022-08-21T15:07:55-05:00August 21st, 2022|Categories: Benjamin Lockerd, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, History, Poetry, Senior Contributors, T.S. Eliot, The Imaginative Conservative, Timeless Essays|

H.G. Wells sought to free humanity from the “bondage” of tradition, but T.S. Eliot saw history not as an evolutionary movement, but a return to the past. While T.S. Eliot never made any comments critical of Charles Darwin or his theory of the evolution of species, he was quite critical of various popularized versions of [...]

The Privilege of Little Words and Mighty Swords

By |2022-06-09T22:38:55-05:00June 9th, 2022|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Essential, G.K. Chesterton, History, J.R.R. Tolkien, T.S. Eliot, Timeless Essays|

Let not future generations say of us: We slept. Instead, may they remember us as those who fought the good fight for the Logos and for humanity. Let it be said that in the twenty-first century we took up either of our mythically-laden swords and wielded them with all the force imaginable. My talk today [...]

“Ash Wednesday”

By |2024-02-13T20:44:18-06:00March 1st, 2022|Categories: Ash Wednesday, Lent, Poetry, T.S. Eliot, Timeless Essays|

Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual [...]

T.S. Eliot & Christopher Dawson on Religion and Culture

By |2023-10-12T05:23:23-05:00January 6th, 2022|Categories: Benjamin Lockerd, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Christopher Dawson, Culture, Featured, T.S. Eliot, Timeless Essays|

Eliot scholars have ignored the Dawson connection. The central claim Dawson and Eliot made, based on their wide-ranging knowledge of anthropology and history, was that every culture has a cult, some religious system that serves as an ultimate source of value and meaning. “Eliot’s reputation as a critic of society has been worse than his [...]

Is “Christian Humanism” Gone Forever?

By |2021-02-11T13:00:07-06:00February 11th, 2021|Categories: Books, Bradley J. Birzer, C.S. Lewis, Christian Humanism, Senior Contributors, T.S. Eliot|

In his book “The Year of Our Lord 1943,” writing on Christian humanism, Alan Jacobs considers the fears and desires of five major but seemingly disparate figures in 1943 as they envision a post-war world after an allied victory: W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, Jacques Maritain, and Simone Weil. The Year of Our Lord [...]

Give, Sympathize, and Surrender: Surviving Our Wastelands

By |2021-01-22T12:03:50-06:00January 22nd, 2021|Categories: Christianity, Literature, T.S. Eliot|

Though written in the 20th century, T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is a poem for our generation. It speaks to our own longings and losses, casting its bitter light on the wastelands of our lives. And, while he identifies the wasteland with brutal honesty, Eliot also sketches a path that can lead us out of [...]

T.S. Eliot’s “The Cocktail Party”: The Language & Doctrine of Atonement

By |2020-12-15T10:37:44-06:00December 19th, 2020|Categories: Christianity, Culture, T.S. Eliot, Theater|

In the years between 1939 and 1949, T.S. Eliot’s task was to enshrine Christian martyrdom and to restore poetic drama. His most popular drama was “The Cocktail Party,” a comedy which develops dramatically into a philosophically darker spiritual trial and wrestles with the theme of atonement. In one of his manifesto letters to William Carlos [...]

W.H. Auden’s Discovery of Original Sin

By |2020-08-03T17:01:58-05:00August 4th, 2020|Categories: Literature, Poetry, T.S. Eliot|Tags: , |

For several months after his 1939 immigration to the United States, W.H. Auden (1907-1973) remained enchanted with all the old dogmas—psychology, Marxism, and liberal humanism—that had shaped so much of his early work. As a poet, he continued to assert his faith in man’s ability to save civilization from ruin. Composed like all mankind “Of [...]

The Power of the Poet: In Conversation With T.S. Eliot About a Burning World

By |2020-05-30T14:03:56-05:00May 30th, 2020|Categories: Audio/Video, Music, Poetry, T.S. Eliot|

You see, the poet haunts, casting a spell on the reader or listener. The power of the word in poetic form is nearly incomprehensible. Especially when paired with melody, the effect is extraordinary. This means that a songwriter, a hundred years down the road, having read only small, peripheral portions of his poetry, and having [...]

Modernism, Formed or Fleeting?

By |2020-05-12T15:49:02-05:00May 12th, 2020|Categories: Culture, History, Literature, Modernity, Poetry, T.S. Eliot, Tradition, Western Civilization|

The dual definition of “modern”—something that is current and something that is done in a certain manner—touches on a problem that is at the heart of the literary and artistic movement of the early twentieth century known as “Modernism”: Is Modernism something that was meant to represent the “just now” or is it something that [...]

Arguing with T.S. Eliot

By |2020-05-11T09:54:15-05:00May 11th, 2020|Categories: Joseph Pearce, Literature, Poetry, Senior Contributors, T.S. Eliot|

T.S. Eliot once claimed, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” But as a friend and admirer of Eliot, I must disagree. One of my favourite quotes by G.K. Chesterton is his quip that he and his brother [...]

The Truth of Beauty: Educating the Moral Imagination

By |2023-03-13T15:21:51-05:00March 13th, 2020|Categories: Beauty, Benjamin Lockerd, C.S. Lewis, Russell Kirk, Senior Contributors, T.S. Eliot, Timeless Essays, Truth|

The answers to the errors of modern times need to be given in philosophy and theology, but it is essential that we also experience the truth imaginatively. Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. —Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” These famous lines of Keats [...]

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