T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, 1888–1922

by James E. Miller Jr.

Late in his life T. S. Eliot, when asked if his poetry belonged in the tradition of American literature, “I’d say that my poetry has obviously more in common with my distinguished contemporaries in America than with anything written in my generation in England. That I’m sure of. . . . In its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America.” In T. S. The Making of an American Poet, James Miller offers the first sustained account of Eliot’s early years, showing that the emotional springs of his poetry did indeed come from America. Miller challenges long-held assumptions about Eliot’s poetry and his life. Eliot himself always maintained that his poems were not based on personal experience, and thus should not be read as personal poems. But Miller convincingly combines a reading of the early work with careful analysis of surviving early correspondence, accounts from Eliot’s friends and acquaintances, and new scholarship that delves into Eliot’s Harvard years. Ultimately, Miller demonstrates that Eliot’s poetry is filled with reflections of his personal his relationships with family, friends, and wives; his sexuality; his intellectual and social development; his influences. Publication of T. S. The Making of an American Poet marks a milestone in Eliot scholarship. At last we have a balanced portrait of the poet and the man, one that takes seriously his American roots. In the process, we gain a fuller appreciation for some of the best-loved poetry of the twentieth century.

488 pages, Hardcover

First published August 24, 2005

Reviews

[Lauren Albert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Miller is obsessed with homosexuality. And this leads him to do a terrible disservice to Eliot—not in his argument that Eliot is gay—but in his using everything about Eliot’s life and poetry simply as fodder for his stance. It also leads him astray in his determination to show that people in Eliot’s life were “also” gay—somehow he thinks that’s proof of Eliot’s own homosexuality. I would have had less of an argument with the book had it been sold as a book about Eliot’s sexuality and not as one about his life and poetry in general. But even then I would have had problems with his arguments since they are often tenuous at best. Perhaps Eliot was gay. Perhaps Eliot was bi. Most importantly he was a great poet who was done a disservice by this book.

[Justin Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's plenty of information in this book. But just so you know what you're getting: it's not a narrative biography. It's not even a biography really. It's more like a digest of the first volume of T. S. Eliot's letters, read with an eye to 'proving' that Eliot was homosexual. This all leads to much use of the biographer's 'must have' and 'surely,' as in, "Given that Eliot had gay friends, Eliot must have been homosexual" or "Given that Eliot powdered his face and read Havelock Ellis, he surely was homosexual." That's my digest of the book, in which wherever there's a tube, there's a phallus, and wherever there are two men, there's gay sex. Being 'homosexual' is a fixed attribute, apparently, kind of like being six foot two. None of that silly sexuality is a continuum nonsense here.
Even if we leave aside its from tendentiousness, the argument is circular. One example of the general argumentative strategy: we're told on 283 that "It is possible to read "Eeldrop and Appleplex as quite revelatory of Eliot's psyche." Miller then provides a reading of the story which concludes that "although this short story has regrettably been forgotten, it is of interest for the light it sheds on Eliot's life." That is if you approach a text as telling us something about a poet's life, then that text will tell you something about that poet's life. Extraordinary insight! And all the more upsetting, because I would like to know more about this story, which really has been forgotten.

Okay, I could rant all day. Point is, you might want to look at this in a library if you're writing a paper about Eliot's early poetry. There's plenty of facts here. But it by no means suggests, let alone proves, that Eliot was an 'American Poet,' nor that homosexuality was an enormous influence on his poetry. And the writing is so atrocious that I must caution everyone against trying to read it all the way through.

[Zoë · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this book is very convincing in how it argues the case for the importance of America on Eliot's poetry. The other review here seems to think that the discussion of homo-eroticism is heavy-handed, but I didn't notice it so much. I may have missed something, but I thought that the book was not so much saying that Eliot was a homosexual, but that his sexuality was more complex than has previously been admitted.