Late in his life T. S. Eliot, when asked if his poetry belonged in the tradition of American literature, replied: “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. Eliot: 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 experiences: his relationships with family, friends, and wives; his sexuality; his intellectual and social development; his influences. Publication of T. S. Eliot: 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.

Looks at Eliot's poetry and his "fragmentary method" of poetry composition.

In two highly anticipated volumes, the correspondence of the twentieth century's eminent man of letters, from youth to early manhood

This is the first book to explore in detail how Eliot's writings at once preserved and reacted against his complex American heritage. Analysing major poems from 'Prufrock' through The Waste Land, Sigg draws upon Eliot's early philosophical writing, essays and reviews to reveal Eliot's early poetry both as a distinct entity and as a stage in his development.

In his old age T.S. Eliot said on a number of occasions that the American experience of his childhood and youth had had the deepest influence on his poetry. This is the first book to explore in detail how Eliot's writings at once preserved and reacted against his complex American heritage: his intellectually and socially prominent family, their strong Unitarian culture, and their experience in nineteenth-century St. Louis and Boston. Analyzing major poems from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" through The Waste Land, and drawing widely upon the early philosophical writings, essays, and reviews, Dr. Sigg shows the influence on Eliot of major American figures such as George Santayana, Henry James, and Henry Adams, as well as of the British philosopher F.H. Bradley on whom Eliot wrote a doctoral dissertation at Harvard.