Anglo-Catholic in Religion: T.S. Eliot and Christianity

by Barry Spurr

Overview

Barry Spurr's eagerly-awaited, definitive study of T.S. Eliot's Anglo-Catholic belief and practice shows how the poet is religion shaped his life and work for almost forty years, until his death in 1965. The author examines Eliot's formal adoption of Anglo-Catholicism, in 1927, as the culmination of his intellectual, cultural, artistic, spiritual and personal development to that point. This book presents the first detailed analysis of the unique influence that Anglo-Catholicismis doctrinal and devotional principles, and its social teaching, had on Eliot's poetry, plays, prose and personal life. An informed presentation and discussion of Anglo-Catholicism at the time of Eliot's conversion and through the subsequent decades of his Christian faith and practice. Significant new material from correspondence and diaries which sheds light on Eliot's thought, poetry and prose. This book is essential reading for all scholars and readers of T.S. Eliot and his circle; for students and devotees of Anglo-Catholicism, and scholars of the interaction between literature and theology, especially in the twentieth century. It will also be of use to senior and Honours-level undergraduates and postgraduate research students working in the fields of Modernism and its principles and belief systems, and for students of religion, especially Western Christianity and Anglicanism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780718830731
Publisher:	The Lutterworth Press
Publication date:	02/25/2010
Pages:	340
Sales rank:	858,359
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Barry Spurr has been a member of the Sydney University English Department for more than thirty years. Publishing widely on Renaissance and Modernist poetics, his previous books include "The Word in the Desert" (1995), "Lytton Strachey" (1995), and the acclaimed "Studying Poetry "(Palgrave Macmillan 2006), now in its second edition. His next book will be on T.S. Eliot's Anglo-Catholicism.

Editorial Reviews

Professor Spurr has written an eloquent, learned and moving book, which any one interested in Anglo-Catholicism and all lovers of Eliot's literary output should read.

Vol. XXXVII No. 1&2, Spring/Summer 2011 - Sheridan Gilley

How fortunate we are to have a well informed and highly readable one of that title [Anglo-Catholic in Religion] by the Australian scholar, Professor Barry Spurr. Without being either pietistic or dryly objective it places Anglo-Catholic teachings and practises within the context of Anglicanism and Christianity as a whole, and it traces, in the needed detail, the imprint of these teachings and practises on T.S. Elliot as a literary figure and churchman. It rises on occasion over and above this primary duty of exposition.

Vol. XXXVII No. 1&2, Spring/Summer 2011 - William Blissett

"Spurr considers every area of Eliot's writing with a view to showing what a full understanding of his religious ideas and practices might reveal."

Modern Believing, 54.3, July 2013 - David Fuller