Reexamination of T. S. Eliot's Musicality in His Poetry Through the Analysis of His Recordings.

Abstract

T. S. Eliot’s poetry has had innumerous analysis over the years. Some of the most interesting perspectives are connected to the musicality of the poem, which many scholars have related to the close-reading of the text. Through this reading, conclusions about the creation of sound pattern and structure have been completed. However, what seems shocking is that many scholars seem to have ignored Eliot’s recordings on his poetry. Through the analysis of those recordings the reexamination of the poems reveals changes in its interpretation and musicality. Those changes can be related to the ideas that Eliot exposed in some of his most famous essays, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and “The Music of Poetry,” which suggest maturity in his approach to the creation of a combined poetical and musical structure. The analysis suggests that musicality is not found where the text portrays, but rather is in the instances that relate to the performance of the text.