엘리엇의 초기시와 상호텍스트성

Eliot's Early Poems and Intertextuality

This paper suggests a way to teach undergraduates T. S. Eliot's early poems with an emphasis on their intertextuality. Besides "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," I also consider the pedagogical potential of three poems-"Aunt Helen," "Cousin Nancy," and "The Boston Evening Transcript"-which I find quite teachable in spite of their allusive subtlety and occasional opaqueness. Read side by side, these "Boston satires" make clear that they are traces and tracings of one another and also help prepare the students for "Prufrock." In addition, I describe how the figure of allusion works at the exegetical level and discuss Eliot's critical perspective as manifested in "Tradition and the Individual Talent." It is worth pointing out that the "Tradition" essay can be used as a theoretical framework analogous to, or anticipating, the poststructuralist concept of intertextuality.