Some Backgrounds to Eliot's Music

Some Backgrounds to Eliot's Music

The connections between Eliot and music have been much debated. There has been a certain amount of speculation and controversy as to how deep the influence of music was on his work, and to what extent there are identifiable musical parallels to some of the poems. After examining some biographical backgrounds to the way in which Eliot was influenced by music, this paper will look mainly at references to and discussions of music in Eliot’s prose, specifically ’The Music of Poetry’. Through these materials, and by means of a framing comparison with music in Joyce’s career, it will be shown how Eliot argued a use for music in poetry, and how his work contributed to a general spirit of inter-disciplinary influences during, and subsequent to, the Modernist period.