Deconstruction of T. S. Eliot - The Fire and the Rose

This study examines the deconstructive themes and methods which inform T. S. Eliot's prose and poetry, and demonstrates that, long before Jacques Derrida intervened in the area of literary analysis, Eliot had already developed the principles now enshrined as deconstruction. After a brief introduction, the initial chapter is devoted to an in-depth analysis of Derrida's major texts. Once this groundwork is laid, chapter two begins the analysis of Eliot by revisiting his dissertation of F. H. Bradley with particular attention to those theoretical pronouncements that anticipate the direction of Derrida's thought. Further chapters forge a link between Derrida, the dissertation, and Eliot's essays on literature; and extend the analysis into "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "Gerontion," The Waste Land, "Ash Wednesday," Four Quartets, Murder in the Cathedral, and The Family Reunion.