On Not “Not Knowing French”: T.S. Eliot's Poetry <em>En Français</em>

Abstract

In 1917, while suffering from writer’s block following the publication of Prufrock and Other Observations, T.S. Eliot composed six poems in French as a creative experiment. Although four of the poems were subsequently published and remained in print thereafter at the poet’s direction, they have received relatively little critical attention and are typically dismissed as a picturesque detour en route to the annus mirabilis of The Waste Land. But Eliot’s French suite gave voice to new sonorities and tonal registers that would “translate” not only to The Waste Land but also to Four Quartets, while also, curiously, strengthening his ties to the metaphysical poets of the English canon.