T.S.Eliot: Prufrock, Gerontion, Ash Wednesday and other Shorter Poems

Abstract

"Gerontion" is a poem by T. S. Eliot that was first published in 1920 in Ara Vos Prec (his volume of collected poems published in London) and Poems (an almost identical collection published simultaneously in New York). The title is Greek for "little old man," and the poem is a dramatic monologue relating the opinions and impressions of an elderly man, which describes Europe after World War I through the eyes of a man who has lived most of his life in the 19th century. Two years after it was published, Eliot considered including the poem as a preface to The Waste Land, but was talked out of this by Ezra Pound. Along with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and The Waste Land, and other works published by Eliot in the early part of his career, '"Gerontion" discusses themes of religion, sexuality, and other general topics of modernist poetry