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Old Possum in Full Glory

The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot: The Critical Edition, Vols. 1–4edited by ronald schuchard et al.johns hopkins, 3,728 pagesWith four of a projected eight volumes of The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot now available in an online edition, alongside a two-volume edition of Eliot’s poems finally . . . . Continue Reading »

Eliot and Liberalism

I‘ve been rereading T.S. Eliot's Idea of a Christian Society. He wrote the book as World War II was beginning. It was a time when many were questioning whether liberal democratic societies had any future. Fascism and Communism seemed the vital new movements that had the upper hand. The gist of . . . . Continue Reading »

50 Years from T. S. Eliot

Much already has been and will be said about T. S. Eliot this year, which marks a half-century since his death. Attempts to map his posthumous critical fortunes inevitably convey a downright Biblical pattern—the uniform literary “Hosanna!” of the 1960’s morphing, by the 1990’s, into a collective “Crucify him!” The turnabout is well expressed by literary maven Cynthia Ozick, who displayed something of both attitudes in an exquisite essay entitled T. S. Eliot at 101. Continue Reading »

Impoverished Theology

Theologians move in two worlds, working not only with the abstract categories of philosophy but also with the highly concrete and often complex literary forms of the Bible. One of the central tasks of biblical theology is to provide a description of God that is compelling as well as truthful. If . . . . Continue Reading »

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