Menand shows how T. S. Eliot's early views on literary value and authenticity - and his later repudiation of those views - reflect the profound changes regarding the understanding of literature and its significance that occurred in the early part of the twentieth century.

"A penetrating analysis. Menand is particularly successful in demonstrating the continuity of 19th-century ideas. Menand's thesis is that Eliot correctly analyzed the contradictions inherent in Modernist thought and that his genius lay in transforming those very contradictions into 'literary opportunities.'"--Library Journal (on the previous edition) "Lively, clear, and intelligent. Menand has written better than anyone about Eliot's way of taking over and converting the old into something he needs, but needs in a different way."--Frank Kermode "[The reader]...will find many rewards, including remarkable wit, elegant prose and wide erudition."--American Literature "Lively, clear, and intelligent. Menand has written better than anyone about Eliot's way of taking over and converting the old into something he needs, but needs in a different way."--Frank Kermode "[The reader]...will find many rewards, including remarkable wit, elegant prose and wide erudition."--American Literature "Readers of Menand's incisive study of T.S. Eliot will recognize his deft syntheses of difficult ideas and disparate motivations."--Publishers Weekly (on The Metaphysical Club) "A penetrating analysis. Menand is particularly successful in demonstrating the continuity of 19th-century ideas. Menand's thesis is that Eliot correctly analyzed the contradictions inherent in Modernist thought and that his genius lay in transforming those very contradictions into 'literary opportunities.'"--Library Journal (on the previous edition)

Louis Menand is Professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University and former Distinguished Professor of English at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times bestseller The Metaphysical Club, and is a well-known essayist and critic for the New Yorker magazine. His next work will feature the art and thought of the Cold War period from 1945 to 1965.