I have never studied or taught, except in the context of lectures on the history of the English language, the poetry of T. S. Eliot. But, of all twentieth-century poets, it is he whom I have read most often and with the most pleasure. I was thus delighted when Maud Ellmann made the suggestion that I write this book and grateful when Isobel Armstrong commissioned me.

Three friendships provided me with the necessary confidence to undertake a study for which I have little specialist qualification: Ben Lloyd, who punctuated every undergraduate day at Trinity College Cambridge with quotations from Eliot 's early poems; Piers Gray, who, as a fellow graduate student at the same college, taught me the significance of Eliot 's studies in philosophy; and Peter Ackroyd, a friend from both school and university, whose 1984 biography of Eliot remains for me the single most illuminating text on the poet.

This book is also the product of prolonged readings of my former student Anthony Julius's T. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form. It was that book's reception that made me think again about the nature of Eliot 's social philosophy, and it was in engagement with the compelling logic and masterly readings of Julius's book that this book took form.

The other crucial component in the writing of the book was four seminars that I conducted at the University of Pittsburgh from 2000 to 2004, the first three on Eliot and the fourth on questions of the canon. I am grateful to all the participants in the seminars, which were not only enjoyable in themselves but which also provided many of this book's emphases and opinions.

I would like to thank Stephen Heath and Cassandra Zinchini for their help in preparing the typescript for publication.