Person

While T.S. Eliot’s works may give an overwhelming impression of abhorrence, hopelessness, and alienation, my research aims to show that deeper and repeated engagement with the poetry also reveals poignant moments of beauty, fortitude, and resistance. I argue that Eliot’s poetry provides consolation through the interplay of two key elements: moments of ‘recognition’, which poignantly depict elements of human suffering; and intimations of ‘meaning’, moments that facilitate a powerful, spontaneous shift of perspective, altering the sufferer's world-view. With reference to a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives (incorporating neuroscientific, philosophical, and psychological approaches to affective studies of literature), I aim to contribute to an expanding scholarly understanding of the forms and functions of literary consolation and to show why generations of readers continue to return to Eliot’s ostensibly ‘bleak’ vision of the world, only to find some comfort there.