The announcement that the Charles Eliot Norton Chair of Poetry will be held next year by T. S. Eliot will undoubtedly be greeted by general enthusiasm in the University. The fact that the first American holder of the Chair will thus be a Harvard graduate is only one reason for welcoming the announcement. Both as a poet, revealing, in controversial poems like "The Waste Land" the disintegration of modern life, and as an exponent of humanism, which he offers to counteract that disintegration, Mr. Eliot is a dominant personality in contemporary letters. His position as editor of the Criterion and his influence on such diverse figures as J. Middleton Murry, and the Sitwells, is striking, testimony to his importance in the literary world.
There is an obvious advantage in having the Norton Chair occupied by a man who has himself contributed to the literary movement or poetic school which he describes. When, as in the present case, the lecture stands for a philosophy of letters the value of which is still in debate, the value of personal association in especially great. Harvard will welcome Mr. Eliot next year with exceptional interest.
Read more in News
Speaking the Guns
