T.S. Eliot and Decadence

T.S. Eliot is perhaps the most famous poet in the English language.

What is less well known is the decisive effect that France and French culture had on his development as a poet. In 1910 Eliot spent a year living in Paris and studying philosophy at the Sorbonne, a visit that perhaps did more than anything to determine his future style as a poet. Arguably we owe much of his early work, including his first major poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, to this exposure to French culture, and to the Decadent movement in particular, including the work of the poets Jules Laforgue, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Verlaine.

Featuring Simon Callow, the distinguished star of stage and screen, and Roy Howat, internationally acclaimed pianist and musicologist, Margaret Reynolds, the inspiring academic and broadcaster, and Matthew Creasy, a leading expert on the French Decadent movement, this special event will show how French cultural influences played a decisive part in forging the mature work of T.S. Eliot as a poet, writer and critic.

This timely event will bring together leading specialists on English and French literature with actors reading poetry and musicians performing some of the extraordinary music from Paris in the period. Discover the French influences of this great poet!