> This is a famous incident and I've read the article, which was reprinted
in
> some collection--maybe Tate's. Aiken did an article about TWL and titled
it
> "An Anatomy of Melancholy."
>
> The title annoyed Eliot, who protested that the poem wasn't melancholy.
Aiken
> said he didn't mean the poem was melancholy. He meant that it had so many
> literary allusions it reminded him of Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_
(which
> also has many many literary allusions).


Sorry, I must have been Uranianly confused when I posted on 2/12.

> Later Crawford wrote (p. 11):
>
> Conrad Aiken, describing how he once jokingly referred to the poem as
> "An Anatomy of Melancholy," noted Eliot's "icy fury" and statement
> "There is nothing melancholy about it!" When Aiken explained that the
> reference was not to the poem's content but to the number of quotations
> in the work, Eliot accepted Aiken's jest.
>
> Crawford cited:
> Conrad Aiken,"An Anatomy of Melancholy," in T.S. Eliot: 1888-1965,
> sewanee Review (Special Issue) 74 (Jan.-Mar. 1966), 190.

Thanks for straightening me out.

Regards,
   Rick Parker