1. One source is probably WWI.  "Rat's Alley" is apparently one name
used for the trenches.  In letters Eliot more than once tells of Maurice
Haigh-Wood's tales of shooting rats all night in the trenches.  The
memoirs of soldiers are full of descriptions of the rats, who made a great
living in No Man's Land on corpses and constantly invaded the trenches.

2.  Probably Cleo Kearnes, _T. S. Eliot and Indic Traditions:  A Study of
Poetry and Belief_, 1987.

Nancy

Date sent:              Fri, 8 Nov 2002 17:15:16 -0800
Send reply to:          "T. S. Eliot Discussion forum." <[log in to unmask]>
From:                   Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:                Two questions
To:                     [log in to unmask]

My students have two questions:

1) What are all the rats doing in the poems, esp. TWL
2) What's a good book to study Eliot's interest in oriental
    religion in the 1920s.

Thanx,
Peter