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One would think, from some of the responses to this topic, that it was some radically unconventional topic thought up by me. I wish I could take credit, but as it happens Paul Fussell in The Great War and Modern Memory showed how frequently it appears in the allusions, and Vincent Sherry, in The Great War and the Languages of Modernism included a long section on Eliot and the War.

The topic and its importance are not new, but I think attention to the War will probably make it more prominent. In any case, simply noting that TWL is also about human relations (and so many things besides) does not remove the War either from the poem or his personal life. Nor do student essays or newspaper articles alter the picture. I suggest anyone interested look at least at Fussell and Sherry. There is more, but I would have to look it up.

Nancy