Tradition, Empire and the Gold Standard: T. S. Eliot at the Lloyds Bank

Abstract

In “Tradition and the Individual Talents,” comparing a poet to a catalyst in a chemical reaction, T. S. Eliot suggested that a literary work should be interpreted as an objective or disinterested being which has nothing to do with any political, economical, or social matters. He kept the same critical view on a literary work in some essays, such as “The Perfect Critic,” “The Idea of a Literary Review,” and so on. Following his ideas, most critics have read his literary works as being irrelevant to his personal experiences, his contemporary political events and economic fluctuations. However, it would be interesting to note that while he wrote these essays, he worked for the Lloyds Bank. His experiences at the Lloyds bank sharpened his understanding on the meanings of the political incidents and economic rising and falling. He also integrated his intimate knowledge into his poems such as “A Cooking Egg” and The Waste Land. On the basis of such discoveries, this paper attempts to re-read these poems in his contemporary political, economical contexts.