The Story Archive

Gerontion

T. S. Eliot · 1920 CE · Poem · English · Modernist

An old man in a decayed house, read to by a boy, turns over a war he never fought in, a sign he was never given, and a set of foreign tenants who have taken over the rooms of his life. History is described as a corridor of contrived passages that gives too late what is asked for, or too soon into weak hands. Eliot wanted it printed as a prelude to his next long poem until Pound talked him out of it.

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