T. S. Eliot and Indic Traditions A Study in Poetry and Belief
       by Cleo McNelly Kearns

T. S. Eliot and Indic Traditions A Study in Poetry and Belief by Cleo McNelly Kearns - Samavd India Foundation published the Indian edition of this Cambridge University Press volume. This book shows the influence of India on the life and work of the famous poet, T. S. Eliot.

TS Eliot’s allusions to Indic philosophy in several of his poems have intrigued readers since the poems first appeared. In T. S. Eliot and Indic Traditions Cleo McNelly Kearns places Eliot’s lifelong interest in Indic philosophy and religion in the context of his concomitant studies in Western philosophy and his views on literary theory and poetic practice. The author establishes the depth and knowledge Eliot had not only of Sanskrit and Pali texts but also his keen sense of the important distinctions between specific schools of thought.  Examining the influence on Eliot of such thinkers as Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, FH Bradley, William James and Bertrand Russell, the author shows how the realist-idealist debates in Western philosophy shaped Eliot’s understanding of Indic thought.  

T. S. Eliot and Indic Traditions includes detailed discussions of essays, plays and poems. The emphasis however is not only on Indic patterns but also on thought and characteristic modes of expression that colour and subtly alter the poet’s more overtly Western and Christian world.