Jul 10, 2026 · 53 min · 9 segments
In the second episode on T.S.Eliot, Book In looks at the poems he wrote after The Wasteland, as he moved towards a conversion to Christianity. In the Hollow Men, he returns again to the desolation and…
Rupert FordhamHost
Charlie FordhamHost
To introduce us to that, I'm going to read a quotation from an essay T.S. Eliot wrote on Baudelaire, the French poet.
He wrote the essay in 1928, and it's probably worth just mentioning that he was an incredibly influential literary critic, as well as a poet.
His collection of critical essays have been dominant in much of 20th century literary criticism, you know, as well as this sort of inescapable feel of the influence of his poetry.
And the point he makes in this quote is sort of fundamental, I think, to an understanding of the poem The Hollow Man, which we're going to start with.
But as me and Ru were just discussing, Ru, it's an odd thing perhaps for a newly converted Christian to say.
I'm going to let you just introduce the hollow men and then begin the reading of it.
But of course, what he's saying is the most important thing for a human being to do is something, is to act in a funny way.
The idea that the glory of man is his capacity for salvation, certainly a sort of Miltonic idea, but he also has a capacity for damnation.
To introduce us to that, I'm going to read a quotation from an essay T.S. Eliot wrote on Baudelaire, the French poet.
He wrote the essay in 1928, and it's probably worth just mentioning that he was an incredibly influential literary critic, as well as a poet.
His collection of critical essays have been dominant in much of 20th century literary criticism, you know, as well as this sort of inescapable feel of the influence of his poetry.
And the point he makes in this quote is sort of fundamental, I think, to an understanding of the poem The Hollow Man, which we're going to start with.
But as me and Ru were just discussing, Ru, it's an odd thing perhaps for a newly converted Christian to say.
I'm going to let you just introduce the hollow men and then begin the reading of it.
But of course, what he's saying is the most important thing for a human being to do is something, is to act in a funny way.
The idea that the glory of man is his capacity for salvation, certainly a sort of Miltonic idea, but he also has a capacity for damnation.
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