(Re) Constructing the Poetic Self: Tagore, Whitman, Yeats, Eliot

This book (re) constructs some of the major poetic personalities of not too distant a past, and of different cultures and nations: Tagore, Whitman, Yeats, and Eliot, from the pages of their books of poems. Maintaining a clear distinction between the real self as biographically constructed and the poetic self as constituted in the poetic text, the author reads the silent and implicit narrative that connects poem to poem. He reconciles the autobiographical act and the poetic act, and recreates the symbolic lives of the poets from the poetic texts. Behind the individual stories, there is a greater story, moving slowly and in the background. This is the story of poetry and the poet, within and across cultures, east and west, during a critical and major period of history. Beginning with Tagore, who poses a lively challenge to western thought and concepts of poetry and the poet, and embodies an extremely comprehensive romantic imagination, the author moves through the story of Whitman, the modern poet Adam, through the last romantic ideals of Yeats, deep into the modern world of Eliot. It is a story of the survival and transformation of poetry and the poet through crisis-ridden times.