T.S. ELIOT'S HIDDEN MUSE 

06 Sep 2023
Lyndall gordon
06 Sep 2023

T.S. ELIOT'S HIDDEN MUSE 

Date:     25 October
Time:     18:00
Lecture fee:     Full fee R110; Staff and students R55; FOSS members R100
Booking is through Webtickets
Venue:     Lecture Theatre 3, Kramer Law Building, Middle Campus, University of Cape Town

 
Lyndall Gordon, biographer and Senior Research Fellow, St Hilda's College University of Oxford, will be in conversation with Finuala Dowling, poet and novelist.


T.S. Eliot's letters to a woman he had kept hidden from the world were released from their 50-year embargo in 2020. Lyndall Gordon was one of the first people to read the poet's ardent assertions to Emily Hale that 'I shall always write primarily for you' and 'you have made me.' Why then did Eliot later refute Hale's role as his muse? Who was Emily Hale and what do we learn about Eliot from his 26-year correspondence with her? What insights do these 1 100 letters provide into the greatest poems of the twentieth century?

Finuala Dowling asks these and other questions as she interviews Lyndall Gordon on the subject of her latest book, Hyacinth Girl: T.S. Eliot's Hidden Muse.