Eliot Gives Poetry Commentary, Reading to B.C. Students, Clergy

T.S. Eliot '10, who has won wide international recognition including the Nobel Prize for Literature since he went to live abroad 43 years ago, gave a poetry reading and commentary at Boston College yesterday, in the final appearance of his visit to the U.S.

Besides his reading at B.C., Eliot gave an after-dinner speech at Eliot House Monday after introductory remarks by Harry T. Levin '33, professor of English, and I. A. Richards, University Professor.

Afterwards, Eliot spoke informally with members of the House.

Addressing a crowd of several hundred students and clergy at B.C., the poet, now 70, read selections from poems written during different stages of his career.

About his earlier poems, he warned, "I am not in as close a contact with the man who wrote them as with the author of the more recent ones." Every poet, he explained, considers his most recent works the best, "though not as good as the ones he is going to write."

Eliot finds that an increasing number of people are trying to explain his own poems to him. "I prefer the Jung school of criticism to the Freud school," he remarked, "because my poems fare better."

In honor of the poet's visit to the U.S., the poet's Theatre has decided to stage his "Family Reunion," scheduled to open next Monday.