Department of English

It seems counter-intuitive to pair Woolf and Eliot given the usual impression of the American poet as being conservative and religious, whereas the British author was a feminist, an atheist, and much more politically liberal. However, for two decades, they were close friends who saw each other regularly and respected the other ’ s judgments. The class will focus on major texts by Eliot and Woolf. We will compare their abundant output in literary criticism and assess their fundamental philosophical tenets while surveying the main themes they treated, like memory, desire, war, cities, neurosis, history, gender, and sexuality.