This seminal scholarly work examines T. S. Eliot's literary development and philosophical outlook through the lens of modernist dialectics, exploring the tension between mastery and escape as central to understanding both his poetry and critical thought. Edited and written by acclaimed Eliot scholar Jewel Spears Brooker, this volume presents expert studies of key intellectual influences on Eliot's modernism—particularly Stéphane Mallarmé, Sir James George Frazer, F. H. Bradley, and T. E. Hulme—yielding fresh and original insights into how these thinkers shaped the poet's artistic vision.
Through careful textual analysis and intellectual history, Brooker investigates how Eliot grappled with fundamental modernist anxieties: the desire for artistic mastery and transcendence alongside the simultaneous impulse toward escape from the constraints of tradition, rationality, and conventional form. She demonstrates how Eliot's poetry and prose reflect a dialectical movement, a constant interplay between opposing forces, that defines both his modernist aesthetics and his philosophical positions.
 An essential resource for scholars seeking comprehensive understanding of modernism's philosophical foundations and poetic achievements, Brooker is devoted to tracing both dialectical movements and biographical developments in Eliot's career.