virginia woolf, t.s. eliot, and realism

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A Bold Perspective on Virginia Woolf's Reality through the Lens of T.S. Eliot

I. Introduction

A brief story: Ornette Coleman is an American jazz musician who in the last few

decades has begun playing “free jazz.” In 1997, after recently befriending the post -

structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida, Coleman invited him to perform with him at the

Paris Jazz Festival. Derrida was not a musician, so he composed a philosophical spoken

word piece, which he thought would suitably accompany Coleman’s “free jazz.” However,

upon taking the stage, he was almost immediately booed off. Derrida was surprised at this

response and described it as a “very painful experience” (Stein).

A brief opinion: Virginia Woolf, in her essay “Modern Fiction,” discusses what she

saw as problems with the state of literature in the 1920s. She describes two problems for

writers: first, the restriction to which they are subjected from being “a slave …[to]

convention”; second, the resulting problem created by this in writing—“Whether we call it

life or spirit, truth or reality, this, the essential thing, has moved off…” (160). She thinks

that the restrictions of genre and literary convention have produced a lack of realism in her

contemporaries’ writing, causing it to suffer the loss of the principle characteristic that

determines its quality.

What does this have anything to do with Coleman and Derrida? The answer to this

question, which in a roundabout way will occupy the rest of this paper, can help explain

why Woolf’s view is problematic in terms of its assumptions, values, and understanding of

literature and its place in society. This in turn can explain, along with help of various

literary theorists and one of Woolf’s contemporaries, T.S. Eliot, what the value of genre and

convention actually is.



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According to Ralph Cohen, genre is composed of an aggregation of literary

conventions on the side of both the reader and the writer (212). Thus when Woolf has a

problem being a “slave to convention,” what she really means is that she dislikes the

influence of genre conventions on writers’ freedom, particularly in the sense that she

considers it debilitating to their ability to create realism. There are problems with her

stance at every level. At a basic level, she misunderstands the fundamentalism of genre and

convention with regards to the creation of literature and to communication in general.

Second, her definitions and ideals concerning realism are not as fundamental to the

measurement of literary quality as she implies that they are, and the universal application

of these ideals that she implicitly seems to demand in “Modern Fiction” is problematic as a

result. Finally, she fails to see that genre conventions do not have to be restrictive or

homogenizing in the realm of individual writing; rather, interaction with genre allows a

writer to amplify the meaning of their work and accent their individuality. In general, she

thinks about originality and individuality as a writer in a seriously flawed way, at least

according to the following critical survey and its application in “A Game of Chess,” part II of

Eliot’s The Waste Land .

II. Theoretical Perspectives on Genre

According to John Dorst, a scholar of the early twentieth century Soviet thinker M.

M. Bakhtin, genres are ethnographic conventions that we use to modulate our perception of

reality: they provide “points of view through which we ‘fix’ time and space in certain ways

and in terms of which we experience our social and material environment” (Dorst 415).

Not only are they prevalent in literature, but they compose the way we communicate and



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perceive reality in the basic social realm as well. For Bakhtin, human consciousness is

fundamentally differentiated by its social aspect, i.e. the sharing of consciousness. The only

way to create a shared perception is to rely on collections of conventions, or genres. In this

sense, Woolf’s perception of genre and convention as something to escape is fundamentally

misguided, for she cannot understand the way that genre determines every aspect of how

we perceive and communicate things if she thinks it is something simply to be avoided.

Several other prominent scholars build upon this idea, or at least expand it (they

might not have been familiar with Bakhtin’s work). Jacques Derrida (the Derrida of the

introduction) argues that literature is marked by genre participation from the point of its

creation (64). If it has no relation to genre, then it is not literature. Participation for Derrida

does not mean inclusion. What he terms the “law of genre” creates a network of subset

boundaries dividing the greater set of literary work. Every work of literature is either

inside or out, so there is no way to escape some orientation in regards to genre categories

unless something is not even considered to be classifiable via genre, in other words failing

to meet the prerequisite for literature or even literary potential (57). J. Reichert specifies

this in terms of poetry, describing the “special conventions” of language that demarcate

something as poetry and allow artistic communication from the poet to the reader (53). He

thinks of it as an “implicit knowledge” shared by readers and poets from which poetry

cannot escape, but at most can simply modify. In this latter sense, he shares a dynamic,

processive view of genre with most of the writers surveyed here.

Hans Jauss takes a somewhat similar view, but explores the boundaries of genre

rather than the fact of membership. Existing convention provides a basis from which to

approach literature and a “horizon of expectations” for readers. These conventions provide



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a framework of meaning that can be “varied, extended, corrected, but also transformed,

crossed out, or simply reproduced. Variation, extension, and correction determine the

latitude of a generic structure; a break with the convention on the one hand and a mere

reproduction on the other determines its boundaries” (88). As with Reichert, breaking

convention does not signal the obsolescence of genre as a paradigm, but rather extends the

boundaries of convention. The measure of a literary work’s value, for him, is directly

correlated to the extent to which it modifies boundary divisions. For Jauss, Reichert, and

Derrida, genre convention is inescapable: even those “breaking” it are still within the realm

of the “law of genre”—they just happen to be on an alternative side of the law. Once that

side has been explored, it is absorbed into the existing field of convention, creating an ever-

expanding horizon of expectations for the modern reader, and an ever-expanding realm of

convention for the modern writer. Therefore, Woolf’s conception of herself, or at least of

her ideal writer self as apart from the denomination of genre convention reveals a

fundamental misunderstanding of the way in which genre convention works.

Genre convention is not the only thing that Woolf seems to have a lack of

understanding for at the fundamental level. In “Modern Fiction,” she asks of conventional

fiction, “Is life like this?” (160). The writer that she seems to idealize for attempting “to

come closer to life” is James Joyce, a similar writer to herself in the sense that he employs

stream-of-consciousness heavily. Along with thinking that she can exist apart from

convention, Woolf also mistakenly believes that doing so will allow the creation of realism

to an unsurpassed degree, which she implies is the highest ideal in literature. Wayne Booth,

in his extensive survey of rhetorical strategies in literature, shows that not everyone thinks

literature should be realistic at all. According to him, among the modern authors who do



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subscribe to this idea, their definitions of realism vary widely (53-54). In part of his second

chapter, he discusses Woolf in particular and her rather pushy ideas about realism. He

observes that while there is nothing wrong with making value judgments on a set of

criteria for determining quality of literature, writers like Woolf often forget “the initial

arbitrary exclusiveness of the general definition” of quality that they have created (32). C. S.

Lewis, in his book An Experiment in Criticism, observes that in general, there have been two

major types of realism portrayed, as a convention, in literature. Realism of presentation,

“the art of bringing something close to us, making it palpable and visible, by sharply

observed or imagined detail,” and realism of content, the minimization of suspension of

disbelief measured by how “true to life something is, how probable,” represent two very

different ideals of realistic convention (60). He gives examples in fiction of all four

permutations of these two conceptions of realism. Lewis writes, “…The dominant taste at

present demands realism of content … But we should be making a disastrous mistake … if

we erected this … historically conditioned preference into a principle” (ibid), which of

course is exactly what Woolf does with her idealization of writing that is “true to life.”

Derrida would confirm this, for he exerts significant effort to expose the falsity of claims

made about the “naturalism” of conventions that are actually historically based, concerning

which many, apparently including Woolf, have a tendency to retroactively ascribe to

inevitable paths of human development (60-62).

Finally, there is one more relevant criticism to be made about Woolf’s conception of

realism. In literature, it must be acknowledged that nothing on the pages actually is real life.

In response to Woolf ’s question — “Is life like this?” — we can confidently answer no, that

life is not the words on a page of book and based on what we know, never will be. A more



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useful analog of this mode of thought is touched on by Booth, in which he points out that

reality and characters are impossible to depict in a way that is perfectly equivalent to the

experience of life; rather, he points out Henry James’ “intensity of illusion” as productive

way to approach this (Booth 42). James acknowledges that reality in literature is simply

about effect, not duplication or transcription of experience. What Woolf (specifically—

Booth fittingly looks at her and Joyce together in this section) seems to miss is that

psychological reality she strives for in particular requires extensive development of

narrative structure and technique to support. He describes their work as being

characterized by “distinctive patterns of … stratagems to give form to what is really

formless. The invention of structure thus becomes a kind of rhetoric to support the illusion,

rather than the other way around” (54-55). Woolf therefore, in her attempt to run away

from convention to pursue realism, actually ends up running head-on into it. This is not to

say that she does not do a good job at creating realism, simply that she misunderstands the

role she has as an individual writer in relation to genre convention.

The last area of Woolf’s flawed vision of genre convention has to do with the

incorrect degree of restriction that she ascribes to it. According to Cohen, genre is

processive, meaning that a mandatory existence in the system of the “law of genre” (either

inside or outside of genre boundaries—see Derrida’s ideas above) does not necessarily

entail restriction. Even for a work that exists mostly within the boundary of a genre (or

several: most works straddle several generic subsets), every genre is “subject to repeated

redefinititions or abandonment” (210). Essentially, what Derrida’s “law of genre” demands

is not legality, but simply a legal status; genres do not demand inclusion from works,

simply a relationship. Northrop Rye confirms this, and furthermore sees this relationship



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as the primary characteristic of interest: “The purpose of … genres is not so much to

classify as to clarify ... traditions and affinities, thereby bringing out a large number of

literary relationships that would not be noticed as long as there were no context

established for them” (247-48). Not only does the intertextual relationships between works

of literature emphasize their similarities, but also accents their individuality in a way that a

genre-less world in the literary sense (i.e. a world without literature at all) could never do.

Cohen claims specifically that, “an individual instance of a genre … can reveal its

individualit y only by comparison … within the genre” (213). Finally, genre and literary

conventions can amplify meaning within an individual’s experience of an individual work

of literature, without consideration of any intertextuality at all. First, at a most basic, but

perhaps the most important level, if conventions are seen as units of meaning, then they

provide a basis and extension for meaning. Usage, intersection, and extension of convention

gives meaning to works that other culturally unassociated constructions cannot provide.

Cohen also identifies two more uses of genre in relation to a larger audience. First, he

shows through examples of a few specific works how shifting genre conventions can make

a literary work accessible to different groups of people (215). In addition, he shows that

using cultural conventions can universalize a work in ways that are impossible to do

otherwise (204). In her complaint against the restriction of genre, Woolf never mentions

any of these positive attributes.

III. An Application: T.S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” and “A Game of Chess”

T. S. Eliot, on the other hand, takes essentially a viewpoint that is Woolf’s polar

opposite in the matter in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” The crux of his



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argument is contained in his view on how conventions enhance meaning: “No poet, no

artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the

appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists” (37) . This is perhaps an even

stronger version of Cohen’s view on the matter; he also reflects Cohen’s idea that genre is

processive and develops with each new work. His perspective, which is understandable as

a writer, is focused on the responsibility of new authors to consider the way in which their

work fits into the canon of their predecessors, given that the conventions shift with each

new work of literature. Concerning the author, he writes: “The necessity that he shall

conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is

created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded

it.” (37). For Eliot, art never improves, but what distinguishes new art is the fact that its

artists must consider their position in relation to the past (38). This leads to his ideal of the

“traditional writer”, or what he terms his Impersonal theory: while Woolf wishes to express

“reality” as she sees it, Eliot wishes to express the “Language,” for which he sees him self as

an impersonal catalytic instrument (39). The “Language” for Eliot is the tradition of

literature that he is descended from; he sees his writing as the natural development of that

tradition and strives to remove himself as a feeling human from disrupting that process as

much as possible. Whether or not this is actually possible, it is very clear that Eliot has a

fundamentally opposite view of the existing literary convention as Woolf. J.S. Childs holds

that Eliot when writing has completely different goals than Woolf: “Eliot’s concern is not to

make primary the individual text, but to privilege intertextuality itself” (319). For Childs,

Eliot’s impersonal and objective approach actually causes “liberation from the

relationships among author, reader, and text which had been institutionalized…” (321) due



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to conscious and intentional interaction with them. Eliot essentially says the same thing,

distinguishing “inheritance” from the past (unconscious, passive) and intellectual

development and incorporation of “tradition.” He writes, “If the only form of tradition, of

handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a

blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged”

(37).

It should be quite apparent that Eliot embodies the opposite literary ideals as Woolf

in regards to the question of genre convention; however, for Woolf’s claims about the

problems with such convention to be proven false, it is necessary to provide actual

counterexamples, not just theory. Luckily, unlike Derrida (the meaning of this will become

clear later), Eliot successfully implements his theory. A good example of this can be found

in his poem, The Waste Land . In particular, part II of the poem, titled “A Game of Chess,” is

sufficient to justify his claims and in doing so, the claims of most of the other theorists

referenced above. In addition to concerns about too much material, limiting analysis to the

second part is particularly interesting because of the great diversity of material that is to be

found, especially in the differences between its three subsections. This analysis will not

seek to justify all the arguments made above in an itemized fashion, but rather will be

organized according to the three levels of problems with Woolf’s perspective outlined in

the introduction, since to do so otherwise would require tedious accounts of theoretical

overlap.

Perhaps the most difficult area of theory to apply is that concerning the

fundamentalism of genre and convention. After all, the only way to directly show the

veracity of these ideas would be to try to eliminate genre convention in a genuine way,



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which of course Eliot has no intention of doing. However, there are several aspects of his

poem that indirectly show that genre convention is fundamental to art and unavoidable in

communication and artistic existence. At the most basic level is the way the Eliot signals

that this is a poem, as opposed to prose (non-poetry) or a helicopter assembly instruction

manual (non-art). Of course, there are many extra-textual means by which this occurred in

history (before the poem was even release), after which it was generally accepted that The

Waste Land was a poem. However, for the purpose of contradicting Woolf, it is useful to

derive this conclusion directly from the text of “A Game of Chess” itself. There are several

signals throughout the text that are traits specific to poetry. Enjambment can be found

throughout, perhaps most pronounced in the second section (lines 111-138) with notable

examples on lines 121 and 127. In the first subsection, there are flashes of meter—iambs

and the occasional rhyme or slant rhyme. Essentially, Eliot uses the language of poetry to

distinguish it as poetry: Reichert’s “special conventions.” Less obviously, his content, which

is fictional and figurative, places the work automatically into the genre of literature, or at

least fiction. While Cohen speaks of “reading conventions” that can make even an

instruction manual artistic, at least in the hypothetical future sense, Eliot holds that the

obligation of tradition is only to past works, not to uncertain projections of future

convention (Cohen 13)(Eliot 40). As a result, this work is signaled to be within the genre of

poetry, and probably within the genre of literature (which contains a subset of poetry)from

the moment of its creation. While with a writer such as T. S. Eliot, the need to justify this

might seem rather trivial, the signals in this specific portion of the text can serve by

themselves to make such generic distinctions, a viewpoint with which Hugh Kenner agrees

(561).



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From this point, counterpoints to Woolf’s claims become much easier as they

become less theoretical. On line 103, the simple usage of two words, “Jug Jug,” is highly

significant in that it reveals the necessity of literary convention as a basic unit of

communication and unique encapsulation of experience. Certainly, Eliot consciously uses

an (old) cultural rather than scientific description of the nightingale’s sound. But no matter

what he uses, is it not necessary that this be culturally fixed? If he tried to replicate such a

sound phonetically no one would understand it. If he explicitly labeled it as a sound that a

nightingale makes by stating it as such, there would be a horrible awkwardness of language

that would take away from the passage, particularly given its poetic nature. In this case, the

human experience of hearing a nightingale is encapsulated in “Jug, Jug,” and while no one

actually thinks that is the sound the bird makes, it is impossible to capture this experience,

at least with any reasonable concision, without such a convention, or at least some

convention. How can Woolf reasonably hope to escape such problems as the one of

fundamental communication without convention?

Eliot also gives much insight into the nature of realism in this passage. Subsections

two and three, which utilize a realistic stream-of-consciousness style narration, differ

markedly from the first section and its mythical overtones. However, in all sections, Eliot

incorporates conventions from older works and genres; this shows that such elements do

not necessarily exclude the possibility of striking realism. In section two, his realism of

content (from the C. S. Lewis paradigm) is not high, for it is not probable at all that one

would think of dead men’s bones, rat’s alley, or pearls in eyes in a literal succession while

being blabbered at by one’s wife. On the other hand, he conveys an incredible realism of

presentation by making the scene vivid using a stream of consciousness mixed in with a



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dialogue-turned-monologue. Despite his perhaps odd manner of doing so, Eliot vividly

captures the way in which an empty, postwar marriage might feel, perhaps his empty

postwar marriage. The repetitious, often nonsensical half-dialogue paired with the

narrator’s inner thoughts creates a delirious, echoey, trapped mood. Such a mood is very

vivid, yet not likely to in its exact form. However, the overall effect captures the essence of

an marriage in which both members are driving each other insane. To create the effect that

he does, it would be impossible to have a true realism of content. As Booth says, he must

construct a structure to support his narrative since there simply is no realistic way to

portray the two disparate yet similarly desperate vantage points on the same empty

marriage. The stream of consciousness, while historically new at the time of his writing, is

still a convention, an emerging convention, according to Bakhtin. In this way, Eliot

increases realism while still depending on an emerging literary convention. In section

three, both realism of content (until the last line) and of presentation are high. This could

be read as a stream of perception by the person listening to the speaker and the bar. The

narrative structure created by Lil’s “friend” is certainly that, a narrative structure. Though

of course Eliot did not invent such a narrative structure, it only increases the realism of the

passage, particularly as Eliot extends the convention by inserting brief POV statements

from the barroom vantage point. More importantly, he throws on another allusion at the

end, this one to Shakespeare, which rather than taking away from the scene, complements

its final “real” words very well and greatly changes the way it is perceived as a whole,

underscoring the lunacy of the entire situation with the quote from mad Ophelia. Of course,

no one quotes Ophelia when they go home for the night. But such insertions, while

improbable in the literal sense, enhance the essential reality of the passage, that is, the



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“intensity of illusion” from Booth and Henry James. Through these various passages, it is

thus easy to see that Eliot focuses on a realism of presentation, making his scenes vivid.

Their content does not match perfectly, but somehow the essence of the effect of these

passages manages to convey a strong sense of reality, despite heavy borrowing from

convention.

Eliot’s t reatment of class applies jointly to questions of realism and of convention.

The three subsections transverse three levels of social station: royalty, upper middle class,

and working class. Besides mirroring the various levels of chess pieces, the juxtaposition of

the first section with the other dialogue types universalizes its rather esoteric imagery by

giving it some application in the common experience. While this does not make the first

section “realistic,” it certainly increases its applicability and interrelatedness with texts of a

more modern subject. The juxtapositional increase in realism’s relation to the first

subsection is not to the point of being “realistic,” just more realistically applicable .

However, realism plays a much stronger role in the last subsection concerning topics of

class injustice. This subsection is incredibly realistic in its raw treatment of working-class

womanhood. Lil has done everything right —had many children, been faithful to her

military husband, worked hard for her family—and yet is being severely punished by her

reproductive system. What could be more realistic and universal than that? Not anything

Woolf wrote, according to Kenner (563). More importantly, there are two types of

universalization going on in “A Game of Chess”: that due to the use of the classical (or

Shakespearean) themes of the first subsection, and that due to the treatment of common

experience and suffering in the second. Together, they add meaning to each other: the

common experience increases the applicability of the classical, and the classical references



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add higher, more complex meaning to the common experience. Not only is this a sort of

realism, but it is a grand elegance, the value of which Woolf’s narrow definition of literary

excellence in “Modern Fiction” does not seem to accommodate.

Finally, we come to just a few examples of the way in which Eliot uses convention to

extend meaning. Given the plethora of allusions in The Waste Land , this is not all hard to

do—one might even venture that using convention to extend meaning is Eliot’s spe cialty,

which of course is perfectly in line with his ideals. Just a few examples follow. First, quite

obviously, Eliot uses rhyming to draw emphasis to various lines. However, the degree to

which he rhymes seems not entirely unrestrictive, for his rhyme is only ocassional: at the

end of subsection 1 (107-110) he briefly rhymes stair and hair, then continues until the end

of the subsection where he stops the rhyming with the word “still.” This emphasizes the

“savagely” part of the “stillness” by making the final unrhymed word (“stillness”) seem

slightly shocking, since it does not correspond with the expectation of the ear. Later, at the

end of section two, he rhymes lines 136 and 138, with his last line a sort of sing-song string

of iambs, leading to an overall sense of routine.

In terms of allusions, Eliot also seems about as unrestricted as a writer could be

with such heavy usage of them. While this is more pronounced in other parts of the Waste

Land in general, the first part of “A Game of Chess” is full of allusions as well. Eliot’s

allusions do not seem forced: they flow naturally with the poem, belonging to it as much as

to their original source. As Kenner says (561), “This is not really an allusion; we are not

being invited to compare … it is an appropriate grace of expression, the language

containing not only the words Eliot finds suitable, but for several phrases the very

sequence of words.” The beginning, with the “burnished throne,” holds strong similarities



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to Anthony and Cleopatra. Compare “The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne \ Burn'd

on the water: the poop was beaten gold; \ … \ Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling

Cupids” (Anthony and Cleopatra, Act II scene II) to “The Chair she sat in, like a burnished

throne \ Glowed on the marble, where the glass\ … \ From which a golden Cupidon peeped

out” (77, 78, 80). Despite having such incredible amounts of allusion, in a few cases

containing rather large chunks from the source text, Eliot shows makes the allusion fit with

ease. It never seems that he is trying to build his poem around allusion, but rather that he

incorporates allusions into his poem in a way that suits the extension of meaning that he

desires. This provides a strong example of how convention can be modified, as he does by

placing it into a different context. Certainly, if anyone is dictating the rules of convention at

this point, it is Eliot, not Shakespeare or Ovid.

IV. Conclusion

The question of whether Woolf’s specific claims have very much merit thus seems to

be settled in the realm of both literary theory and practice. Though Eliot’s impersonal

theory seems a tad theoretical, perhaps like Poe’s essay about how he wrote the Raven, he

has a much better idea about the role of genre, convention, and originality in the

production of literature than Woolf. Why might someone as intelligent as Virginia Woolf

make such a mistake? For starters, Derrida made it too, though in a different, and perhaps

less egocentric way. The problem is how they conceive originality: Derrida believes that

genres contradict themselves (a viewpoint not really discussed in this essay), and Woolf

believes she can be original outside of the realm of convention. A fruitful picture of this is

found in the concept of free jazz. Every jazz musician understands that good jazz



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improvisation is not original invention, but rather a spontaneous synthesis of well-

practiced musical figures interspersed with one or several evolutionarily original ideas. A

jazz musician can no more invent a brand new form of music on the spot than Virginia

Woolf, or Eliot for that matter (which seems more unlikely). Derrida did not understand

this about music, and Woolf did not understand this about literature.

The final question is whether there is any truth to Woolf’s conception of or iginality,

or any elements of truth. Emerson asks this question in Nature almost a century before her:

“Why should we not also enjoy an original relation to the universe?” (1110). Like Woolf, he

understands that imitative use of convention in language deadens its meaning (1120). Also

like Woolf, he yearns for a greater beauty in art, hoping to express what he think the true

nature of things really is, like Woolf’s ideal of unencumbered expression of reality. And yet,

he espouses a sort of Eliot-centric viewpoint, at least in some ways, concerning his ideal:

“Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is

only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace” (1117, italics added). However, by

sharing some ideas with both parties, Emerson’s viewpoints, along with those of C.S. Lewis

in his reflections referenced previously, reveals what Woolf might be right about pursuing.

The two writers in essence describe an originality of meaning as the center of value.

Regardless of how and with what conventions ideas are presented, their value is often in

their essential meaning, not just in their form of presentation. Woolf did, in fact, have some

novel ideas about form of presentation, perhaps leading her to confuse the relationship

between convention and originality in general. In jazz too, at least from the outside, these

two are confusing in their relationship. However, as T.S. Eliot or any proficient jazz

musician knows, convention and originality of meaning form the best partners.



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Works Cited

Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. University Of Chicago Press, 1983. Print.

Childs, J.S. “Eliot, Tradition, and Textuality.” Texas studies in literature and language 27.3

(1985): 311–323. Print.

Cohen, Ralph. “History and Genre.” New Literary History 17.2 (1986): 203–218. Print.

Derrida, J., and A. Ronell. “The Law of Genre.” Critical inquiry 7.1 (1980): 55–81. Print.

Dorst, J.D. “Neck -Riddle as a Dialogue Of f Genres: Applying Bakhtin's Genre Theory.” The

Journal of American Folklore 96.382 (1983): 413–433. Print.

Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land . W. W. Norton & Co, 2001. Print

Eliot, T.S. “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Perspecta 19 (1982): 36–42. Print.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Norton Anthology of American Literature Vol. B 1820-1865.” 7thed. Ed. Nina Baym. B. New York: W W Norton & Company Incorporated, 2004. 1110–1138.

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Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton, 1957. Print

Hirsch, C. “Perspectives on Literary Realism: a Review.” Children's Literature Association

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Jauss, Hans Robert. “Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory.” Theory and Historyof Literature- Volume 2. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Ed. Wlad Godzich & Jochen

Schulte-Sasse, Trans. Timothy Bahti. Vol. 2. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

1982. 1–45. Print.

Kenner, Hugh. “Eliot and the Tradition of the Anonymous.” College English 28.8 (1967):

558–564. Print.

Lewis, C. S. An Experiment in Criticism. Cambridge University Press, 1961. Print

Reichert, J. “Do Poets Ever Mean What They Say?.” New Literary History 13.1 (1981): 53–68.

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Stein, Joel. "Life with the Father of Deconstructionism." Time. Time, 18 Nov. 2002. Web. 07

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Woolf, Virginia. “Modern Fiction: the Common Reader.” (1925): 157-164. Print.

virginia woolf, t.s. eliot, and realism

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