T. S. Eliot, Verse Drama, and Dance

In recent years we have come to recognise T. S. Eliot as a writer who engaged deeply with the art of dance in his poetry and critical essays. Yet the relationship between his fascination with dance and his early dramatic endeavours has remained somewhat elusive. Eliot’s over 1,100 letters to Emily Hale, just published in 2023, provide rich new insight into how the fledgling dramatist drew inspiration from early twentieth-century dance innovations as he explored how best to convey the poetic word through the body on stage. Taking these letters as a point of departure, this talk traces the genetic history of Eliot’s initial forays into drama, unfolding how he navigated the aesthetic fissures between choreographic developments and the text-based theatre. In so doing, it seeks to provide a new lens through which to consider Eliot’s broader poetic—and indeed theological—preoccupation with the sometimes-fraught relationship between word and body, suggesting that the stage offered him one possibility of poetic resolution.