Preludes

“Rhapsody on a Windy Night” by T. S. Eliot (1915)

Along with “Preludes,” this poem was published in July 1915 in the periodical Blast. It is set in an unnamed city at night. The speaker walks the streets for hours while the moon casts a spell that disrupts the linear world of clock time. As a result, many fragmented, disconnected memories pop up in the speaker’s mind. It is apparent that he lives in a meaningless world that lacks joy, purpose, and human connection, much like the urban landscape in “Preludes.”

“The ‘Boston Evening Transcript’” by T. S. Eliot (1915)

Reading the evening newspaper is one of the habits that the dull people in “Preludes” indulge in, and this poem from the same period in Eliot’s work presents a similar idea, although it takes place in a more upscale neighborhood. Evening comes on in the street, “[w]akening the appetites in some / And to others bringing the Boston Evening Transcript.” In other words, those who sit in their homes reading the newspaper are not fully alive; passively reading about current events and the lives of others does nothing to enhance the flow of life in them.