Preludes

“Preludes” is an early poem by T. S. Eliot. He wrote it when he was in his early twenties, over a period that extended from October 1910 to around November 1911. The poem was published in July 1915 in the periodical Blast and was reprinted in Eliot’s groundbreaking Modernist collection, Prufrock and Other Observations in 1917. “Preludes” is in four parts, each of which depicts a bleak urban scene at various times of day and night. Eliot based the poem on his observations of deprived areas in various places he had lived, including St. Louis, Missouri; Roxbury (a neighborhood in Boston); North Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Paris.

The edition used in this study guide is from Eliot’s Collected Poems: 1909-1962 (London: Faber and Faber, 1963, reprinted 1974) and can be found on the Poetry Foundation website.

Poet Biography

Poet, dramatist, literary critic, and editor Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888, in St. Louis, Missouri. His family had roots in New England, and after Eliot graduated from Smith Academy in St. Louis, he attended Milton Academy in Massachusetts. He entered Harvard in 1906, and received a bachelor of arts in June 1909 and a master of arts in English literature in 1910.