For ease of reading, this Norton Critical Edition presents The Waste Land as it first appeared in the American edition (Boni & Liveright), with Eliot s notes at the end. "Contexts" provides readers with invaluable materials on The Waste Land s sources, composition, and publication history. "Criticism" traces the poem s reception with twenty-five reviews and essays, from first reactions through the end of the twentieth century. Included are reviews published in the Times Literary Supplement, along with selections by Virginia Woolf, Gilbert Seldes, Edmund Wilson, Elinor Wylie, Conrad Aiken, Charles Powell, Gorham Munson, Malcolm Cowley, Ralph Ellison, John Crowe Ransom, I. A. Richards, F. R. Leavis, Cleanth Brooks, Delmore Schwartz, Denis Donoghue, Robert Langbaum, Marianne Thormahlen, A. D. Moody, Ronald Bush, Maud Ellman, and Tim Armstrong. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included.

本书共收录了艾略特于1919年至1936年期间的20篇评论文章和演讲稿。同样致力于诗剧创作的艾略特在戏剧的黄金时代——伊丽莎白时代进行了仔细爬梳，将莎士比亚、马洛等剧作家置于笔下进行了缜密而谨慎的分析，同时在最后指出了现代教育的危机，并提出古典文学修养于现代教育的意义。

本书具有很高的学术成就，不仅自成一家，而且对在校本科、硕士和博士生及我国的外国文学学者，均具有良好的引导和借鉴作用。 【目录】 一、艾略特的荒源 二、荒原疏注 附录一：《荒原》原文（一九二二年） 附录二：序曲

本书综合布莱克、莱考夫和福可尼埃等人建立的当代隐喻理论、列维-布留尔的“原逻辑隐喻思维”理论和布拉德利与艾略特的“初始经验”论，并以此为方法论对艾略特诗歌进行综合研究和评估。根据这些理论作者在总结艾略特的诗歌理论的基础上，对他诗中的语言、意象、典故、片段、原型、宗教、文化诸方面进行了概括研究。

本书共收录了艾略特在1919年至1936年期间18篇评论文章和演讲稿。凭借其深厚的文学蕴涵和冷静敏锐的洞察力，这名出色的批评家对英国文学史上具有时代重要性的代表诗人进行了承前启后的审视，同时也表达了自己对文学批评的意义和手法的独到见解。

T. S. Eliot's reformulation of the idea of literary tradition has been one of the key critical concepts of the twentieth century. In this reappraisal of tradition, an international team of scholars explores the concept from a variety of theoretical and historical perspectives, including a series of illuminating case studies evaluating Eliot's version of tradition alongside the theories of other major twentieth-century critics. This 2007 volume will be of great interest to students of literary theory, modernist studies and intellectual history, initiating a dialogue between Continental and Anglo-American investigations into the nature of literary traditions. Tradition is a concept often viewed by contemporary critics with misunderstanding or even hostility. This book powerfully reaffirms the continuing importance of our artistic and cultural traditions in shaping the past and creating the future.