T.S. Eliot TLS Regarding His 1931 Poem "Triumphal March," an Anti-War Successor to "The Waste Land"

A 1p typed letter signed by Thomas Sterns Eliot (1888-1965), the British poet, playwright, and publisher, as "T.S. Eliot" at lower right. Written in London, England on March 11, 1935 on a single leaf of business stationery with "Faber & Faber / Limited / Publishers" letterhead, and Eliot's name listed as a director. In addition, Eliot has made one typographical edit in the fourth line of the paragraph, crossing out an "n" and replacing it with an "s." Expected transmittal folds, else near fine. 7.875" x 10."

In this letter addressed to a Nottingham well-wisher named Dudley Sheppard, T.S. Eliot wrote in part, "Thank you for your kind remarks about Triumphal March. The final line in French about which you ask is a quotation from a passage in L'Avenir de l'Intelligence by Charles Maurras…"

Eliot's poem "Triumphal March" was the first poem of two poems (the other being "The Difficulty of a Statesman") published as part of an unfinished series called the "Coriolan." The inspiration for the name of the poetry suite was the Roman general Coriolanus, immortalized in William Shakespeare's eponymous play. In "Triumphal March," a poem of four stanzas describing a military parade, Eliot suggests that humanity is seduced by spectacles of power to such an extent that it consistently overlooks the real, awful consequences of warfare. The last line of "Triumphal March" states, "Et les soldats faisaient la haie? ILS LA FAISAIENT." Translated into English, this means: "And the soldiers make a wall [like in military formation]? THEY DID IT."

This sentence in French was excerpted from a work published in 1905 by French author Charles Maurras (1868-1952) called "L'Avenir de l'Intelligence." Maurras's work criticized the tendency of intellectuals to be corrupted by venality, and the excerpt itself came from an ironic passage concerning a writer's funeral, as Eliot explains.

The "Triumphal March" was just Eliot's latest anti-war work, following his celebrated poem "The Waste Land" published in 1922. Like "Triumphal March," Eliot's earlier and most famous poem also drew on the character of Coriolanus. Both poems, "Triumphal March" and "The Waste Land," aimed to demystify war and depict it in its most realistic, brutal terms. "The Waste Land" was written as a commentary on World War I, whereas "Triumphal March" is often interpreted as a criticism of increasing militarism developing in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in the 1930s.

T.S. Eliot served as an editor at Faber & Faber between 1925 and his death in 1965.

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