By reading T.S. Eliot literally and laterally, and attending to his intra-textuality, G. Douglas Atkins challenges the familiar notion of Eliot as bent on escaping this world for the spiritual. This study culminates in the necessary, but seemingly impossible, union of reading and writing, literature and commentary.

Reading Literally, Reading Laterally Affirming Life's Newness and Joy:Turning and Acceptance in Ash-Wednesday Falling in Love and Reading Spinoza: Some Forms of Approach to ...