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hes on Eliot in 1940s-1950s were restricted to his own critical theories toa certain degree, and they can’t jump out of the New Criticism. For example, F. O.Matthiessen’s book T. S. Eliot’s Achievements: An essay on the Nature of Poetryargues that Eliot, as a poet and critic, will stand together with Coleridge and Arnold(vii), which shows his affirmation to Eliot. Eliot’s achievements lie in that he madethe critical field recognize the nature of poetry by using his poems and critical essays.Matthiessen deems that Eliot is more excellent than Arnold because he could focusspecial attention on the poetical techniques, which was related to some opinions ofNew Criticism (vii). Besides, the purpose of Helen Gardner’s The Art of T. S. Eliot isto prove that Four Quartets is his greatest masterpiece. She believes that Eliot’s earlypoems like The Waste Land is just the preparation or prelude for his later maturationand lays stress on this development progress (qtd. in Zhang Jian 122). Although shehas a comprehensive and unique understanding on Eliot, she still considers poem as alived whole. Both Matthiessen and Gardner are not willing to step outside the poemitself, still influenced a lot by New Criticism.
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CHAPTER III THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .....14
3.1 Russian Formalism .............15
3.1.1 A Brief Introduction to Russian Formalism .........15
3.1.2 Nabokov’s Links with Russian Formalism ..........17
3.2 The New Criticism .............20
CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS OF TENSION IN NABOKOV’S WORKS...........25
4.1 Russian Formalistic Devices in Nabokov’s Short Stories ....25
4.1.1 An Unfamiliar World .............25
4.1.2 A Complicated Design ...........28
4.2 Nabokov: Abrupt Change .............31
4.3 Tension in Nabokov’s Theories and Practices ............35
CHAPTER V ANALYSIS OF TENSION IN ELIOT’S WORKS...........37
5.1 A Close Reading of Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.............375
5.2 Emulation and Deviation....41
5.3 Tension in Eliot’s Theories and Practices.........46

CHAPTER V ANALYSIS OF TENSION IN ELIOT’S WORKS

As the pioneer of the New Criticism, Eliot makes great contribution to thedevelopment of it. There is no doubt that he is formalist and pay much attention to theliterary form and text itself. While many of his theoretical essays show his traditionalview that history is a rather important factor for him. No matter in his essays orliterary creations, the traces of history is clear. Thus the tension is formed.

5.1 A Close Reading of Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
As the most outstanding achievement in Eliot’s early career, The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock had attracted quite much attention from the academic field. Thesuperficial story of this poem, together with the deep meaning under that surface,provided much fun for readers or scholars approaching it. As the direct pioneer ofNew Criticism, Eliot contributed a lot to “close reading”, the purpose of which lies inthat “the elucidation of the way literature embodies or concretely enacts universaltruth” (Rivkin and Ryan 6) and placed the text or poem itself at the center of analysis.Therefore, in order to have a better understanding on this poem, it is necessary toinvestigate its solid structure and Eliot’s artistic creation through the method of “closereading”.The most obvious ambiv