One of the most prominent modernist poets of his time, T.S. Eliot was perhaps the representative poet of his movement. He was the face of a radical shift from Victorian techniques into new, revolutionary ones. Eliot's poetry, much like that of his contemporaries, explored the themes of isolation, fragmentation and alienation in a cosmopolitan world.
The intense fragmentation in his works like The Waste Land and "The Journey of the Magi" projects a sense of a large but fragmented world. His works were rich with literary allusions to cater to the larger design of his poem. He explored the theme of the artist in society and the isolation he must face.
Eliot rejected the idea of a center, so to speak. His poetry is rich with uncertainty, acting as an antithesis of Victorian art. This sense of uncertainty at the face of remarkable change is present in "The Journey of the Magi," in which the Magi are alienated, trapped between two worlds that symbolize the old order and the new. A similar theme recurs in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," as the speaker is always lost in thought, in the middle of something. Critics have always wondered where the speaker is headed psychologically, perhaps because there is always an internal conflict that plagues the speaker. This conflict leads to a fragmented image in the poem, an image that permeates the works of T.S. Eliot.
His works have been noted for their intensity and transgression; T.S. Eliot still remains an influential force in the history of literary tradition.
