Sunday 7 July 2024
The T S Eliot Festival is back again this year on Sunday 7 July with another exciting line-up providing an inspirational day of talks, readings, and discussions near the pig-sty, the dull façade, and the tombstone.
Ruth Padel will open this year’s Festival with a reading of Prufrock.
The Festival will feature critic A.N.Wilson, Eliot scholar Maud Ellmann, former Old Bailey judge Charles Wide, and actress Katherine Waterston, star of .Fantastic Beasts, Alien: Covenant and other films.
Dante and Eliot
The celebrated writer, journalist and historian A.N. Wilson wrote and presented the BBC documentary Return to TS Eliotland – and also wrote the acclaimed book Dante in Love. The two subjects will come together in his opening talk on Dante and Eliot.
Eliot and George Herbert
In his last major work of criticism, published in 1962, Eliot found in George Herbert “native genius, hard work and a passion for perfection”. Charles Wide will talk on Eliot and Herbert.
‘Little Gidding’: The Disfigured Street
Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, Maud Ellmann has written on modernism and literary theory in books including The Poetics of Impersonality: T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. Professor Ellmann will deliver this year’s Little Gidding Lecture.
Actress Katherine Waterston will compère My Favourite Eliot, the session in which members of the audience read their favourite Eliot text. She will also conclude the day with the traditional reading of ‘Little Gidding’. Weather-permitting, the poem will be read on the steps of the church immortalised by Eliot.
Featuring talks and poetry, conversation and debate, and delicious food and wine, the Festival is a delightful celebration of Eliot and of Little Gidding, and a chance to meet other Eliot scholars and enthusiasts. It takes place in the garden of Ferrar House at Little Gidding in rural Cambridgeshire. In addition to the programme of Eliot-related events, morning coffee, a two-course buffet lunch, and afternoon tea will be served. Doors open at 10:00, the programme begins at 10:30, and the Festival concludes at 4:30.
All meals and refreshment are included in the ticket price £45, and for students £25. (Special price for members of the T S Eliot Society and the Friends of Little Gidding: £35.)
Tickets
Click the button below to buy tickets for this year’s Festival; or buy from Eventbrite via eliot-festival.eventbrite.co.uk.