T.S. Eliot, Portrait Photo Hulton-Deutsch Collection, via Getty Images.

We musn't be surprised that the first review of Eliot's poem was damning. The redoubtable F.L. Lucas ridiculed the work as a trite academic pastiche of allusions and pretentious philosophical mumbo-jumbo (3 Nov. 1923, The New Statesman, London). Yet the poem was soon hailed as the signature of the new experimental Modernist movement. No other poem of its day did what Eliot's 434 lines achieved. Yes, it is an unsparing depiction of the deep disorder and despair following World War I, but the poem bravely comes full circle with advice for a way forward. One hundred years on, Eliot's words still resound. Let's take a look: <visit here>.