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Structure
Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 95 general entries. We are selecting 30 for display.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Eliot, T. S.
Macavity. From "Macavity: the Mystery Cat": "And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known/(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)/Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time/Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!"
Rumpuscat. This poem has a rather longwinded title: "Of the Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles: Together with Some Account of the Participation of the Pugs and the Poms, and the Intervention of the Great Rumpuscat."
"The Fox and French Horn". In the third Stanza of "Old Deuteronomy."
Siamese. From "Growltiger's Last Stand": "But most to Cats of foreign race his hatred had been vowed,/To Cats of foreign name and race no quarter was allowed./The Persian and the Siamese regarded him with fear-/Because it was a Siamese had mauled his missing ear."
Mr. Mistoffelees. From ?Mr. Mistoffelees" (who's my favourite Cat!): "At prestidigitation/And at legerdemain/He'll defy examination/And deceive you again."
the Theatre Cat. From "Gus: the Theatre Cat": "In the Pantomime season I never fell flat,/And I once understudied Dick Whittington's Cat./But my grandest creation, as history will tell,/Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell."
Jellicle . From "The Song of the Jellicles".
"O Cat!". From "The Ad-dressing of Cats: "I say, you should ad-dress a Cat./But always keep in mind that he/Resents familiarity./I bow, and taking off my hat,/Ad-dress him in this form: 'O CAT!' ... And so in time you reach your aim,/And finally call him by his NAME."
| According to the poems, which Cat (or Cats) is it that would be responsible for the knife or fork that disappears, and then is found a week later on the lawn? | Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
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Mr. Mistoffelees. From "Mr. Mistoffelees": "If you look for a knife or fork/And you think it is merely misplaced-/You have seen it one moment, and then it is gawn!/But you'll find it next week lying out on the lawn."
Peter. From "The Naming of Cats" "The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,/It isn't just one of your holiday games,/You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter/When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES./First of all, there's the name that the family uses daily,/Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,/Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey-/All of them sensible everyday names."
sitting. From "The Old Gumbie Cat": "I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots,/Her coat is of the tabby kind, with tiger stripes and leopard spots./All day she sits upon the stair or on the steps or on the mat,/She sits and sits and sits and sits--and that's what makes a Gumbie Cat!"
The poems allude they are both male.. "They made their home in Victoria Grove.
They had no regular occupation.
They were plausible fellows who liked to engage
A friendly policeman in conversation." (Credit to Stargate for pointing out this verse.)
The word "fellows" is a good indication that Eliot wrote these characters as male. In Sir Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical adaptation, Mungojerrie is usually male with a female Rumpelteazer.
11:42. From "Skimbleshanks: the Railawy Cat": "At 11.42 then the signal's nearly due/And the passengers are frantic to a man-/Then Skimble will appear and he'll saunter to the rear:/He's been busy in the luggage van!"
barking. From "The Ad-dressing of Cats": "Now dogs pretend they like to fight,/They often bark, more seldom bite,/But yet a Dog is, on the whole,/What you would call a simple soul."
Growltiger. From "Growltiger's Last Stand": "Growltiger had no eye or ear for aught but Griddlebone,/And the Lady seemed enraptured by his manly baritone,/Disposed to relaxation, and awaiting no surprise-/But the moonlight shone reflected from a thousand bright blue eyes."
"the Oldest Inhabitant". From "Old Deuteronomy".
Pekes and Pollicles. The Pugs and Poms don't start in until the end of the third stanza.
St. James's. From "Bustopher Jones: the Cat about Town": "Bustopher Jones is not skin and bones-/In fact, he's remarkably fat./He doesn't haunt pubs--he has eight or nine clubs,/For he's the St. James's Street Cat!"
He do the Police in Different Voices. The working title was "He Do the Police in Different Voices", which is a quote from Charles Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend". Betty Higden says of Sloppy, "I do love a newspaper. You mightn't think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices." The title is supposed to reflect the many voices within the poem.
Ezra Pound . Pound, a poet renowned for helping other poets to establish themselves, edited and made suggestions to Eliot for revising the poem. Whole sections were cut at his suggestion. Hence, the dedication of the poem is "For Ezra Pound, il miglior fabbro".
Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". The first epigraph Eliot designated to the poem came from Conrad's "Heart of Darkness". However, Pound did not believe Conrad was worthy of the citation, so Eliot changed it.
| The line, "The ivory men make company between us", which was deleted from the final version of the poem from the second section "A Game of Chess", was taken out at whose suggestion? | T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"
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Vivien Eliot's. The line was initially in "A Game of Chess", between the lines, "And we shall play a game of chess/Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door". Vivien, his then wife, suggested the removal of the line--one of the few suggestion she made. She felt the line hit too close to home.
| Before it was deleted, the line "Get me a woman, I said; you're too drunk, she said" was part of which section of the poem? | T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land"
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Burial of the Dead. The line was originally part of a large sequence which Eliot took out from the first section. The sequence precluded what we now have as the beginning of the poem, and it led into the opening lines "April is the cruellest month..."
The Golden Bough. Frazer's "The Golden Bough" had a deep effect on Eliot. Although he was deeply influenced by Weston's "From Ritual to Romance" as well, the book had more to do with the Grail legend--and the Fisherking in Eliot's poem. "The Mabinogeon" consists of stories from Welsh mythology. "The Tain" is an epic story from the Irish.
| The poem is dedicated to which poet and friend of TS Eliot? | The Waste Land
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Ezra Pound . He also helped with the writing of the poem.
| The opening line of the poem, "April is the cruellest month", is an allusion to a quote from which English poet? | The Waste Land
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Geoffrey Chaucer. It is from "The Canterbury Tales".
| The passage in "What The Thunder Said" that begins "Who is the third who walks always beside you?" was inspired by which event, according to Eliot in his notes? | The Waste Land
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An account of an explorer's expedition in Antarctica. It was an account written by the explorer, Shackleton.
| There are a lot of Shakespearean allusions in the poem, including the line, "Good night ladies, good night sweet ladies". Which Shakespearean play is this taken from? | The Waste Land
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Hamlet. It is spoken by Ophelia in her madness.
| There are also lots of classical allusions in the poem. What is the name of the character who is both male and female? | The Waste Land
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Tiresias. All these characters are mentioned in the poem. Tiresias is the blind prophet who knows everyhing because he is both male and female. He crops up throughout ancient Greek myth. I remember he was in "Oedipus" and probably many more.
| Which mythological character, referred to in the poem, became a nightingale when she was raped and her tongue cut out? | The Waste Land
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Philomel. Strange occurrences in these Greek Myths. She pops up in "A Game Of Chess" here.
| Eliot mentions a Queen of England and her lover, Leicester, in "The Fire Sermon". Which Queen is this? | The Waste Land
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Elizabeth I. They are sailing down the river - it is unlikely any of the others would have had a lover!
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