[Vwoolf] A four-piece suit

[Adolphe Haberer]

Dear Jeremy,
Just browsing on the internet, I found a mention of Eliot's four-piece suit
attributed to Virginia Woolf:
"In June 1927 Eliot was received into the Church of England, and in
November became a naturalised British citizen. Virginia Woolf writes of
Eliot "in his four-piece suit" - repressed, reserved, buttoned-up."
This in an article by Craig Raine in *The Guardian*.  The "repressed,
reserved, buttoned-up" commentary is interesting.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jan/06/poetry.thomasstearnseliot
With all best
Ado Haberer


2014-02-25 13:30 GMT+01:00 Jeremy Hawthorn <jeremy.hawthorn at ntnu.no>:

>  This is interesting, but also intriguing. Did the person who so
> described Stevens know of Woolf's comment about Eliot, I wonder? It is
> possible that two people made the same joke independently, but it seems
> more likely that (as in the Hill review) Woolf is being quoted without
> attribution. I am assuming that there really is no such thing as a
> four-piece suit, but what do I know?
>
> I am reminded of the skit:
>
>     And this is good old Boston,
>     The home of the bean and the cod,
>     Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
>     And the Cabots talk only to God.
>
> In both cases you think of a measure of upper-crustedness, and then top it.
>
> Jeremy H
>
> Den 24.02.2014 17:02, skrev Adolphe Haberer:
>
>  Not so rare as all that: There is a biography of Wallace Stevens by
> William Pritchard entitled _The Man who Wore a Four-Piece Suit_
>  See
> http://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/20/books/the-man-who-wore-a-four-piece-suit.html
>  Ado Haberer
>
> Adolphe Haberer
> Professeur émérite à l'Université Lumière-Lyon 2
> 1 route de Saint-Antoine
> 69380 Chazay d'Azergues
> 33 (0)4 78 43 65 24
> adolphe.haberer at univ-lyon2.fr
>
>
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