The tenth annual T. S. Eliot Lecture at the Abbey Theater, Dublin will be delivered by Colm Tóibín.

The evening will be introduced by the Abbey Theatre’s artistic director Caitríona McLaughlin, interspersed with readings by Cathy Belton, and followed by a conversation with James Shapiro. It marks 85 years since Eliot spoke at the Abbey Theatre to commemorate and celebrate W. B. Yeats on the first anniversary of his death.

This year’s lecture is entitled The Road to Little Gidding Yeats, Auden, Eliot 1939, 1940, 1941.

As war approached, the poets W.B. Yeats, W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot explored systems of belief that were both traditional and esoteric. They looked inwards for images of unsettled consolation; they looked to the past, especially to the poet Dante, for inspiration. And, then, as Yeats died early in 1939, Eliot and Auden looked to Yeats and his achievement as an example or as a warning as they sought ways to approach modernity and tradition, violence and love, solitude and the life of the spirit.

Presented at the Abbey Theatre since 2016 and inspired by Eliot’s legacy and impact on modern literature, previous speakers include Paul Muldoon, Steven Pinker, Samantha Power, Sean Scully, Edna O’Brien, Es Devlin, Sally Rooney, Jeanette Winterson, and Ralph Fiennes.

The lecture will take place on Sunday 14 December at 6pm. Further information and booking here.