Speaking Through Grey Area: The Inter World War Writings of T.S. Eliot and Dorothy L. Sayers

The goal of this project is to investigate the relationship of 1930's British modernism and the popular return to classical western traditions. The project of modernism had many variants depending on the practitioner and a broader reach than the avant-garde realm we have placed it in to allow post-modernism to grow in linear success from modernism. During its time of composition, modernist work was being created in reaction to a period of radical uncertainty. The goal of this essay is not refutation of high modernism, or to idealize the dreaming spires of Oxford, but to bring the conversation between the two as it existed between them at the time. By examining key works of T.S. Eliot and Dorothy L. Sayers we can begin to see where these classical ideals occur and begin building an argument as to why in this era of turmoil perceived by scholars as defeatist, projects of hope and cyclic history flourished.