T.S. Eliot in one of a series of talks broadcast to Germany after World War II, claimed that the English language was the richest for poetry.

However he pointed out that this did not mean England has produced the greatest poets or amount of poetry.

In the third paragraph Eliot of his speech he clarified that in his opinion English is the richest language for poetry because it has the largest vocabulary.

As a justification of the previous statement he claimed that this richness is due to the variety of elements of which English is made of such as: the Germanic, the Scandinavian, the Norman French, the French, the Latin and the Celtic.

As a further clarification of his thesis, Eliot added that English language is also rich in its rhythmic variety because of its Saxon’s, Norman’s, Welsh’s, Latin’s and Greek’s influence.

As a result English is a good language for poetry because it is derived from so many linguistic sources. In the following passage, Eliot reclaimed that in his opinion England has not necessarily produced the greatest poets.

He carried on his speech pointing out that it is generally thought that the greatest peoples excel in one art. As a consequence Italy and France make the most on art, Germany excel in music and England in poetry.

However Eliot refused this concept because according to him no art has ever been the exclusive possession of a country and there have been periods in which other country than England has taken the lead in poetry.

In order to justify his point of view he exposed the example which says that in the final years of eighteenth century and in the first quarter of nineteenth century the Romantic movement in English poetry dominated. Although in the second half of nineteenth century a great contribution in English poetry was made in France.

Furthermore Eliot said that a nation which leads in a particular art form in a particular period doesn’t necessarily produce the greatest artists. He provided with the example that Goethe’s greatness cannot be compared with Wordsworth or any other contemporary poet even if at the time England led poetry and Goethe was German.

As a consequence Eliot added that no European nation would have accomplished what it has as far as culture is concerned if other countries had not develop the same art forms.

In conclusion Eliot draws the listener’s attention on the European literature to renew itself. The speaker based it on two factors: firstly the countries should not cut off each other and secondly every literature must have some sources deep in its own history and in the sources European countries share: the Latin, the Greek and the Israel literature.