This internationally famous poem, considered to have exerted a wide influence on modern poetry, was first introduced to English-language readers in the translation by T.S. Eliot. In his Preface, Eliot describes it as a series of images of migration in the vast spaces of the ancient East and ranks it as a piece of writing of the same importance as the later work of James Joyce. This is the definitive edition, published with the French and English texts on facing pages. In addition to the Preface by Eliot it includes translations of prefaces to three European editions of the work, by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Valery Larbaud, and Giuseppe Ungaretti.