Hysteria, Eliot's short discussion of a speaker's descriptions and reactions to his woman companion's laughter, examines loosely the seductive quality of hysteria. Conceivably influenced by Freud's psychology publication Studies on Hysteria - incidentally, a work with which the poem is often cited alongside in many further researches into hysteria as a state of mind -, it has also been interpreted as an exploration of female hysteria, a false medical condition that was a popular diagnosis in the Victorian era, due to the association of hysteria with a woman in the poem.

Eliot draws on his famed command of imagery to produce deliciously quirky phrases such as `accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill' in portraiture of teeth chattering with mirth. The utilisation of the colours pink, white and green draw forth an image of spring and sweet weather, which stands in stark and telling contrast with the beguiling...