T.S. Eliot

T.S. ELIOT

Eliot’s work was influenced by symbolism, particularly Yeats and Symons. Where Yeats had a theory of “the symbol,” Eliot had his theory of the objective correlative. The two differ in that, for Yeats, the artist is a mystic who summons the symbol, an idea that imbues the notion of the process with spirituality. For Eliot, the poet is professional, a craftsman, and the terminology he uses is scientific and psychological. For Eliot, a poem should not depict authorial emotion. The “resolved poet” does not write himself; he writes his time. This is a direct reaction against Romanticism, which saw the personality / inner voice of the poet as driving the poetry. For Eliot, the personality of the poet was a pathology. For all of this, though, Eliot does not try to explain away the mystery of the creative process.

Eliot also:
-sought to make poetry more "subtle," "suggestive" and yet "precise"
-believed the modern century is spiritually bankrupt
-uses literary allusions to indicate the fertility Eliot finds in the past
-shows people continually engaged in fruitless quests
-felt himself in debt to the metaphysical poets

In Prufrock, we see:

-a flaneur spoiled by self-consciousness

-unexpected combinations of objects to invoke emotions

-visual detail without conclusion

-ability to create a much stronger sense of unhealth and decadence than Symons

-humanity displaced onto the urban environment (which is grotesque)
-contrasts of past and present, heroic and antiheroic (or non-heroic), climax and anticlimax
-juxtaposition of important philosophy on growing old and the worth of life with bits of meaningless social convention

In general, Eliot’s personas are “betwixt and between” and unable to find a place to fit. Thus, the poems create ambivalence and cannot resolve themselves.

“The Wasteland”

-This is a poem of its moment. It was written after World War One, in the 1920s, and though it is written in peacetime, the trauma of war it still playing itself out. The 1920s was a time of great cultural pessimism: there was a sense of the impending death of Western civilization: it was in decay, though refusing to die. Eliot himself believed this this time was merely a lull in hostilities, and that peace would not last. The poem also presents a cyclical model of history (reflecting recent discoveries in anthropology) as opposed to a 19^th century, linear model. Eliot situates “The Wasteland” within that cycle. There is a sense of historical contingency, the idea that there is an arbitrariness to what exists in any given moment.

In terms of the literary context, Eliot was reading Joyce’s Ulysses at the time he composed “The Wasteland.” There have also been interesting arguments made about whether or not Pound masculinized the text with his heavy revisions.

Some readings of the poem:

1. New Critical (Cleanth Brooks): religion and loss of faith

2. Poisonous nature of human relationships

3. Fertility (lament of infertility, yet fertility is destructive)

4. Images of the elements

5. Shifting points of view of the inhabitants of the wasteland: who are afraid to participate in the cycle of birth and death, regeneration, etc. They cannot accept the death of the civilization (god) for the purpose of resurrection; this would mean the bringing about of a new civilization belonging to someone else.

The poem reflects a sense of powerlessness and helplessness in the face of destruction, without the possibility of a hopeful renewal, and no vision of a newly- or self-generated future.

The poem was originally called “He Do the Police in Different Voices,” reflecting the notion that, though the voices speak as overlapping individuals, they are part of a collective identity. Tiresias serves as a kind of spokesman: he is a unifying figure by virtue of his vision (though, of course, literally blind). He is a hermaphrodite, reflecting gender confusion, and the complexity of gender identification. There is also a multiplicity of allusions, which could be argued to have a variety of functions; on the one hand, they provide continuity, on the other, they serve as ironic contrasts.

Ultimately, the poem shows us the moment before the fall, prolonged to the point of sickness. It raises the questions, however, of whether this moment is unique, or universal.