The Vision and The Man

Yesterday, for the Epiphany, I posted T.S. Eliot's poem, 'The Journey of the Magi', a work that reflects on the magi's long, weary journey from Persia to Bethlehem, a metaphor for the weariness of life and the impending death of the old in the face of the new. Eliot was an interesting man, his own life story revealed moments of great weariness and a desire for something new and revitalising. This, I think, was manifested in his moving from the US to England and what could be described as his reinventing himself into a proper Englishman. That journey would also lead him into the Christian faith and he would plot this progress in his work. Some thoughts today.

I have always had a great love for Eliot. In school we studied some of his poems; his 'Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' was quirky enough to grab my attention. When I went to University to study English, thankfully, he was still on the curriculum and I indulged in his poetry, parsing my way through 'The Waste Land' and enjoying every syllable of it. The 'Four Quartets' were something else - purely symphonic. The beautiful poem of the Magi remained a favourite and lesser known lyrics like the love poem, 'A Dedication To My Wife' revealed a tenderness that could be rare in his work.  Eliot also got me into trouble. When I started my Masters, we were asked by one of the lecturers to give a presentation on a form of criticism that influenced us: I chosen Eliot's which is firmly grounded in the tradition and the perspective of the artist. The lecturer, who was a through and through post-modernist decided to tear me to pieces, I fought back and he was not pleased. I didn't suffer for my counterattack, thankfully, I was awarded my Masters and did well, but I got out of the Department before post-modernism triumphed and, in my opinion, wrecked the curriculum. 

Of course I realised that Eliot would be as a red rag to a bull to a post-modernist, he stands for everything they detest - the transcendence of art, meaning, objectivity, beauty. Though classed as a modernist poet, and as with other artists in that genre, he broke conventions and sought a new way of expression while confronting the world as it is. Rather than construct a utopia, an Elysium, Eliot looked over the world, society and the reality of man and composed his poetry. Regarding the poet's mind as a receptacle for many and varied images, feelings, particles of knowledge, he sought to bring them together to form a whole, to derive meaning. After the experience of World War I, society, art, religion and many other expressions of human endeavour were in crisis - the roaring Twenties was an attempt to drown out the horrors which had been inflicted upon the world. That failed. Eliot, on the other hand, using the modernist technique of poetry, began to gather these fragments, the horror, the brokenness and began to weave the strands together to form a poetry that confronted and analysed these things and sought a solution. As he stared at the ruin that stood before him, 'The Waste Land', he found in faith the means of coping with this despair and the way out of it.

'The Waste Land' is a powerful work. For one thing it is rich in allusion - that's why many fear it. But patience, a little background reading and determination, will reveal a work of extraordinary splendour. That may seem a strange word to use to describe a work that dwells on the ruinous state of society and mankind, but it is an extraordinary piece. The competence with which Eliot uses his material, brings us through his vision to taste of the despair that he sees afflicting humanity. In essence, Eliot is like Dante, and 'The Waste Land' has something of the scope of the 'Inferno' - it should come as no surprise to know that Eliot loved Dante and draws on him many times in his work. Indeed, the image of the crowds on London Bridge in the first section of 'The Waste Land' is wholly Dantesque. The voices that speak in the work are like those who speak and wail in the 'Inferno'. The image of the 'Unreal city' seems Augustinian: the city of the world, separate from the City of God and a pale imitation of it.

He would move on from 'The Waste Land' to other works which seek to respond to this vision of despair, culminating in the monumental 'Four Quartets' in which he deals with man's relationship with the divine. In these final poems his religiosity is overt and this annoyed some critics; however, it is obvious that Eliot sees in the divine and the spiritual the solution to the problems of men and women, and their destiny. In-between these works, 'The Hollow Men' draws on the vision of The Waste Land' - also deeply Dantesque, and then his 'Ash Wednesday' which is often seen as his conversion poem as it opens the heart to hope and the Christian Faith. In that latter poem, Eliot alludes to our exile here on earth. Two poems of faith shine like gems in this oeuvre: 'The Journey of the Magi' and the beautiful 'A Song for Simeon' - written in 1928, this poem reflects his conversion to Anglicanism the year before.

T.S. Eliot was no saint, his difficult relationship with his first wife, Vivienne, who suffered from depression and other afflictions, seemed to bring out the worse in him as he could not cope. Some critics accuse him of deserting his wife and look with disdain on his second marriage in 1957 following Vivienne's death in 1947. That said, he was a modern man, assailed with the difficulties and desolation of the world, who was looking for meaning and a way out of the desolation that was all around him, even if hidden; he sought the way of the transcendent, and he found it. He used his poetry as a vehicle for this, and though it seems impersonal, academic and objective in the extreme, it is in fact intensely personal, as he means it for all of us. As Dante represented every man and woman in his journey through Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, so too Eliot in his work.  This is why Eliot is an extraordinary poet, indeed I would say, the most important poet of the 20th century. He was one who was resolved not to wallow in the banalities of the age - there are too many poets who do that, even today; he look out beyond out and used the riches of the past, and the wisdom preserved in its art, to help raise him up. 

Lest you think Eliot was a terrible serious poet (he took his poetry seriously, and his plays), he was the one who composed the poems which form the basis of the musical Cats - Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Although the movie version of the musical seems to have attracted a lot of criticism - it seems to be absolutely dire, the original musical is said to be good - I've never seen it. He was also a gifted dramatist, but like Shakespeare, his drama is in reality poetry too. His greatest dramatic work is Murder in the Cathedral which deals with the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket - hopefully it will see a number of revivals this year. That play is a marvellous meditation on Thomas's plight and the temptations which surround martyrdom. Unlike Jean Anouilh's play and the movie, Becket, Eliot's work gets closest to trying to understand Thomas and his struggle; it is a masterpiece.

I hope this reflection on Eliot might get you interested in him and his work, if you are not already. As you can see, I am still enthused by him; I'm sure my old post-modernist lecturer would not be impressed - ah well, that's life! I find more to fascinate the mind and stir the heart and soul in Eliot's work than the turgid meanderings of post-modernist critics, I really think they just don't get art and beauty. But Eliot does, and he sees it through the eyes of faith - that is certainly refreshing! So remember that if you do decide to tiptoe through his poems - don't lose heart, he didn't.

To end, one of his beautiful songs of faith:

A Song for Simeon

Lord, the Roman hyacinths are blooming in bowls and

The winter sun creeps by the snow hills;

The stubborn season has made stand.

My life is light, waiting for the death wind,

Like a feather on the back of my hand.

Dust in sunlight and memory in corners

Wait for the wind that chills towards the dead land.

Grant us thy peace.

I have walked many years in this city,

Kept faith and fast, provided for the poor,

Have taken and given honour and ease.

There went never any rejected from my door.

Who shall remember my house,

where shall live my children’s children

When the time of sorrow is come ?

They will take to the goat’s path, and the fox’s home,

Fleeing from the foreign faces and the foreign swords.

Before the time of cords and scourges and lamentation

Grant us thy peace.

Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,

Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,

Now at this birth season of decease,

Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,

Grant Israel’s consolation

To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow.

According to thy word,

They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation

With glory and derision,

Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair.

Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,

Not for me the ultimate vision.

Grant me thy peace.

(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,

Thine also).

I am tired with my own life and the lives of those after me,

I am dying in my own death and the deaths of those after me.

Let thy servant depart,

Having seen thy salvation.