UNIT 17 T.S.
ELIOT
Structure
17.0 Objectives
17.1 Introduction
17.2 Thomas Steams Eliot
17.3 A Note on Free Verse
17.4 Journey of the Magi (1927)
17.4.1 Inwducfion
17.4.2 Text
.
17.4.3 Analysis
17.5 Marina (1930)
17.5.1 lnhoduction
17.5.2 Tent
17.5.3 Discuss~on
17.5.4 Cominents
'17.6 Let Us Sum Up
17.7 Answers to Exercises
17.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit you will be able to
write about T.S. Eliot's life and work;
. discuss Eliot's poetry in detail, with special reference to:
i) 'Journey of the Magi' and
ii) "Marina'.
17.1 INTRODUCTION
Eliot is one of the most celebrated poets of this century. He created the taste for a special
kind of literature. 'For my generation' wrote Kathleen Raine, an English poet. 'T.S. Eliot's
poetry, more than the work of any other poet, has enabled us to know our world
imaginatively.' Eliot did this in a poetry radically new. This created problems for some of
his contemporaries. However, through the efforts of critics and scholars the problem has
been greatly solved and Eliot can now be easily understood by anyone who wants to read
him. However, Eliot's is a poetry of suggestions and hints, through evocative images and
symbols, and an effort has been made in this unit to help you appreciate such poetry..
It is important to know about Eliot the man, no matter how much he tried to underplay his
personality all his life. [Link] life influenced his writi~igsin spite of h ~ effort
s to
extricate the personal element from his work, we have discussed Eliot's life and work in
detail.
Some pertinent remarks apd observations from Eliot's criticism are also mentioned and it
would be a good idea to remember them. Most students of English are expected to know his
criticism also. b
We have adopted different strategies in examining the two poems taken for detailed study.
When you are writing your exam, you may be required to analyse poems in a more coherent
fashion as in 17.4.3. In 17.5 we have>dopted a different strategy so that you may be able to
comprehend the text better and discover precisely where Eliot's poetry conceals its meaning,
that is the core of experience. Hope you enjoy reading the unit.
17.2 THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT (26 SEPT. 1888
ST. LOUIS-4 JAN. 1965. LONDON)
Thomas Stearns Eliot
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T.S. Eliot was son of Henry Ware Eliot a businessman and Charlotte Champe Steams a
prolific poet, biographer of her eminent father-in-law Rev. William Greanleaf Eliot and
author of a verse drama on the martyrdom of the fifteenth century Italian religious reformer
Savonarola. The poet's grandfather was the founder of the Washington University which
would have been named after him but for his objection. He, however, became its Chancellor .
I in 1872.
T.S. Eliot entered Harvard university in 1906 from where he graduated B.A. three years
later. Some of the men who influenced him the most during these years were the philosopher
George Santyana and the critic Irving Babbitt. Babbitt influenced his anti-Romantic attitude
that was amplified by his reading later of F.H. Bradley and T.E. Hulrne.
In I-910-1 1 he was at the Sorbonne attending the lectures of Henri Bergson and reading
poetry with Alain-Fournier. The latter's 'lessons' gave Eliot a mastery over the French
language-and steeped him into the Symbolist poetry of Charles Baudelaire, Jules Laforgue, J
Stephen Mallarme and many others.
From 19 1 1 to 19 14 he was again at Harvard reading this time Indian philosophy. and
studying Sanskrit from one Charles Lenman. In 1913he read ~ r a d l e ; ' s ~ ~ ~ e a r &and
ce
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-Reality. By 1916 he completed his dissertation, called Knowledge and Experience in the
*
Philosophy of F.H. Brvdley published many years later in 1964. Eliot, however, could not
go to Harvard for the oral defence of his thesis because of the first World War that broke out
in 1914.
Eliot married Vivian Haigh-Wood in 1915. After 1933 she was mentally ill and they lived
apart. She died in 1947. In'3anuary 1957 he married Valerie Fletcher with whom he had the
..
h a ~ ~ i n eof
s sfamily life.
For a brief period Eliot worked at the Lloyd's Bank in London for a living but as aman of
letters he Rad diverse'interests. He waSa poet, critic, editor, playwright and thinker. Alan
Tate thinks that the first half of this century would be known as the age of Eliot just as the
mid- 18th century was the age of Johnson. 19 I
Trends in Poet-war Perhaps no account of Eliot's life can be complete without a reference to the influence Ezra
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Pound had on him. It was Pound who had Eliot's 'The Love Song of J . Aljred Prufrock'
published in Harriet Monroe's journal called 'Poetry'.In 1922 'The Waste Land' was
published. Before publication Pound had teduced Eliot's 800 (sic.)lines to 433. Critics have
often opined that The Waste Land is not Eliot's greatest poem though it is the most well
known. It is about the secularized city, the decayed urbs aeterna (the 'eternal city')-
'Jerusalem Athens Alexandrianienna London.'
In 1948 EIiot got the Nobel Prize for Literature on The Four Quartets issued as a book in
1943. The four parts had been published at intervals between 1935 and 1941.
Among Eliot's plays are Sweeney Agonisres (1926) Murder in the Cathedra1 (1935) The
Family Reunion (1939) and The Cocktail Parry (1950). Eliot is the most influential critic
after Coleridge about whom you read in the third block. Eliot's The Sacred Wood (1920) has
been compared with Wordsworth's 'Preface' to the Lyrical Ballads ( 1798). His essay
'Tradition and the Individual Talent' appeared in this volume of criticism. In it he spoke
against the repetition of the work of the immediate past-'novelty is better than repetition'
he wrote-and wanted the poet to discover his tradition for himself in the poetry of Europe
from Homer to the present. Eliot was outlining his own creed. For, as he said later,
Each generation brings to the contemplation of past its own categories of appreciation,
makes its own demands upon art and has its own uses of art.
Eliot, as critic, did all that for his generation. Some of Eliot's well known critical works are
Selected Essays ( 1917-32) The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism ( 1933) and Notes
Towards the Definition of Culture (1948).
Eliot edited The Criterion (1922-39) and through it he cast a benign influence on not only
individual poets and scholars but also the course of Anglo-American literature. Eliot's
imageof himself was very self-effacing as his-poetry was to rise above emotion. He wrore in
'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock',
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, 'Do I dare? and, 'Do I dare?
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair.
(They will say: 'How his hair is grdwing thin!')
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin.
(They will say: 'But how his arms and legs are thin!')
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
Perhaps this image of a diffident Prufrock is his own and would be his image also in the
minds of millions of his avid readers all over the world. Behind it, however, also is the giant
thinker and bard who reformed taste, revolutionised ideas and gave voice to the ethos of his
age.
Now find out for yourself how well you have read the biographical note on Eliot above with
the help of an exercise. In case you fail to locate the answers in the text read the whole text
carefully again.
Exercise 1
Answer the following questions in the space provided. Read the answers (17.7) after doing
the exercise.
1) Who was T.S. Eliot's grandfather and what did he do?
2 ) Name three persons who influenced Eliot's anti-rbmantic attitude.
3) What do you know about Eliot's interest in Sanskrit and lndian ~ h i l 6 s o ~?h ' ~
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17.3 A NOTE ON FREE VERSE
In the first unit of the first block of this course you leamt that poetry is metrical
composition. You saw that different types of metre impart different types of rhythms to
poetry. Besides metre, rhyme, alliteration and assonance give poetry its distinctive sound
effect.
Can you recall a short note on free verse in the uirii'mentidned above? Did you remember to
observe it working in Yeats's poems? Yeats's lines were of unequal length. They did not
rhyme as did the lines of Pope. However, there is both rhythm-a product of metrical
arrangement-and rhyme, lurking behind the tapestry, in modem poetry. For as T.S. Eliot
said, 'no verse is free for the man who wants to d o a good job'. The modem poet thus does
not escape from metre; he shows a mastery over it. He goes to the core of the music that
metre brings about. T.S. Eliot wrote,
... the ghost of some simple metre Should lurk behind'the arras in even the "freest"
verse, to advance menacingly as we doze, and withdraw as we rouse. For, freedom is
only true-freedom when it appears against a background of an artificial limitation.
(The New Statesman, 3 March, 1917)
We can examine Eliot's statement with the help of a few lines fromade of his poems. The
following ar: the opening lines of 'Preludes'; . .
The winter dvening skttles ddwn
With shell of ste'aks in pa'ssage&ays
S& 0'cl'ock
The b6mt-out dnds of srhoky diys
And n<w a gu'sty shdwer wisps
The gpmy sc:aps
Of withered le/aves a d u t our fLet
And neGspipers from va'cant I&;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney pots,
And at the comer of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. ,
And then the lighting of the lamps.
You will notice that in the lines above, in spite of the extra syllables and the irregular
lengths of the different lines the ghost of iambic tetrametre lurks behind the arras (tapestry)
of the poem.
Why does Eliot hide the regular metre then? There could be many reasons. He wanted his
poetry to be new. The old metres had been over used by poets in the previous centuries.
Besides, Eliot found himself living in an age of uncertainty. Europe between the two World
Wars was a land of intrigues, secret agreements, suspicion and doubt. If this environment
had t a b e translated into poetry the proper medium for it was not the regularmetre of
Tennyson who symbolised the mid-victorian stability and order but a new medium that was
capable of giving shocks to the reader while it carried Gm/her along with a promise of hope,
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hidden no doubt but there nonetheless.
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; T.S. Eliot
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and s o we continued
And amved at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
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And I would do it again, but set down
This set down I
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. 1 had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, I
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But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
1 should be glad of another death.
elossary :
gall :a pa'inful place on an animal's skin, especially one formed by constant rubbing
against it
refractory: disobedient and troublesome
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lintel: a piece of stone or wood across the top of a window or door
17.4.3 Analysis
'Journey of the Magi' has many layers of meanings. It is at one level just the narration of the
experiences of one of the wise men on h ~ journey
s to Bethlehem. It is also an account of the
introspection that the wise man goes through after he has completed the journey,However,
since it is not clear .when the wise men thought of all that is narrated in the poem it appears
that the wise man is doing it after about 2000 years of his actual journey making him a
contemporary of ows. The last stanza begins with the words.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
Hence, on another level, it is the experience of enlightenment of every man. The moment of
revelation, or on a lower level, of initiation (at the level of rituals), is a moment both of birth
and death-birth into a new order and the death of the old; birth of a new outlook and the
death of the old way of life. Initlation thus is not an entirely blissful affair. However, the true
convert would seek the experience again In spite of all the agonies that that experience
might have caused.
The first stanza of the poem symbolically, tells you about the various inconveniences that
the wise men faced on their way to Bethlehem. The first five lines of the poem make a
single sentence and they are in direct speech. The poem is thus given an urgency and
directness that is lost in indirect speech and narration. We gather that it was the worst time
of the year-winter. The way was long. The camels' feet galled due to the arduous journey
and they became disobedient. The camel men did not share the feelings of the wise men and
they wanted 'their I~[Link] women'. The wise men also, however, looked back from their
shoulders towards their summer palaces and 'the silken girls bringing sherbet'. Notice the
parallel between the images of 'liquor' and 'sherbet', 'women' and the 'silken girls'. These
images suggest the subtle differences and the broad similarities between the 'ordinary' man
and the other progressing towards en_l-[Link] was influenced by T.E. Hulme
(1 883-1917) an anti-romantic poet, dritit and 'amateur philosopher'. He advocated the use
of the 'hard dry image' in poetry. Eliot's i m a ~ e here
s are 'hard' and 'dry' and experiences
are unfolded in an anti-romantic vein. Even the wise men thought that their effort was 'all
C-ll..?
in war The second stanza throws a ray of hope. After the night's troublesome journey they descend
tia lelations into a 'temperate' valley with 'smell of vegetation'. There is the water-mill "beating"
darkness. Early in the dawn the water in the river looks dark. The fan of the water-mill that
is rotated by the running stream is thus seen as beating darkness. Beating here also means
defeating. Then there are three trees symbolising the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Jesus also
atoned for the original sin of Adam, who disobeyed God, beguiled by Satan. In a way Eliot
yokes together images grand and mundane, suggestive of the same experience of the
presence of God in subtle ways. The wise man also sees 'an old white horse' galloping away a
in the meadow. The tenth avatar of Vishnu in Hindu mythology would ride a white hork. .
However, here the white horse is 'old'. Yeu would recall Eliot's comment on religious
verse. Eliot works through suggestions and is sceptical about everything. Will God really
come? is a question that he cannot answer either in the negative or affirmative. And even if
he comes, what will happen? Will things change? There is no answer. But there is a
suggestion. Christ was betrayed by one of his disciple,s-Judas-for pieces of silver. Here in
the poem there is a tavern scene where three persons are at the gaming table. '[PI ieces of
silver' exchanged by them remind us of Christ's betrayal. And yet the tavern scene is a
common experience and a 'dry' image. Eliot does not throw a halo round it. The three wise
men reach 'the place' in the evening.
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
The moment of revelation was 'satisfactory'. And which place was it? No answer. The
definite article suggests the stable in Bethlehem but Eliot does not speak about it -perhaps
an example of periphrasis and a proof of Eliot's faith.
The account of the journey is over by the end of the second stanza. The third is a meditation
on the journey that was performed years ago. The text deliberately leaves gaps and holes
through an elliptical use of language. Who would be glad of another death? Certainly the
wise men--contextually speaking. However, the personal pronoun is 'I' not 'we'. Christ
died to save mankind. Would he die another death to save us? The suggestion cannot be
ruled out.
There is a completely different level at which we would also like to understand the pbeni. It
was written in the year 1927 the year in which Eliot also became a British subject and joined
the Anglican Church. Both, we'can imagine, must have been great acts of affirmation. Eliot
declared himself a 'classical in literature, royalist in politics and Anglo-Catholic in religion'.
These are acts of affirmation for a sceptic such as Eliot was and the poem is a record of .
Eliot's growing optimism in his own capacity as a poet and hope of a better world to be. .
Exercise 3
a) With the help of two sets of images from the first and second stanzas show how Eliot is
an anti-romantic poet.
b) Who is the narrator of this poem and does it any way compare with 'My Last Duchess'
you read in Block IV?
T.S. Eliut
17.5 MARINA (1930)
17.5.1 Introduction
T.S. Eliot was, as you know, not only a poet but also a critic. He moulded the taste of his
age both through his poetry and criticism. Poetry. Eliot said, 'is not the expression of
personality, but an escape from personality'-and 'the more perfect the artist, the more
completely separate in him will be the man who suffers and the mind which creates'.
('Tradition and the Individual Talent', 1917). Thus Eliot disapproved of criticism that
sought to link works of art with their artists' lives. However, at times when we do so, we
appreciate Eliot's poetry better.
'Marina' is another poem of the phase of optimism in Eliot's life. Eliot expresses it through
the central symbol of Marina, daughter of PericIes in Shakespeare3 play. Marina was born
at sea and was thought to have been murdered by those in whose charge she had been left.
'She was miraculously restored to her father when she became a woman.
The narrator in the poem is Pericles and the poem is an example of dramatic monologue like
the previous one.
Marina thus is a symbol of life where death had been accepted. She is a symbol of joy in
Nace of the sorrow to which the poet had reconciled himself. Contrary to this spirit is the
epigraph from Seneca's Hercules Furens. Hercules in a fit of madness, unknowingly, kills
his children and after he returns to sanity wishes to see them alive and discovers his loss.
Why is the epigraph, in spirit, contrary to the poem? Perhaps because Eliot believed in the
dual nature of truth. Truth, in itself was neither good nor bad. You observed this in the last
stanza of 'Journey of the Magi'.
Now read 'Marina'.
17.5.2 Text
Quis hic locus, quae regio,
quaqmundi plaga?
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
0 my daughter.
Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
bath
Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning
Death
' ?.hose who sit in the stye of contentment, meaning
Death
, Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death
Trends in Post-war
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Are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind,
International Relations
A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog
By this grace dissolved in place
What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm,less strong and stronger-
Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the
eye
Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying
feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.
Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
The rigging weak and the canvas rotten
Between one June and another September,
Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.
The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.
This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken.
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.
What seas what shores what granite islands towards my
timbers
And woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.
Glossary :
Bow :(Originally meaning 'shoulder') The forward part of a ship, beginning where the
sides curve inward.
Stye : An infection of the skin at the bottom of an eyelash, which makes the eyelid red and
swollen.
Bowsprit: A large spar running out from the stem of the vessel.
Garboard :The first range of planks laid upon a ship's bottom, next the keel.
Strake: grease.
Caulk :To fill the seams of, a ship or boat, with Oakum or other substance to prevent
leaking.
17.5.3 Discussion
Now that you have read the poem carefully, try to answer the following questions. And thus
we would discuss the poem.
a) Record briefly the images that suggest joy and happiness.
The images of birds, such as the woodthrush in the first and last stanzas and the
hummingbird in the second suggest happiness. 'Whispers and small laughter between
leaves and hurrying feet ....' present the image of children at play below some trees or in
a forest.
b) What scene forms the background of the poem?
T.S. Eliot
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The sea forms the backdrop of [Link]. 'What seas' are the opening words of the
poem and these words are repeated in the last stanza. 1%e lines 'Bowsprit cracked with
ice...new ships' are replete with terms from the shipping industry. (Read them carefully
with the help of the glossary.)
, c ) What is there in the poem to suggest that Pericles is saying something about his
daughter he has been restored?
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The words '0my daughter', the last line of the first stanza and the words 'My
daughter', the last line of the last stanza suggest a father addressing his daughter.
'
The first stanza is the reminiscence of a man who has found his daughter. It is only
from the title that we can establish the link, though tenuous, with Pericles. The first two
lines of the third stanza, 'What is this face .... stronger-'remind us of the lines in
Pericles:
But are you flesh and blood? Have you a working pulse?
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(V,i., 154)
d) What do vou think does Eliot mean by 'death' in the second stanza?
The image of sharpening of the teeth of the dog symbolic of envy; of the 'glitter' of the
'hummingbird' symbolic of vanity and so on are unsubstantial because they vanish
b
while the 'woodsong', the voice of God, the good and the true survive. Envy, vanity,
self-satisfaction and animal ecstasy don't last, nor do they have any permanent place in
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life.
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17.5.4 Comments
We have together, above, discussed the poem. Do you think you now understand the poem
better? Try to explain it to another friend of yours and see how well you have understood it.
'Marina' is a poem of arrival, unlike the 'Journey'. Notice the feeling of satisfaction and
hope that come out of the first and last stanzas. Pericles's ship is reaching- some island. In
the opening stanza it was 'grey rocks'. In the last stanza it is 'granite islands'. Notice the rise
in the spirit of certainty. We hear the Woodthrush's song through the fog in the first stanza.
In the last stanza they 'call' Pericles. There is the warmth of an invitation. The poem evokes
1 images - - fulfilment of a wish of a long- cherished desire. The images
- that suggest - in the p x m
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picture for us the mind of Pericles. They also present the image of a poet who has begun to
see the 'granite island' in place of the 'Waste Land' he had seen before.
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17.6 LET US SUM UP
In this,unit you read about the poet, critic and playwright T.S. Eliot; his life and work. You
then read about free verse and Eliot's views on it. Finally you studiedrwo of Eliot's lyrics in
detail. You should now be able to examine, appreciate and discuss Eliot's poetry in general
and the two poems in particular effectively.
