T. S. ELIOT AS A MODERN POET
INTRODUCTION:
Thomas Sterns
Eliot (1888-1965), the winner of Nobel Prize in Literature (1948) is highly
distinguished as a poet, a literary critic, a dramatist, an editor, and a
publisher. Eliot is indeed a modernist poet in the real sense of the word as
his poetry is full of objectivity, break from Victorian traditions, allusions,
symbolism, pessimism and frustration of modern man, stream of consciousness
technique, imagery etc.
MAJOR WORKS
OF T. S. ELIOT:
·
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)
·
The Waste Land (1922)
·
The Hollow Men (1925)
·
Ash-Wednesday (1927)
·
Four Quartets (1943)
Apart from
poems, Eliot also wrote seven plays during his career.
·
Murder in the Cathedral (1935)
·
The Cocktail Party (1949)
INFLUENCES ON
T. S. ELIOT:
T. S. Eliot
was much influenced by several writers and movements.
1. Eliot studied
the book ‘The Symbolist Movement of Literature’ written by Arthur Symons and
was influenced by the movement of symbolism in literature.
2. John Donne and
other metaphysical poets also exercised much influence on Eliot. He was
impressed by the use of conceits, paradoxes and intellectualism and spiritual
appeal of the metaphysical poets.
3. Baudelaire’s
use of images also influenced Eliot. He paid tribute to Baudelaire for giving
“new possibilities to poetry in a new stock of imagery.”
4. Eliot was also
impressed by Dante’s (an Italian poet and critic) simplicity of language and
profound thoughts.
SYMBOLISM IN
ELIOT’S POETRY:
Eliot’s poetry is loaded
with strange symbols expressing high serious philosophical thoughts. Symbols
are used to bridge the emotions when words fail to express those felt emotions.
SYMBOLS IN ‘THE WASTELAND’:
·
The symbol of “water” in ‘The Wasteland’ suggests life or
rebirth.
·
The symbol of “fire” suggests inner excessive desires.
·
The “heap of broken images” implies the devastation caused by
the War or suggests the fragmented reality of human consciousness.
·
The “Death by water” is a symbol of purification and
salvation. One can survive the modern predicament when one learn to control
over their senses like the Bhuddha and hence “Death by water” symbolizes a
solution to modern society and a regeneration.
SYMBOLS IN ‘LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED PRUFROCK’:
· The mental
condition of Prufrock, a bald headed, middle aged man is symbolized by an
etherized patient on an operation table:
“Let us
go, you and I.
I
when the evening is spread out against the sky
like a patient authorised upon a table.”
·
The lines – “Woman come and go,
talking of Michaelangelo” satirizes
the formless pretensions of the modern ladies in a symbolic way.
IMAGERY IN
ELIOT’S POETRY:
Much use of
visual images also makes Eliot a modern poet. Eliot uses imagery to clarify his
subtle and spiritual ideas. He uses images to express the complexities of
modern civilization. He compares concrete or physical things with spiritual
ideas.
·
Prufrock's mind is compared with a patient on the
operation table.
·
The typist is compared to human engine waiting
like a taxi throbbing.
·
The fog is compared to cat.
ALLUSIONS IN ELIOT’S POETRY:
The another aspect of Eliot’s
poetry is his much use of allusion. Allusion are references to the past or
knowledge of the past.
·
‘The Wasteland’ has many allusions to the past poets and
their works. The references to Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ show the sexuality and the
condition of a woman in contrast to the women status in the modern society.
·
The allusion to Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ suggests the
themes of death. It could be in parallel comparison to the death of modern
society.
These allusions in ‘The
Wasteland’ show the modern predicament the impact of World War I on modern man.
There are allusions in ‘The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ too.
·
The opening stanza1 is an allusion to Dante Alighieri’s
Inferno.
·
The lines below are an allusion to Andrew Marvell’s To His
Coy Mistress.
“There
will be time, there will be time
To
prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”
CONCEPT OF INNER SELF/ STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
The most important modernist
technique which we find in Eliot’s poetry is his use of stream-of-consciousness
technique. This technique reflects the fragmentary nature of the modern man’s
mentality. It also allows the reader to explore the inner self of the
character. As seen in the poem, Prufrock’s thought shifts very often from
trivial to significant issues and vice versa. This explains the idea of
subjective time in modernism which is contradictory to historical time of past,
present and future.
Eliot was influenced by Sigmund
Freud’s Psychoanalysis and depicts the inner and outer selves of his characters.
The inner self is the self hidden inside the individual and the outer self is
the self which an individual shows it to the world. ‘The Love Song of J Alfred
Prufock’ shows the development of self in the lines:
“There
will be time, there will be time
To
prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”
PESSIMISM, FRUSTRATION AND DEGENERATION:
Modernism stresses the ideas of
pessimism and loneliness. These negative aspects of modern life are also found
in Eliot’s poetry.
·
In Prufrock the theme of death is dominant in the poem. Prufrock
is viewed as a representative of all modern men. He is indecisive. He cannot
even decide about eating a peach. He laments his physical and intellectual
shortcomings, the lack of opportunities in his life in addition to the lack of
spiritual progress.
·
The poem ‘Prufrock’ begins with a gloomy atmosphere.
“let us go, you and I.
I when the evening is spread out against the sky
like a patient authorised upon a table.”
·
The poem ‘The Wasteland’ clearly describes the modern world, or
what the narrator terms as “the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which
is contemporary history.” Life is represented as trivial, suffering from the
problems of war. The poem begins with these pessimistic lines:
“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”
·
In his another poem ‘Journey of The Magi’ too we
find this pessimism. Mark these lines:
” A cold
coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the
year
For a journey, and such a long journey;
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.”
Eliot’s poem
‘The Hollow Men’ also expresses this pessimism and frustration of modern man.
“We are the
hollow men
We are the
stuffed men
Leaning
together
Headpiece
filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried
voices, when
We whisper
together
Are quiet and
meaningless”
CONCLUSION:
Thus, we may
sum up by saying that T. S. Eliot is indeed an outstanding modernist poet of
the 20th century English literature. His use of symbols, imagery,
stream of consciousness technique, allusions and pessimism – all these elements
combine together to make him a true modern poet. He has been the most
influential poet of the modern age. According to G.S. Frazer,
"Eliot is a craftsman who has provided his
successors with new, sharp tools and as a teacher from whom they have learned
how to use the tools and how to keep them clean."
The
contemporaries of Eliot, like Louis Macneice, C. D. Lewis, Stephen Spender, and
Auden etc. show the influence of the style and imagery of his poetry.
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