T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), an American turned British citizen, was a renowned poet and literary critic who had a significant impact on modernist poetry. His works challenged traditional poetic forms and explored themes of disillusionment, fragmentation, and the search for meaning in the modern world.
Eliot’s profound and highly influential poetry continues to be celebrated for its complexity, allusions, and introspective exploration of the human condition.
‘The Waste Land,’ epitomizing literary modernism, is one of the most important poems of the 20th century portraying its despondent mood in a new form.
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
‘The Hollow Men’ presents the hollow, degenerated, and disillusioned people dealing with their meaningless existence amidst the ruins of the postwar world.
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Breaking away from Victorian diction, T.S. Eliot presents the distinct realities of his time in the stream of consciousness by experimenting with poetic form.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
‘Burnt Norton’ explores the philosophical concepts of time, spirituality, and transcendence, focusing on the human quest for higher meaning.
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
In rich poetic language, ‘Ash Wednesday’ presents the spiritual struggle of an alienated individual lacking faith in decayed modern culture.
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
‘Sweeney Among the Nightingales’ reflects the modern world’s degraded state through its layered allusions, symbolism, and imagery.
Apeneck Sweeney spread his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
The zebra stripes along his jaw
Swelling to maculate giraffe.
Once considered as a preface to the major poem ‘The Waste Land’ by T.S. Eliot, ‘Gerontion’ effectively deals with the huge psychological, spiritual, and physical destruction caused by the great war.
Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.
I was neither at the hot gates
Nor fought in the warm rain
The speaker of the poem observes the older lady to be callous as he hangs out with her, only to find out he himself is indeed emotionally desolate and callous.
Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon
You have the scene arrange itself — as it will seem to do—
With 'I have saved this afternoon for you';
And four wax candles in the darkened room,
‘Rhapsody on a Windy Night,’ with its spooky mood and setting, captures the tortured and fragmented human psyche amidst a destructed modern world.
Twelve o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
‘Journey of the Magi’ shows the Magi’s transformative spiritual journey as he grapples with a new spiritual reality.
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,
‘Sweeney Erect’ presents the complex and ambiguous state of Sweeney, in turn questioning civilization’s state in the modern world.
And the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me
Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!
‘Preludes’ is a chilling exploration of life amidst urban decay, alienation, and absence of meaning in the dark modern world.
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
‘Marina’ presents the joy of the spiritual awakening of a lost individual, offering hope to the readers living in a desolate modern world.
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
‘Whispers of Immortality’ contemplates yearning for immortality and the power of art amidst the permanence of death.
Webster was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.
‘La Figlia Che Piange’ presents the internal conflict of the speaker as he cannot come to terms with the memories of his breakup.
So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
‘Aunt Helen’ presents a strange elegy that, in a detached tone, paints the world’s indifference instead of lamenting death.
Miss Helen Slingsby was my maiden aunt,
And lived in a small house near a fashionable square
Cared for by servants to the number of four.
Now when she died there was silence in heaven
‘Morning at the Window’ presents the dejected lives of lower-class city people through the observations of an upper-class speaker.
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
‘Macavity: The Mystery Cat’ is a light verse presenting the amusing crimes of the superhuman cat – Macavity.
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw—
For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:
For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
‘The Naming of Cats’ is a light verse explaining how cats have three different names: a family name, a peculiar name, and a secretive name.
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
‘Song: If space and time, as sages say,’ philosophically contemplates the fleeting nature of time and the importance of content moments.
If space and time, as sages say,
Are things which cannot be,
The fly that lives a single day
Has lived as long as we.
‘The Song of the Jellicles’ introduces merry and bright felines – Jellicle cats awaiting to dance by the light of the Jellicle Moon.
Jellicle Cats come out to-night
Jellicle Cats come one come all:
The Jellicle Moon is shining bright—
Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball.
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