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The Music of "The Waste Land" Author(s): Paul Chancellor Source: Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 6, No.

1 (1969), pp. 21-32 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40467799 . Accessed: 24/12/2013 12:44
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The Musicof"The Waste Land"


PAUL CHANCELLOR

ABSTRACT

The "musicof poetry"in The Waste Land offers an indispensableapsonority, proach to its meaning. Purely aural qualities such as rhythm, verbal orchestration, and tempo are themselves keys to discoveringideas and attitudes. The musicalplay of the poem's basic symbols, theirtransformation and patterning, reveal the overall structure of the poem. Eliot's resembleMallarm's,and thereare suggestions symbolist techniquesgreatly of RichardWagner's musical symbolism as well. The WasteLand may be as an anti-Parsifal, conceived as an orchestral fashioned tonepoem in sonata witha declaimingvoice interwoven.(PC) form, ... ce n'est pas de sonoritslmentaires par les cuivres,les cordes, les mais de Vintellectuelle bois,indniablement parole son apoge que doit avec plnitude et vidence,resuiter, en tant que l'ensembledes rapports dans tout, la Musique. existants Stphane Mallarm, Crise de Vers

WithFour QuartetsEliot extendedan open invitation to consider - a dream in words his workas poetryin which two dreamscross and a dream in music. Withoutbenefit of such a beckoningtitle, was the crossing of courseevidentin earlierworks, notablyin long poems like The Hollow Men and Ash Wednesday.And shortly after The Waste Land appeared, Professor I. A. Richards wrote of it as "a musicof ideas/' a veryapt phrasebut tantalizing because it is not too specificabout the natureof the music. Indefiniteness (not to mentioninaccuracy)has always plagued discussionof the musicof poetry.Many literary have knownlittleor nothing critics of music as an art. Some have been contentto account for verbal 21

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music only in termsof rhetoricaladornment;worst of all, some seem to have been completely to music. But failure to insensitive read with musical sensitivity and understanding may quickly reduce much poetryto a play of theintellect ratherthan the complete artisticexperienceit should be. To such a reduction The Waste Land may easily succumb,and currently it seems to have so sucand critics.One must cercumbed among many of the professors tainlycome to all of Eliot's poemswiththe intellectalert and, very witha learnedbackground. The WasteLand is, indeed,an all often, too learned poem, yet upon it still more intellectionand learning have been piled. It has been used as thegroundsforacademichunting partiesin hot pursuitof allusionsand sourcesand opportunities for heady escalationsto higherand higherlevels of meaning.Too often, it has been taken from the humanities classroom to the it has been anatomyclinic,where,afterthe mostsubtle dissection, left etherizedupon the laboratorytable. Certainly,some exegesis of The WasteLand is necessary, such exegesis, but after whatpoetry? Or whatmusic? In The Music ofPoetryEliot showedclearlythenatureand value of musicality, and in that essaywas certainly speakingof his own of music his the of own poetic practice, poetry.In one keypassage he wrote: ... a "musical has a musical of sound poem"is a poemwhich pattern and a musical of thesecondary of thewords which commeanings pattern are indissoluble and one. And if you pose it,and . . . thosetwopatterns thesense, to which the objectthatit is onlythepuresound, apartfrom "musical" I can onlyreaffirm can be applied, asseradjective myprevious tionthatthesoundis as mudian abstraction of it as thesense. One could hardlyimaginea statement more positively emphasizing the value of the music of poetryand particularly its relation to meaning.And it should be noted that two "indissoluble" typesof are mentioned:one, "a musical patternof sound"; the musicality other,"a musical patternof the secondary meaning of the words." The first type speaks of a familiarquality of poetry;the second, however, presents a more novel idea that warrants fuller examination - those Consideration of the purely aural qualities of poetry actually apprehended by the ear or the auditoryimagination-is as old as criticism of poetry, and thereis no occasion here to enter into anylengthy discussion of suchverbalmusicand its components:

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and therest tonecolor,sonority, dissonance, consonance, rhythm, of musicas These terms a partof the vocabulary are,of course, in passingthatcareful and it might be mentioned well as poetry, and enhance wouldclarify and terms use ofother musical concepts is for discussion of the musicof poetry. Orchestration, instance, and of color musical tone a useful to since it refers term, qualities are considerations whenone and dynamics resonance. Pitch, tempo, are and more woven intothe reads aloud.All these poetry qualities Such Eliot mentioned. that "musical of sound"of poetry pattern to Land from in The Waste are evident beginning end, patterns but one section alone, "A Game of Chess," maybe takenas an to meaning. illustration of thepoem'sauralmusicand itsrelation first theDidoesque with subtle Thus,toevoke figure presented irony in thissection, Eliot uses the heroicline of Marloweand Shakemelodic movein a grand The words line,tempo maestoso; speare. to the When full orchestration richcolorandsonority passage.1 give and almost to thisqueenly changes, magically, figure begins speak modern she speaksin a boredand pampered to become socialite, and with a more shrill quickenedtempo and brokenrhythm in muchmoredeliberate are husband of The the sonority. replies fuller This and of in more controlled sonority. rhythm, speed, in recitativo. ofa tense has theeffect wholepassage opera-dialogue harmonized voicesparsely theline ofthewoman's One can imagine on the with sustained chords man's of the with that chords; abrupt of "A Game of the In final Chess," pitiableIil is strings. passage wordtheflat is lines which in evoked rhythm dominant; by speech and as color is dull tone musicis thatof Cockney dialect;the of is that aural effect The general hollowas Iil's own existence. leitmotif of the bartender, senza vibrato, exceptfor the urgent and 'HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME," withitsinsistent rhythm lines in whichwe hearwith and forthe closing sonority, brassy musicof Ophelia'svoice. broken the delicate, irony poignant is to poetry to give a sortof musicalscoring Such an attempt of the musical for not definitive, reading any poem suggestive, and analysis Yet such a reading mustbe in partsubjective. may of the the innateexpressiveness servenot only to demonstrate link to its sense. poem'saural qualitiesbut to showas well their the aural qualitiesmaybe as old as poetry For although itself, of of the secondary use of "a musicalpattern conscious meaning the from is distinctly a modern the words" dating phenomenon,

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French symbolists. This is a kind of musicality, moreover,about about confusion. Eliot's statement whichtherehas been the greatest it is not entirely clear, because his term"secondarymeanings" is somewhatambiguous.In anotherpart of The Music of Poetry,he to Mr. G. with specific reference speaks of "a music of imagery," in Shakediscoverable Wilson Knight'sstudiesof theimagepatterns the seconto read "a musical of we Are then, peare's plays. pattern be It is that of true images may patterned dary meaning images"? between in some "musical way." There is, however,a difference as symas and used or used images images metaphor descriptively bols. The image "The sternwas formed/A gilded shell/Red and gold" carriesits prose meaningwith it, but "Here is Belladonna, has limitedmeaning the Lady of the Rocks, /The lady of situations" - or rather, in isolation.Belladonna's full significance plural signifi- must be intuitedfromcontexts in which she later appears. cance the Fisher And the image of "the man withthreestaves"represents and the Both Belladonna Eliot's designation. arbitrary by King only and The Waste Land is a man with threestavesare true symbols, its leading is in itself symbolic, symbolist poem. Its basic Grail myth is and structure its ideas are presented verysignifisymbols, through cantlydetermined by theirpatterning. And symbolsgive the poem a kind of musicalitynot heard by the ear. It is literallyunheard music,but not like Keats's "ditties of no tone," which are an ideal music heard in the imagination. Rather,it is a kind of music found in the poems of the archpriest of symbolism, Stphane Mallarm,and described by him in his on of poetry.For some reason Eliot always aesthetics the writings - by that seemed to shy away froma full discussionof symbolism name. The omissionwould seem ingratitude to one of his masters had he not acknowledged his debt in Little Gidding.For Mallarm is certainlya part of that "familiarcompound ghost" whom the poet-wardenmet during the terriblenight of the fireraid. The dead master, surprisedto be summonedup and to be in England again, could well tell the poet: "I am not eager to rehearse/My whichyou have forgotten." The writer of Four thoughtand theory a greatdeal of the master's Quartetshad indeed by then"forgotten" he spoke with his own teaching: in those poems of his maturity voice and throughhis own art. In The Waste Land, on the conhe spoke with many voices: it is a polyvocal poem, and it trary, speaks with the art of manypoets; but at its heart is the "thought

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and method"derived fromthe dead French master,for although Mallarm had little or no technicalknowledgeof music, he was As a poet, his lifeendowed with an exquisite musical sensibility. went to as he obeisance said, to "les vingtlanguage (even, long But after theword,he, like of the French lettres" alphabet). quatre la wanted his to have "de Verlaine, musique avant toute poems music in a much more intellectual way chose" and incorporated thanVerlaine. Mallarm's own master,Baudelaire, had opened the way to a he had developed symbolistart when, in Les Correspondences, describedthe world as "une fortde symboles" which give off from"des parfums."In the eso"confusesparoles" like fragrances as well as in his highly whichMallarm fashioned, tericmetaphysic the worldis still seen and known through intellectualized aesthetic, to a symboldoes not but forhim the idea corresponding symbols, arise like a perfume;rather,"musicalementse lve." That is to say,fromthe symbolthe thoughtarisesas it does when one listens to music. His use of music as an analogy instead of Baudelaire's of sound for smell, of one is more than the substitution perfumes of a developed, it substitution for another. is the Rather, metaphor and for with and one form, vague syntax amorphous disciplinedart, theperfume metacreatedbyfragrances. (Unfortunately, impressions "mean notion that a the to symbolmay anyphor persists, give thing.") art also offered music into his symbolist For Mallarm,bringing a way of moving toward that impossiblegoal of la posie pure. Music has been the envy of many poets because in its abstract - it - in a Bach toccata or a Mozart chamber work format least of its own art Melody,harmony, conveys meaningby thepure stuff without the and rhythm alone can be fashionedinto significance intrusionof explicitlyverbalizedideas. Music may, as many feel, even expressthought beyondthepowerof words.And so the seeker of his own art for la posie pure strivesto use the very stuff and perhapssymbols to suggestideas sonorities, images,rhythms, while minimizingthe use of flat prose statement Also, as with musical melodies or motifs,verbal symbols can undergo almost as they appear in changed of significance magical metamorphoses contexts. It is this magic metamorphosis of symbolin The Waste Land thatEliot asksus to followwhenhe notesthat"all the women are one and thetwosexesmeetin Tiresias."

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Poems may be built around one symbolor many.If upon many, the poet may patternthem to reveal the meaningof his complete the long poem using manysymbols, poem; that is, in a successful the arrive at in We element. a structural are cannot, fact, symbols total meaning of such a poem until we have sensed the ideas corand responding to the symbols,observed their transformation, followedtheirpattern.We sense the poem's structure throughthe individual full of the and of its indeed, meaning symbols; play we have until revealed often not is experiencedtheiruse symbols a the poem rethroughout poem. Thus, reading long symbolist forms one of the extended to of sembles the experience listening In at its that form instance. of music to sonata form, for simplest, - are first - tonal symbols two or more melodic subjects presented are thendeveloped; in an Expositionsection.These subjectsymbols or harmony, that is, transformed by by changes of key,rhythm, or by other techniques fragmentation, by contrapuntaltreatment, the composerhas to expresschanged dramaticor lyricimplications the'themes of his basic themes. FollowingthisDevelopmentsection, in their in a heard basically Recapitulation, originally reappear even some altered context or with most often but form, original little developmentto give them somewhatchanged implications. Finally, to complete the movementthere is the Coda, a section of happy peace, givinga sense of conclusion,perhaps of triumph, or of resignation.This briefdescription of sonata form, no doubt of is given tediousto anyonewith a rudimentary music, knowledge here chiefly to make one point: no matterhow lovely or stirring the basic melodies of the movement (or relativelyuninteresting) can be known only afterthe entire their full may be, significance movementhas been heard. The formboth directsand limits the symimplicationsof the themes.So it is with any long, successful bolist poem. No matterhow richlyambiguous the individual symbols may be, or how much metamorphosis theymay undergo,their implicationsare controlledand limitedby the completestructure of thepoem. The power of abstractmusic to be at the same time so richly ambiguous yet so clear in intentis, of course,limitedin program - in, for instance,a music symphonicpoem by Liszt or Richard Strauss.Even though the latter's Till Eulenspiegelpurportsto be a work"in Rondo form"and may be followedas such (or as sonata the completeintentof the composer is not realizeduntil the form),

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- musical symbols listenerattachesspecific ideas to the two themes Till the lover of -on which the work is built: one symbolizing and the other,Till the incorrigible Nor can adventures, prankster. we fullyrelish the humor of the work until we know that transtheroguehero'swild escapades formations of thosethemes illustrate which ultimately lead him to court trial and hanging,as well as in legend. to apotheosis or programmatic, abstract are built Since forms of music,whether - themesor motifs - it is on the controlleduse of musical symbols of prose fiction have been easy to see whysymbolist poetsor writers attracted in some musical form. to the patterning of verbal symbols Four Quartets directlysuggests an analogy to a formof abstract But music: the stringquartet,a formwith no "story"structure. as the use of been attracted writers have also to symbolist myth a and of and musical often way "ordering myth patternexperience"; ing have been combined,notablyby Thomas Mann, JamesJoyce, and by Eliot in The Waste Land. Insofaras Eliot's poem is patterned by the Grail myth,it has a narrativeorder; and so any analogy to musical formsoughtforit should be in a formof program music such as the symphonicpoem. Before pursuing that however,we might make a relevant digression analogy further, suggestedby mention of the Grail myth,which readily recalls Parsifaland RichardWagner. seemsto have been paid to theWagnerreferences Little attention in The Waste Land; yet it is at least unusual to findan English of Tristanund Isolde, turningthe Rhine poet quoting the libretto Maidens of the Ring into Thames maidens, and quoting from Verlaine's sonnet Parsifal. And whetherby design or not,2 The Waste Land is an an-Parsifal.In Eliot's mythicalland there is no healing Grail, no majestic Monsalvat,no nobilityin suffering, no redemption.In place of theseare vulgarity, boredom,lust,fear, and spiritual death, and the Grail Quester is incompetentto rethe narrative element and shadowy deem theland. Howeversketchy likeWagner'smusicdrama,the of The WasteLand maybe, it is still, It has a Quester,a wasteland, a FisherKing, medievalGrail myth. a few a Chapel Perilous,and perhaps otherfeatemptresses, quite turesof Wolframvon Eschenbach'sstory.The notes to the poem of course, that we turn to The Golden Bough and From suggest, Ritual to Romance; and thesebooks do, so to speak,open the back door of the Christian mythto a vistagoingback to ancientfertility

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evidentin the poem, yet its frameThe latterare certainly myths. the Christian work is no tale of Attis or Adonis. It is essentially to in are of the and it the part patterned myth, symbols poem by revealitsultimate meaning. But howeverfar into the past the mythmay be carried,the than the greatyears art of the poem goes back no farther symbolist and Wagner.One Mallarm of of conscioussymbolist the art, years writers influenced has featureof the latter's art which symbolist what term for an (notablyThomas Mann) is the leitmotif, ungainly that of leitmotifs Wagner a musicalsymbol. The hundreds is merely used in his later music dramas are, moreover, symbolswith fixed correspondenceand are used generally for simple referenceor the Rhine (and only that); recall. A certain leitmotif represents another,Walhalla; another,Siegfried;and so on. All are woven into the vast musical web of the work as consciously-placed points of reference. The literaryallusions of The Waste Land are rein thatrespect. like Wagner'sleitmotifs They too establish markably musical motifsare often the like definitepointsof reference (and *s use of from differ of lyricinterest in themselves). Wagner They for ironic introduced are that in however, leitmotifs, mostly they or mockingcontrast.Thus in "The Fire Sermon" Spenser'sline, till I end my song," recalls the Protha"Sweet Thames run softly a of celebration lamion, marriage. There is happy and fruitful of The Waste the Thames because in reference the sharp irony littered a far is from stream,and the Land, dirty, being "sweet," than more loves recently no on it were celebrated sordid,lustful, and sterileaffairs. thereader Thus theliterary allusions,by carrying to the spiritof theirsources, become powerfully devices, expressive oftencreatingsome of the sharpestdissonancein the poem. Moreover,since almostall of the allusionsare introduced by the Quester himselfand are drawn fromso many sources,theygive him polyAnd woven into the poem as they vocalityand even polytonality. are, like Wagner's leitmotifs theyare also an integralpart of its musicalstructure. But even thoughEliot patternedThe Waste Land on the Grail of myth,he notoriouslyfracturednormal narrativepresentation it. No doubt readerscomingto it for the first time findonly "subdivisionsprismatiques de l'ide," a collectionof flashing gemsstrung on broken bits of the silverwire of logic. Even its fivesections only and their titlesare only of small help in revealingits meaning.

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Since a mythis itselfcomposed of symbolicpeople, places, and variable but set in a fixedpattern,it is events,all in themselves to thechiefsymbols of the poem, as well as to theirtransformation and patterning, that we must turn to find the ultimatemeaning of The WasteLand. When Mallarm spoke of "subdivisionsprisand not of a weakness matiques,"he was speaking of a strength of symbolist offers a method poetry.As noted above, symbolism of minimizing includingexplicit exposition and prose statement, transition. What is retainedis something closer to the pure, self- something sufficient stuff of poetry therefore closerto thenatureof musicand musical structure. the Accordingly, readerof The Waste Land will move more readilytowardits meaningif he approaches - as he would listen to music and follow it. It is it musicalement by such "listening"to the poem that we arrive at the "secondar)' meaning"ofitswordsand their pattern. One finalquestion about the musicalqualityof The Waste Land remains to be considered. Is theentire workcastin a form analogous to anyform of music,such as thesymphony or thesymphonic poem? Miss Helen Gardner,one of Eliot's mostsensitive and appreciative has found that the five"movements" of The Waste Land, critics, with certain structural within each movement, along give patterns it a formsimilar to that of Four Quartets.No doubt such similaritiesmay be seen, but stylistic and structural differences between the twopoems are even more evident. Four Quartetshas justifiably evokedcomparisonwith the late string quartetsof Beethoven;but Eliot's sensibility as it is feltin The WasteLand is not Beethoven's - early, a twentieth-century sensimiddle,or late. It is as distinctly or Schoenberg's and, in 1922 at least, as new bilityas Stravinsky's and startling. in any attempt to findsomemusicalpattern Moreover, - the myth, of ideas fromthe structural of the poem components thesymbols, and the allusions it is betterto ignoreits fivesections and consider it as a whole,following themethodby whichone may discerna musical patternin King Lear by ignoringits divisions into acts.It should be noted too thatThe WasteLand is not poised and dramatic. and meditative like chambermusic; it is declamatory It unfoldsthe tale of a Quester'svisitto a wasteland, and in doing that,it is like programmusic. Again, it is not the music of four and richnessof but of the full orchestra with all its variety strings a full analogyof the form color and its range of power.To suggest of The Waste Land to some musical formis a bold venture,but

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its structure may be seen as that of a symphonicpoem in sonata formusing the chiefsymbolsas its themes, and with a declaiming voicewovenwithit,partly to supplyrelatedbut dissonant leitmotifs. Such a musical work has never been writtenand may neverbe, of adventurous it is scarcely in thiscentury though beyondpossibility of an analog)' At all tentative such events, composers. acceptance as the of be "musical" to useful a may meaning the poem. approach sonata form most of "The Burial of the for it, Thus, assuming Dead" would serve as the Exposition section,in which the basic and fearof rebirthare set forth, themesof sterility along with the derivedthemesof Madame Sosostris'Tarot cards: the Quester,the FisherKing, Belladonna, theWheel, and the rest.The finalpassage of "The Burial of the Dead," beginningwith the evocationof the "Unreal City," is transitional. Althoughit ends with a terrifying reiteration of the fear-of-rebirth theme,it also initiatesthe journey throughthe waste land with the pictureof the London crowd,the firstdevelopment of the Wheel theme. The journey continues throughthe next three parts of the poem, "A Game of Chess," "The Fire Sermon,"and "Death by Water," which formthe Developmentsection in which the Tarot themes especially appear, transformed into new dramaticguises,in different "melodic" forms, and orchestration. As the rhythms, Development section ends with death Phoenician sailor, the Rethe of Phlebas the quietly with the Thunder Said." The initial "What capitulation begins themes heard in "The Burial of the Dead" returnwitheven greater of expressiveness and with different orchestration. There intensity are reminiscences too of the Tarot themes, with thatof the Hanged Man heard fullyfor the first time.The music has the tensionand vividnessof hallucinationas the Questerreaches the Chapel Perilous. Here the theme of sterility rises mockingly,for while the little active peril, the Quester cannot even Chapel seems to offer rise to meet what testit offers. The journeyand the Recapitulation end with the derisivecock crow.At the first "DA" of the thunder, the Coda begins,forthis finalpassage is clearlyan epilogue to the whole poem and not merelya part of its fifth section.The Coda is different too in thatit is dominatedby the voice of the Quester. It rises above the more subdued, transmutedsterility and Tarot themesas he introducesnew motifssuggesting at least some possibilities of salvation. At the end, however,the themesof sterility and spiritual death persist.His last motifsare of desolation and

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and only the thoughtof Arnaut Daniel's purgation exasperation, fire a hope beforethe poem ends with the three seems to offer by solemn chords of "Shantih." quiet, What has just been described is no musical composition;it is a composition in the music of poetry.Any analogy betweenforms of poetryand musicmustbe imperfect. There is alwaysthe inexorable fact that language has one syntax and music another; and formis, in a sense, a larger extensionof syntax.Still it can be said that the theoryand method of symbolism offerone of the mostviable means of bringingthe two arts together, of achieving in poetry.When the unheard music of symbolplay is musicality combinedwith a sensitively aural music of words, corresponding the other to make them "indissolubleand one." It each confirms is this doubly rich music that is the essenceof the poetryof The WasteLand. - and Music offers a constantexample and reminderto readers - of poetry: that only by experiencing shall we add, teachers it as human can we arrive at sentient, complete imaginative beings its meaning.Music does not live in printedscores;it is totallyours The subtlestverbal analysisof a Beethoven only in performance. sonata fumbles as it comes to the threshold of the essential piano of music. Such can never make that mystery analysis,moreover, sonata one's own, nor can any exegesisof The Waste Land. Musicology,which is devoted to such analysis,has been called "words withoutsong," and much criticism of Eliot's poetryhas been just - scoreanalysis. that about the music of poetry One of Mallarm's best statements, and the part played by the symbolin evokingit, is found in a in which he is expressinghis passage of Sur l'volution littraire reactionto the hard precisionof the Parnassianpoets: - in theimage In thecontemplation from reveries evoked of things arising - in these takean objectin its lie true The Parnassians bythem song. poetic it to us. In so doing, and display failto attainmystery; entirety they they ourminds thatwe are creating of thatexquisite deprive joy of believing three-fourths of poetic to namean objectis to cutoff Merely something. theobjectis theideal.The use of symbol To suggest constitutes pleasure. theperfect ofthis mystery.8 practise thoughtin thispassage is that of the Perhaps the most arresting There is no doubt "joy of believingthatwe are creating something." that a certain excitementcan be experiencedby exploring The

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Waste Land in the lumen siccumof the intellect.But to miss the - its heard music and its unheardmusic of symmusic of its poetry - is to miss not only much of the bols and their patternedplay a clear but also it offers approach to its meaning,especially pleasure lead to consensusof a personal meaning. Exegesis and criticism a whichenables latitude music of the givesmeaning meaning; poetry each reader to make Eliot's wasteland one of his own experienceor imagination.
Paul Chancellor The Hill School,Philadelphia,Pennsylvania

Noras
1. The more complex phenomenon of synesthesiais evident here, as it is in many places throughout the poem. The rich color in the visual imagery to- the sound as it is read. here enhances- even seems to transfer 2. Speaker A in Eliot's A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry has this to say: "I have also heard you railing at Wagner as 'pernicious/ But you would not willingly resign your experience of Wagner either. Which seems to show that a world in which there was no art that was not morally edifyingwould be a verypoor world indeed." of thispassage. 3. My own translation

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