History of English Literature ‘om Romanticism to Modern Period a Thomas Stearns Eliot HE Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was a publisher, playwright, literary and ESS social critic, and one of the twentieth century's major poets. He was born on meee’ September 26, 1888, in an old New England family. Eliot attended Harvard University. In 1910, he left the United States for the Sorbonne. After a year in Paris, he went back to Harvard to pursue a doctorate in philosophy, but returned to Europe and settled in England in 1914. The following year, he married and began to work in London, first as a teacher, later as a bank clerk, and eventually as a literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber. Tt was in London that Eliot came under the influence of his contemporary Ezra Pound, who recognized his poetic genius at once, and assisted in the publication of his work in a number of magazines. Eliot’s first book of poems, Prufrock and Other Observations (1917) immediately established him as a leading poet of the avant-garde. 6 Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (1885-1972) was an expatriate American poet eS and critic, and a major figure in the early modernist movement. His contribution to poetry began with his development of magism, a movement derived from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language. The avant-garde (from French, "advance guard" or "vanguard", literally "fore-guard" are people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly in art, culture, and politics. With the publication of The Waste Land (1922), now considered to be the most influential poetic work of the 20th century, Eliot's reputation began to grow very fast. By 1930, and for the next thirty years, he was the most dominant figure in poetry and literary criticism in the English-speaking world. Eliot was very much influenced by the English metaphysical poets of the 17th century, most importantly John Donne, and the 19th century French symbolist poets. Mixing these two styles he created a truly modern kind of poetry innovative in poetic technique and subject matter. 6 John Donne (1572-1631) was an English poet and preacher. He is eS considered the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poetry. His style is characterised by inventive metaphors, abrupt openings, paradoxes, dramatic structure, eloquence and philosophic subjectmatter. Among his favorite themes are love, God, death. Symbolist poetry rejects fixed forms, technical conventions and literary imagery. It describes thoughts and feelings in disconnected ways and expresses an inner ideal reality rather than theHistory of English Literature OR NO LER ROY Ceca 2a Content objective world. Symbolist poets were influenced by the dark, introspective romanticism of William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe. Eliot’s poems reflected the disillusionment of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and conventions of the Victorian era. In Prufrock Eliot conveys the sense of emptiness, pessimism and lack of direction that characterized life in the beginning of the 20" century. The Waste Land expresses horror the poct fecls looking at the gloomy materialistic world of nothingness surrounding him while he searches for the meaning of life. It is known for its obscure nature: its transitions from satire to prophecy and backwards; its abrupt changes of speaker, location, and time, Structural complexity is one of the reasons why the poem has become a poetic counterpart to James Joyce's Ulysses, published in the same year. Among its best-known phrases are April is the cruellest month," will show you fear in a handful of dust'snd Shantih shantih shantih!"The Sanskrit mantra ends the poem. The Waste Land was composed during a period of personal difficulty for Eliot, his marriage with mentally unstable Vivienne Haigh-Wood was failing. The couple formally separated in 1933 and in 1938 Vivienne was confined in a lunatic asylum, where she remained until her death in 1947. 8 Eliot’s relationship with his first wife became the subject of a 1984 play Tom eS & Viv by British playwright Michael Hastings, which in 1994 was adapted as = / afilm. After his conversion to Christianity in the late thirties, Eliot’s views became increasingly conservative. In his essays and social criticism Eliot advocated traditionalism in religion, society and literature, That seemed to contradict his previous pioneering poetic work. Eliot's early works, especially The Waste Land (1922), are essentially negative about the possibility to find piece and security in this world. In his later works including poems Ash Wednesday (1930) and Four Quartets (1943) the poet’s ideal becomes more visible. Over time, as Eliot searched for a way out of horror and despair, his vision became more spiritual. The poctry Eliot wrote after his conversion to Christianity reflects more optimistic feelings of hope and salvation, Eliot’s religious evolution is also evident in his verse drama Murder in the Cathedral (1935), that describes the death of archbishop Thomas a Becket in 1170. Other verse dramas include The Family Reunion (1939), and The Cocktail Party (1949), Confidential Clerk (1954), The Elder Statesman(1959). Eliot became a British citizen in 1927. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. Eliot was one of the most daring innovators of the twentieth-century poetry. He believed that poetry should represent the complexities of modern civilization in language. Despite the difficulty of Eliot’s works his influence on modern poetry was immense.History of English Literature ‘om Romanticism to Modern Period aa Link Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (1939) is a collection of whimsical poems by T. S. Eliot about feline psychology and sociology, published by Faber and Faber. The poems were written during the 1930s and included by Eliot, under his assumed name "Old Possum," in letters to his godchildren. Probably the best-known musical adaptation of the poems is the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats. This musical premiered in London's West End in 1981 and on Broadway in 1982, and went on to become the longest-running Broadway show in history, until it was beaten by another Andrew Lloyd Webber show, The Phantom of the Opera. Text from Prufrock and Other Observations. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 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, The muttering retreats 5 Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question..... 10 Oh, do not ask, "What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15 The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20 ‘And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window panes; 25 There will be time, there will be tiHistory of English Literature era ‘om Romanticism to Modern Period To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, ‘And time for all the works and days of hands, That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30 Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, ‘And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go 35 Talking of Michelangelo. ‘And indced 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— 40 (They will say: "How his hair is growing 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 45 Disturb the universe? Ina minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50 Ihave measured out my life with coffee spoons; T know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? ‘And I have known the eyes already, known them all- 55 The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, ‘And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, ‘When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60 And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— ‘Armss that are braceleted and white and bare (But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!) Is it perfume from a dress 65 ‘That makes me so digress? Armas that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.History of English Literature era ‘om Romanticism to Modern Period And should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets ‘And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?.... I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, Tam no prophet-and here’s no great matter; Thave seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: "Iam Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: "That is not what I meant at all; That is not it, at all." And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! Butas if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 70 75 80 85 90 95 100History of English Literature ‘om Romanticism to Modern Period eo ‘Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, ‘And turning toward the window, should say: "That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all." 110 No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, 15 Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old ... I grow old 120 Ishall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. Thave heard the mermaids singing, each to each. T do not think that they will sing to me. 125 Thave seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown. 130 Till human voices wake us, and we drown. Analise the conceits used in the poem with the help of tenor — vehicle — ground scheme, in which tenor is the thing described, vehicle is the figurative expression of this thing, and ground stands for the common features between them. Ne A conceit is a figure of speech which draws a comparison between two strikingly different things. Conceits were particularly popular among the 17th century Metaphisical poets, who created effective comparisons by exploiting all areas of knowledge for the vehicles of their metaphors and similes. The revival of interest in Metaphisical poctry in the 1920s led to the reappearance of the conceit as a 4History of English Literature ‘om Romanticism to Modern Period Cr popular figure of speech. How do you respond to Prufrock? Is his dilemma universal? Do you think that there is an element of Prufrack in everyone?