T.S. Eliot: Points of Departure

Some difficulties with T.S. Eliot's poetry  (taken from Robert DiYanni's essay,"T.S. Eliot" in Modern American Poets: Their Voices and Visions) The heavy use of allusion borrowings from foreign languages The structural mode of juxtapositon mystical and paradoxical ideas about time, death, and spirituality references to history, philosophy, and literature     --especailly medieval and Renaissance drama, classical literature of Greece  and Rome utilizing those references within the context of the poetry

Difficulties, 2 fragmentary nature of the poetry with its lack of connection between sections, stanzas, lines, and sentences--unity and coherence must in many ways be supplied by the reader. highly imagistic the poems often assume musical structures juxtaposing crude and disgusting details of the present with the more wholesome images of the past. poetry should reflect the complexities and ambiquities of experience

Difficulties, 3 the poetry, like music, doesn't always require rational understanding; a poem can be apprehended emotionally if not comprehended intellectually Eliot's belief that poetry should be difficult and that great poetry need not be understood in every line and detail to be appreciated

Eliot Pro or Con The poem has been described as THE modernist masterpiece. DiYanni claims it is the “single most widely read and most frequently analyzed American poem of the twentieth century. “It is, for many, the most challenging poem of the century, and probably the most important.” “The Wasteland is important not only as a poetic achievement in its own right, but also as a remarkable influence on an entire generation of poets. . . . “ Perkins claims the poem is endowed with “imaginative intensity and suggestion” “almost visionary intensity.

Eliot Pro and Con, 2 Has been described as a “mad medley” Amy Lowell called it a “piece of tripe” Parasitic on past styles Formless Academic Anti-democratic Defeatist

Some Points of Departure “. . . No previous poem gave so vivid an impression of the contemporary, urban metropolis.” –Perkins The technique resembles avante-garde cinematic montage Fragmentation, juxtaposition, use of vignettes The use of memory to contrast past with present—Grail Legends, The Golden Bough and fertility rituals

Points of Departure, 2 Modern Sexuality Cultural Decay/Cultural Exhaustion Possibilities for regeneration/Hope Experimental Poetry