T.S. Eliot opens his Four Quartets with two epigraphs from the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus: “though logos is common, many live as if they have wisdom of their own”, and “the way upward and the way downward is one and the same”. These ideas tie closely with the opening lines of the first quartet Burnt Norton, where Eliot questions whether all time can be redeemed or not. This idea of redemption ties closely with Original Sin. The exploration of redemption, exemplified through the frequent rose imagery, snakes throughout the work haunting every figure within it, “what if we had gone down the passage and through the door into the rose-garden?” until at last he triumphantly concludes “the rose and fire are one”. Lingering beneath the roses, philosophers, and fire, is a meditation on the dichotomy of meaning between time and eternity. Eliot reaches the conclusion that all time is redeemable, but only through the interaction of both time and eternity. This interaction occurs only at the still turning point, the impossible union: the Incarnation. Percolating within the Incarnation, is the concept of logos, an intensely dense and rich philosophical idea …show more content…
The Incarnation, however, provides the only instance wherein time and eternity collide and coexist; the only frame of reference that does not change based on location. The Incarnation gives time past, time present, and time future a simultaneous existence. The implications of simultaneity drastically alter reality both for Einstein and Eliot. Einstein’s theory allows for strange realizations, such as light functioning as both a particle and a wave at the same time and in the same way, which seems to break the foundational logical law of non-contradiction. This same problem of intrinsic contradiction haunts Eliot’s realization that the Incarnation redeems all of time by allowing it to exist
Joseph Ellis’s The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 is a factual and historical account of events leading up to the creation of the Constitution of the United States of America as well as the unification of the states. This historical narrative centers on four prominent politicians, George Washington, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, who are credited with creating the American republic. These statesmen shared many commonalities as they were all deeply invested in the American Revolution, found deficiencies within the Articles of Confederation, and yearned for a modified constitutional framework that would sustain the American republic. Though the founding fathers formulated one objective, to form
In his poem, “Prometheus,” Emery George’s speaker closely aligns himself with the main character to describe his theft of fire and its effects on the story of humankind. Even though the narrator speaks in third person, he knows Prometheus’s thoughts and is very in-tune with his experience suggesting that perhaps Prometheus is actually the speaker. His conversational and easy to understand voice goes from cheeky in the first stanza to serious in the second as the horrific consequences of Prometheus’s actions, the bombing of two cities, become apparent. George’s use of enjambment, punctuation, and diction creates continuity throughout the poem in order to highlight the interconnectedness of all things and ultimately pose questions about inevitability and fate.
“Maybe it was / because the only time / I hit a baseball / it smashed the neon cross / on the church across / the street” (1-6). The readers are clearly presented with a scene of a boy playing baseball and accidentally breaking a church cross. The boy then explores and toys with the possible divine consequences for accidentally breaking a cross with a baseball. “Maybe it was the demon-stoked / rotisseries of purgatory / where we would roast / hundreds of years / for the smallest of sins” (11-15). Here the poet effectively uses imagery to show the reader how a child’s imagination may perceive hell. This may also show the impressionability of the Church on a freethinking child and how the combination can be profound on a young boy with internal conflicts. This can also apply to children’s fantasies and their carefree attitudes which allows them to blend what mindsets they were forced into with that of their
T.S. Eliot had very philosophical and religious meanings behind this poem, and that helped me relate personally very well with this work of his. He used allusions to other poems, letting me make connections with works I have read before. He also used inclusive language and had the same opinion as me portrayed in this work. Based on these, T.S. Eliot has convinced me of his messages in this poem, as well as made this by far my favorite of his.
Bloomfield, Morton W. New Literary History. Winter ed. N.p.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972. Print. Vol. 2 of Allegory as Interpretation. 3 vols. First.
In his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot subtly conveys a wide variety of Prufrock’s emotions; he creates pathos for the speaker by employing the “objective correlative,” which Eliot defines as “a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events [that] shall be the formula of that particular emotion” (“Hamlet and His Problems”).
The poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” written by T.S. Eliot is a depiction of sadness and a disillusioned narrator. While reading this poem, one senses that the narrator is disturbed and has maybe given up hope, and that he feels he is just an actor in a tedious drama At the very beginning of the poem, Eliot uses a quote from Dante’s “Inferno”, preparing the poem’s reader to expect a vision of hell. This device seems to ask the reader to accept that what they are about to be told by the poem’s narrator was not supposed to be revealed to the living world, as Dante was exposed to horrors in the Inferno that were not supposed to be revealed to the world of the living. This comparison is frightening and intriguing, and casts a shadow on the poem and its narrator before it has even begun. J. Alfred Prufrock is anxious, self-concsious, and depressed.
In conclusion, after exploring the theme of this poem and reading it for myself, Eliot has created this persona, in industrialised England or somewhere else. A man of low self-esteem, you embark on his journey as he struggles with a rational fear of being rejected by a woman.
T.S. Eliot, a notable twentieth century poet, wrote often about the modern man and his incapacity to make decisive movements. In his work entitled, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'; he continues this theme allowing the reader to view the world as he sees it, a world of isolation and fear strangling the will of the modern man. The poem opens with a quoted passage from Dante's Inferno, an allusion to Dante's character who speaks from Hell only because he believes that the listener can not return to earth and thereby is impotent to act on the knowledge of his conversation. In his work, Eliot uses this quotation to foreshadow the idea that his character, Prufrock, is also trapped in a world he can not escape, the world where his own thoughts and feelings incapacitate and isolate him.
Time and eternity are important concepts that correspond to the finite and infinite aspects of human life. Time is the realm occupied by the human body, the human psyche, and all worldly affairs. In everyday thought people spatialize the events in this finite realm in terms of the past, present, and future. Eternity is the realm of the spirit that synthesizes the body and psyche, and spirit is the aspect of human life that belongs to the infinite. Kierkegaard thinks of eternity strictly in an infinite sense and wants to avoid regarding as eternity the indefinite passing of time.
T.S. Eliot has been one of the most daring innovators of twentieth-century poetry. His poem“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, is different and unusual. He rejects the logic connection, thus, his poems lack logic interpretation. He himself justifies himself by saying: he wrote it to want it to be difficult. The dissociation of sensibility, on the contrary, arouses the emotion of readers immediately. This poem contains Prufrock’ s love affairs. But it is more than that. It is actually only the narration of Prufrock, a middle-aged man, and a romantic aesthete , who is bored with his meaningless life and driven to despair because he wished but
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is an ironic depiction of a man’s inability to take decisive action in a modern society that is void of meaningful human connection. The poem reinforces its central idea through the techniques of fragmentation, and through the use of Eliot’s commentary about Prufrock’s social world. Using a series of natural images, Eliot uses fragmentation to show Prufrock’s inability to act, as well as his fear of society. Eliot’s commentary about Prufrock’s social world is also evident throughout. At no point in the poem did Prufrock confess his love, even though it is called “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, but through this poem, T.S. Eliot voices his social commentary about the world that Prufrock lives in.
In order to understand T.S. Eliot’s poem, Choruses from “The Rock,” one must first understand Eliot’s views on contemporary theology and spirituality. He felt as if people were moving away from the Church and were losing their religion in favor of more secular worship. The following passage from Eliot’s poem can summarize his entire argument that he makes in Choruses from “The Rock”.
By only having the characters connected with evil (the downfall of Thomas) Eliot has specified a subtle way to differentiate between the evil characters concerned with the ruling power of man (the rhymers), and those who believe in the ruling power of God. Those that are believers in the ruling power of God do not rhyme. Those vying for the ruling power of man, do.
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is an elaborate and mysterious montage of lines from other works, fleeting observations, conversations, scenery, and even languages. Though this approach seems to render the poem needlessly oblique, this style allows the poem to achieve multi-layered significance impossible in a more straightforward poetic style. Eliot’s use of fragmentation in The Waste Land operates on three levels: first, to parallel the broken society and relationships the poem portrays; second, to deconstruct the reader’s familiar context, creating an individualized sense of disconnection; and third, to challenge the reader to seek meaning in mere fragments, in this enigmatic poem as well as in a fractious world.