tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post862820167281412062..comments2024-01-24T06:50:01.683-06:00Comments on Samizdat Blog: T.S. Eliot on the Metra: Urban Alienation and the Urge for CommunityArchambeauhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-7974774707936815782011-04-07T10:32:31.248-05:002011-04-07T10:32:31.248-05:00Your skepticism about "comprehensive plans&qu...Your skepticism about "comprehensive plans" is of course wise. My work is about Texas farmers,and there is no more skeptical population. Yet even they, in the thirties, had to come to realize that skepticism taken to the extreme merely paralyzes good people and allows economic monsters to take over the field.Shelleyhttp://dustbowlpoetry.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-74651166599654923932011-04-05T12:19:23.141-05:002011-04-05T12:19:23.141-05:00Conditions certainly are different. Barring catas...Conditions certainly are different. Barring catastrophe, I think I must belong to the last generation of people to lose track of their high school friends.<br /><br />B.Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-58842965675727186022011-04-04T14:00:33.783-05:002011-04-04T14:00:33.783-05:00One further thought:
Are we finally at the point ...One further thought:<br /><br />Are we finally at the point where we can admit to ourselves that urban alienation, as central to Modernism as it once was, has now become unnecessary? That it's just a pose? <br /><br />We have never been more connected, technologically, by choice, then we are now. Social networks, indeed. So if we want to remain alienated, especially in terms of our literary expression, we need to admit to ourselves that what was once a deep cultural insight (early Modernism) has by now become an artistic cliché and fashionable accessory (postmodernism).<br /><br />When I read Eliot, even now, I feel that his urban alienation was authentic. It was of his times, it was genuine, and it was one of the New Things that had to be told about in poetry (since poetry is the news, as some other early Modern put it). When I read "The Waste Land" even now, I still get that charge.<br /><br />But when I read that same urban alienation stance in poetry written in the past twenty years or so, it feels at best derivative, at worst merely a reflection of literary fashion in which someone thinks they're supposed to talk that way about life. <br /><br />Octavio Paz wrote in one of his great essays on literature about fragmentation, about how the tools and techniques of the original avant-garde have become exaggerated, mannerist, and what Paz called "avantgardism." All revolution, all the time, even when the establishment one used to revolt against has dissolved, and the revolutionaries have become the new establishment. As such, fragmentation and alienation as literary tropes are recycled tropes, no longer fresh and meaningful. My biggest problem with fashionable trends like flarf, which essentially are recombinant remixes using existing collage techniques, is that it's nothing new or particularly original. Yawn. When Gysin and Burroughs invented their cut-up method back in the 1960s, it yielded some pretty amazing results. By comparison, the hot new things in literary remixing are rather bland.<br /><br />It also seems to me that the idea that there's nothing to be done about urban alienation, that the problem is insoluble, has become another fashionable pose, rather than an authentic one. Of course there are things that CAN be done about urban alienation—but their doing requires giving up one's pose of angst-filled ironic (academic?) distance, in favor of becoming actively engaged, and reaching out a hand in simple compassion towards another. We seem to spend a great deal of effort writing about our helplessness in the face of the end of world—apocalyptic fiction, the pornography of despair, has never been more popular—rather than looking for answers. I don't like Eliot's autocratic answers; he was much better at asking questions. And there IS a lot of pain in the world. But "Shared pain is lessened, shared joy is increased."Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-33562029973611335782011-03-29T11:30:38.530-05:002011-03-29T11:30:38.530-05:00Hey, people. Thanks for all the comments. A bit ...Hey, people. Thanks for all the comments. A bit much to respond to as I run off to a bonehead meeting, but I should say a couple of things: <br /><br />- I see Jaime's point about the infinite suffering/gentle thing being at odds with the particular images of sordid life -- I like to read the line as a moment where Eliot entertains (as a "fancy") a sense of humanity transcending its sordid condition, before he dismisses it with the wipe of the hand. But yes, agreed -- the passage is polysemous (which fits the whole symboliste thing in young Eliot).<br /><br />-Scroggins. Damn it. Right you are. Sadly, the Kindle edition comes without notes. So in the imaginary errata sheet for this post let's add the entry "In discussion of 'Preludes,' for 'London' read 'Greater Boston.'"<br /><br />-Granier. I'm a bit of a heretic when it comes to the whole "it's a speaker not the poet" thing in many lyric poems, probably because of spending too much time with the Romantics, where in many cases the distance separating speaker and poet diminishes almost to the vanishing point. I suppose I technically subscribe to the faith of Wayne Booth (the narrator is different from the implied author who is different from the author per se) but in practice I tend to let that slide, probably more than I should.<br /><br />-Art -- yes, Eliot's is certainly a different kind of religious impulse than what we find in Yeats. For TSE, there's a strong attraction to the social or community-oriented angle of religion, but Yeats (in part due to his negative reaction to post-liberation Ireland's heavy-handed Catholicism -- see the "Crazy Jane" poems) was often wary of that aspect, unless it came in a form where he felt empowered (as in his days dreaming of an almost missionary Irish mystic order based at Castle Whatsit (can't remember the name, rushing out the door).<br /><br />Best,<br /><br />BobArchambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-22190941765421680162011-03-29T09:44:23.300-05:002011-03-29T09:44:23.300-05:00Nifty work, Bob. Only caveat -- acc. again to Sout...Nifty work, Bob. Only caveat -- acc. again to Southam, Preludes I & II were written at Harvard in 1910, so prob not showing the influence of TSE in London.Mark Scrogginshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01431113440875342809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-42398964014413253182011-03-29T05:11:03.480-05:002011-03-29T05:11:03.480-05:00Oops! I think I said Rhapsody and Preludes were &#...Oops! I think I said Rhapsody and Preludes were 'forerunners' of Prufrock. Hardly, since they were published in the same collection! Please disregard/delete both these comments. Thanks.M Granierhttp://markgranier.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-70577962911509374182011-03-29T04:43:46.233-05:002011-03-29T04:43:46.233-05:00Thanks for the interesting essay Bob. That early c...Thanks for the interesting essay Bob. That early collection was one of the first books of poetry I read. Powerful stuff; the compelling rhythms and imagery were intoxicating, difficult if not impossible to get out of the bloodstream. <br /><br />Re class prejudice, of course Eliot was prejudiced, and clearly racist too. But I think it's worth keeping in mind that the voice in poems such as the Preludes and Rhapsody on a Windy Night (and also Prufrock, which they are forerunners of) is that of a persona. If these poems were short stories, or short films as per the images above, this might be more obvious. No doubt there is more than a flavour of Eliot's personality (to paraphrase P Kavanagh), but I think a distinction should be made between Prufrock & Co and the old Possum himself.M Granierhttp://markgranier.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-49340002495185697892011-03-28T23:47:06.437-05:002011-03-28T23:47:06.437-05:00Despite writing extensively about the metaphysical...Despite writing extensively about the metaphysical poets, I always had the impression that Eliot was pretty anti-mystical. Yeats was far more open to the spiritual, in the end than Eliot, as you know.<br /><br />Which is why Yeats, I believe, would have known something that perhaps Eliot did not, despite his religious conversion(s). That is: The term Christ is an office, properly referred to as "the Christ." Lots of people just think Christ was jesus' surname. LOL In fact, there's a whole mystical tradition around the figure of the Cosmic Christ that I'm pretty sure Yeats knew about. I don't know if Eliot did.<br /><br />On the other hand, there is the "Four Quartets." I always find it interesting how many of Eliot's hardcore rationalist fans reject those poems as somehow a betrayal by Eliot of his own poetic principles. And yet I've always found them to be sublime.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-16765616288289941852011-03-28T23:16:30.469-05:002011-03-28T23:16:30.469-05:00Eliot keeps that "notion of some infinitely g...Eliot keeps that "notion of some infinitely gentle/ infinitely suffering thing" vague - 'fancies', 'notions','thing' so there has to be a space for interpretation as long as it acknowledges that the poem denies the reader any certainty. The nature of this "thing" would seem very much in opposition to the "eyes/Assured of certain certainties". <br /> The problem with identifying it with "humanity" is that the descriptions of people in the poem have been characterised by fastidious distaste up to this point.<br /> Still the account of Eliot's uprooted urban life makes sense of the images and, perhaps, of his later yearning for a like-minded Christian community. In another context entirely,that of Italian Catholic anti-Semitism of about the same time and of a very similar nature, I've been thinking about his remark in 'After Strange Gods': “Reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable.” - Though some of the theological bigotry is more wary (for reasons of conversion)than Eliot is of the concept of "race". <br /> It's always struck me as extraordinary that Eliot, being an immigrant, should presume to proffer such ugly advice as to which(very specific)kind of immigrants are undesirable.Jamie McKendricknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-61577195008835007052011-03-28T09:34:07.233-05:002011-03-28T09:34:07.233-05:00Oh, totally. Class prejudice is all over these th...Oh, totally. Class prejudice is all over these things. I mean, he's different from us, T.S., and despite the kind of American pep-talk "difference is good!" mantra, not all difference is something we find it easy to stomach. One of the funny things about early TSE is the way the poems are simultaneously very guarded and very revealing: there's acute confessionalism in them, about his jammed-up sexuality, about his quiet rage at his family, about his class-prejudice, his discomfort with human proximity, about his anti-semitism, about his religious crisis, etc. -- but all deflected or oblique, sometimes by the old "objective correlative," sometimes just by syntax and bits of ellipsis.<br /><br />As for the Christ reading -- well, maybe we have a theological difference. I mean, Christ for me is both entirely divine and entirely human (as an image -- I'm no kind of Christian). But I see what you mean. And I think the poem is ambiguous enough for there to be wiggle room even beyond the territory we're staking out.<br /><br />Best,<br /><br />BobArchambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-69265940185327544812011-03-27T22:39:59.449-05:002011-03-27T22:39:59.449-05:00Bob, I realize this is just a detail, but the Chri...Bob, I realize this is just a detail, but the Christ option seems much more plausible to me. We humans have limited gentleness (alas) and capacity for suffering (thank goodness); that either of these could be infinite is a "fancy" one can imagine occurring unprompted; together they're pretty distinctive. (And we know where TSE went in later years.)<br /><br />I like these poems too, but I have to say there's a tinge of class prejudice to them. Even the short, square fingers seem meant to suggest manual labor.Vance Maverickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07477306994564623348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-85142385531710624352011-03-27T12:17:30.841-05:002011-03-27T12:17:30.841-05:00Yeats? Sure! The whole business of going to his ...Yeats? Sure! The whole business of going to his wife Georgie's automatic writing, then reshaping the material consciously, would argue for a process much like the balancing act you describe.Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-63577444081791252352011-03-27T11:30:14.254-05:002011-03-27T11:30:14.254-05:00As you say, I'm not valuing one as better than...As you say, I'm not valuing one as better than the other, embracing chaos or embracing order. I agree that it's interesting to look at why the dear old poets felt as they felt. As the saying goes, "The past is a foreign country," so sometimes when studying Victorian values I feel like I'm doing ethnographic fieldwork. It can feel that alien from my own life now. (BTW, have you read Robert Peters' excellent work on the Victorian poets?)<br /><br />But we also are not floating consciousness in a value-free nebula of assessment. We're still people with our own alliances. We feel as we do, now, as well. So we also need to know where we might fall along a given continuum.<br /><br />For myself, having spent a lot of time reading Jung, I would say that both chaos and order are necessary, both Dionysis and Apollo, and that when we get into trouble is usually when we fall off the point of dynamic balance one way or the other. I could make a case for Eliot having fallen out of balance on the side of embracing order; a case you sort of make here, anyway. It seems to me that Yeats was trying to stay on balance between chaos and order, allowing chaos into the poetry while trying to make order happen politically. If we look at things through the lens of finding this dynamic balance, how does it affect one's interpretation? Food for thought.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-58722654748261040352011-03-27T09:58:08.622-05:002011-03-27T09:58:08.622-05:00I hear you, Vance. The "curl" image tie...I hear you, Vance. The "curl" image ties it back to the woman, presumably a prostitute, we see earlier in the poem. I suppose I'm willing to take her, and her condition, as an image for humanity in the metropolis. I also sometimes run across the interpretation that the "infinitely gentle / infinitely suffering thing" is Christ, in which case I'm still willing to see it as an image of humanity, in that Christ is God become man, and entering into a bodily suffering that is human (as well as a suffering that is done on behalf of humanity). But that's me. There's some interpretive wiggle-room, for sure.<br /><br />BobArchambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-31028115615026350842011-03-26T23:50:45.499-05:002011-03-26T23:50:45.499-05:00Is it established that the "infinitely gentle...Is it established that the "infinitely gentle / infinitely suffering thing" is "humanity"? It seems to me there's a more obvious candidate.Vance Maverickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07477306994564623348noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-63392016211685791402011-03-26T19:39:36.111-05:002011-03-26T19:39:36.111-05:00Yes, very interesting, I think someone will write ...Yes, very interesting, I think someone will write a monograph in future on the America that Eliot & Pound left behind or effaced, in St. Louis and Idaho (I know some have already tried that... but not radically enough).<br /><br />I'm ONLY 58 yrs old, but I grew up in a place & time (American midwest) when one was required to memorize the "Charge of the Light Brigade," and recite it in class, or receive a hard swat on the fingers with a ruler (my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Close)... Where the main English-class reading for the semester was "Idylls of the King" (Mr. Lundholm)...a place where my mother was best friends with Longfellow's granddaughter (the daughter of "Laughing Allegra")...<br /><br />there are continuities beyond the poetry wars...Henry Gouldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06763188178644726622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-68624538892236451562011-03-26T12:14:26.724-05:002011-03-26T12:14:26.724-05:00Yes, it's an interesting set of contrasts. An...Yes, it's an interesting set of contrasts. And it tells us something about ourselves, too: when I read Yeats' essays about the need for "unity of being," I feel how different he and I are. When I read Deleuze and Guattari I respond immediately to the talk of multiplicity and contingency. But the really interesting thing for me is not to go "ah, they were wrong and we're right, and the tradition we respond to is the good one" (I don't mean that you're doing that, but I run into that all the time). The interesting thing, for me, is to look for why they felt as they felt, and why we feel as we do. I try not to attach a value to the embrace of chaos, or the embrace of order -- they're things that happen, or they're the way things look from a particular set of circumstances.<br /><br />B.Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-54419450880984785322011-03-26T11:14:59.099-05:002011-03-26T11:14:59.099-05:00The psychological motivation you attribute to Elio...The psychological motivation you attribute to Eliot is a fairly common one. It's the same quest for Order in the face of a chaotic, unmanageable, unpredictable existence that drives most reactionary political thought. Coupled with the myth-making desire to return to a Golden Age, you often end up with people who get autocratic, even fascist, in their social urges.<br /><br />But there is an alternative, which also is represented in the arts, perhaps by people like Duchamp, Cage, and Man Ray. People who are comfortable with uncertainty, with indeterminacy, whose response to the Chaos of living is not to try to repress it, as Eliot tried to do (and influenced a lot of criticism for far too long to try to do), but to embrace it. Charles Ives, WCW, and Stevens were all of the same generation, but there response to modernity was the opposite of Eliot's, in many ways, it seems to me. They weren't afraid of the chaos or uncertainty, if they didn't embrace it at least they didn't try to suppress or control it.Art Durkeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463180236975988432noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-51551201209614578732011-03-26T08:45:10.552-05:002011-03-26T08:45:10.552-05:00Hey, cool. I'll check it out.Hey, cool. I'll check it out.Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-62774751862558695042011-03-26T06:00:56.700-05:002011-03-26T06:00:56.700-05:00I read this post while drinking coffee at the supe...I read this post while drinking coffee at the supermarket after shopping, and then I thought a bunch about it while driving home, so my thoughts were too long for a comment and became a blog post of my own:<br /><br />http://andrewjshields.blogspot.com/2011/03/from-tennyson-to-today.htmlAndrew Shieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02804655739574694901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-68457029800388980822011-03-25T21:41:38.319-05:002011-03-25T21:41:38.319-05:00It's really fascinating to look at how Tennyso...It's really fascinating to look at how Tennyson responded to comments from his reviewers (some of whom were old Cambridge pals). As Ricks notes, T. was always very responsive to what they said, and while Hallam had urged T. to be something of an aesthete (and T never forgot it), people like Christopher North and James Spedding wanted T to step up and make some important moral statements. The revisions T made to "The Lotos-Eaters" show him moving from a kind of negative capability to a kind of "duty first, stiff upper lip, let's put our shoulders to the wheel, lads" view of things. But the back-and-forth never really ended. I've got about 18,000 words on this I'll inflict on your for comments if you've got too much time on your hands!<br /><br />B.Archambeauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17273511539172747550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8052308.post-68187021284352967462011-03-25T19:57:22.186-05:002011-03-25T19:57:22.186-05:00Hearing the recording of Tennyson reading "Ch...Hearing the recording of Tennyson reading "Charge of the Light Brigade" largely dispels the moralism charge. Christopher Ricks, the main T. scholar of our time, has explored this.Don Sharehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03446230480847015806noreply@blogger.com