Category: T.S. Eliot

T.S. Eliot, in his notes on The Waste Land, mentions that “Tiresias…is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest” (Eliot 70). Essentialy, all the characters in his poem, all the sexes, merge into the figure of Tiresias; he is the “substance of the poem” (70). Eliot uses two apparent methods of connecting characters to Tiresias ¬¬–– prognostication and genderfluidity. He takes characters that superficially do not seem to align with Tiresias and relates them to his figure through one or both of these aspects. Similarly, all these scenes hold some type of subversion of expectation that points to criticism of a society that he deems a bleak wasteland. We see this right away in the epigraph, where the Sibyl, granted immortality and connected to Tiresias through prophetic power, unexpectedly wants only to die because of the treatment she receives at the hands of her civilization. Incumbent in this is some criticism of the Ancient Greeks, whose gods offer the regrettably restricting reward of immortality, and whose people incarcerate their bridge to the divine. In effect, Eliot uses the amorphous figure of Tiresias to connect disparate characters and scenes, and through some type of distortion, their incumbent criticisms of a society that he depicts as a bleak wasteland.

An obvious depiction of the Tiresias figure lies in the Madame Sosostris scene, in which Eliot immediately describes her as a “famous clairvoyante” (Eliot 43), similar to Tiresias with the prophetic power he holds in his sphere. However, the narrator seems to discredit her authority almost instantly. He remarks that she “had a bad cold” (44) and sees her tarot cards as “wicked” (46). First, the idea of a fortune-teller, someone that is supposed to hold some preternatural ability beyond the reach of humanity, being afflicted with a cold is almost paradoxical. A woman of her supposed ability should not be afflicted by such triviality. Further, when a person is affected by a cold, they release unpleasant pathogens with every breath. We can almost picture Madame Sosostris spreading her virus in the act of her fortune-telling. Her augury can be interpreted as infected with the same viral load as her exhalation. Her words spread hazard in the same way her breath does. Similarly, her tarot cards, her tools of prognostication, are seen as “wicked” in their very nature, perhaps a further hint that likewise her fortune will hold the same sinister weight. And it very much does. Sosostris speaks of death with her “drowned Phoenician Sailor” decayed to the point of a skeletal body with pearls for eyes. She speaks of hanging and again of death by water. Further, following her monologue we experience about 15 lines of such with the march of the dead over London Bridge. Truly, her “wicked pack of cards” precedes wicked happenings in death and destruction. Even the linking of Sosostris’ two describers provokes feelings of unease. We see words like “cold” and “wicked” attached to her; these are words that typically would not accompany a normal woman. They provoke an unnatural atmosphere, a glimpse of the demonic. Nevertheless, her predictions do hold weight in the poem. We experience a recapitulation of the tarot cards when they come to life in later sections and a fulfillment of death on the bridge with the eventual fall of London Bridge.

However, her predictions coming to fruition should not be seen as proof of validity, but of the danger incumbent in this type of activity. As stated earlier, Sosostris is almost immediately discredited through her “cold”. Eliot again seems to discredit her in the notes, this time mentioning that he is “not familiar with the exact constitution of” (page 68) her cards. To Eliot, the supernatural force of the Tarot cards is insignificant, so much so that he feels free to stray from their very predicting power, that is the card itself. Perhaps the most telling demerit to the character of Madame Sosostris lies in her very name. Brian Diemert, a literary scholar, notes that the name “Sosostris” is an allusion to Huxley’s Crome Yellow, in which “the decidedly unreligious Mr. Scogan dresses as ‘Sesostris, the Sorceress of Ecbatana’’ (Diemert 175). This Scogan character is seen as a distortion of religion in the novel, and at the same time holds some type of gender fluidity. Eliot seems to take inspiration from this. As a result, we can begin to understand the character of Sosostris in the same way. Madame Sosostris, namesake of Huxley’s character, holds the same genderfluidity that Scogan has due to her association with the hermaphroditic Tiresias. Similarly, her reliance on the “wicked” Tarot cards signifies her association with the occult and subversion of accepted religious mores; she is “decidedly unreligious” in the same way that Scogan is. As a result, this scene serves as a symbol of “the degenerate spirituality of the Waste Land’s inhabitants” (Diemert 175). Herein lies Eliot’s criticism. He takes this image of a fortune-teller and perverts it along with everything that accompanies, so much so that nothing she foretells can be taken as truth, not even the physical image she presents. He discredits her authority, gives her a predilection for violence. And just like Madame Sosostris has turned away from religion and to inauspicious destruction, so too has Eliot’s society. Diemert mentions that in the years prior to publication of the poem, there seemed to be an uptick in interest in the occult, so much so that such news was increasingly making its way into the papers. Eliot, a devout Catholic, certainly would be revulsed by such happenings. Couple this with a post-war sentiment in which the very destruction witnessed called the existence of God into question, an increasing acceptance of Darwin’s theory, and the beginning of a gradual turn from organized religion, it is no stretch of the imagination to suppose that Eliot saw the very breakdown of society’s moral fabric in these anti-religious inklings. Eliot sees the same “degenerate spirituality” in both his Waste Land and his quotidian. In this sense, the scene contributes to the bleakness of the poem’s world along with our own. Importantly, Eliot leaves us with a warning here, and that is that “one must be so careful these days” (Eliot 59) in order to avoid descending into the immorality he sees increasing with the cracking of religiosity. In all, we are introduced to Madame Sosostris through the figure of Tiresias, and Eliot’s criticism of society can be understood through the perversion of her form and the destruction she brings about by her very nature.

Just like the Madame Sosostris scene has this ambiguity in gender by association with Tiresias and the Huxley character, so too will the “mechanical”, border-line rape scene in Book III. However, this time we will explicitly see both genders of Tiresias interacting. First, Eliot quite conveniently informs us of this coming paradigm directly with the words of Tiresias himself: “I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, / Old man with wrinkled female breasts” (218-219). On the surface, this excerpt informs the reader of the myth that surrounds Tiresias, that his gender was reversed several times through divine intercession. The phrase “throbbing between lives” is especially important here, as it holds more than just the idea of Tiresias switching between genders in life. It alerts us to his prominent role in the next scene, in which the typist and clerk interact. With this phrase in mind, we can begin to see Tiresias emulate both the man and woman in the scene, the typist and clerk; he will “throb” between them. This reading is confirmed with his monologue after the intercourse, where Tiresias says that he has “foresuffered all enacted on this same divan or bed” (244). This is not just an acknowledgement of his role previously in both sides of an ordeal like this, but an affirmation that he is present in both characters. We can find evidence for this in more of Tiresias’ speech, in which he connects himself to both characters. We see the “typist home at teatime” (222) preparing in some way for the coming man. Similarly, we see Tiresias “too [awaiting] the expected guest” (230). Next, Tiresias describes the clerk’s actions after the affair, and in this we see the man “[grope] his way, finding the stairs unlit…” (248). The clerk almost appears blind in the aftermath as he clumsily “gropes his way” out of the room in the same way that we might imagine the old, blind Tiresias would. Also, the stairs are quite literally “unlit”; he physically cannot see, much like Tiresias. Lastly, with this in mind, the phrase “exploring hands” (240) now evokes the very same imagery. We can almost picture the carbuncular man clumsily groping the woman with his “exploring hands” in the same manner a blind Tiresias would acquaint himself with his surroundings. Clearly, the amorphous figure of Tiresias, physically prominent in this scene, contains both aggressor and victim in the interaction.

Eliot bases this scene specifically on the genderfluidity of Tiresias, which originates from Greek mythos. There are many variations of the occurrence, but the one that Eliot seems to draw inspiration is a Roman retelling centering on a disagreement between Juno and Jupiter. The two gods are arguing over which gender enjoys the act of sex more. They call on Tiresias, a human who has experienced the act from both sides, for his opinion, and he asserts that females derive greater pleasure from intercourse. This response angers Juno, as she interprets it as ribald and a wholesale derision of the female sex, thus she blinds Tiresias. William Dunstan, a Classics scholar, offers this in regard to the implications of the scene: “Ancient Greek writers interpret the myth to mean that women possess bestial drives and lack self-control, their unfortunate natures necessitating male domination” (Dunstan 4199). Greek and Roman scholars would see Juno’s action as befitting of a woman; her rash and vindictive decision to blind Tiresias is due to her “bestial” nature and her “[lack of] self-control”, the very same reasons she enjoys sex more than her male counterpart, and also the rationale for reinforcement of a patriarchal society. Interestingly, Eliot seems to reverse this trope with his sexual depiction. In Eliot’s scene, it is the male that acts bestially as he “assaults” (239) the woman, and it is the male who derives more pleasure from the act, as the female only responds with “indifference” (241), “glad” when the deed is finally “over” (252). Similarly, this reversal of expectation continues in the aftermath of the scene. Instead of the typist lashing out in response to the affront, as Juno does, she just calmly walks around her room, fixes her hair, and listens to some music. She acts anything but “bestially”. Eliot depicts this mechanical, one-way sexual act that calls upon ancient and still-ingrained ideas of male subjugation of women. However, he subverts the expected paradigm by reversing the roles. This subversion is a means to discredit the ingrained thought, thus we can conclude that he intends to overturn the idea of “male domination” by this same stroke. He was writing at a time when women’s suffrage was not completely incorporated in Britain, and women certainly did not enjoy the same liberties that men did. I am not saying that T.S. Eliot is some feminist icon, but he did interact closely in literary circles with women, like Virginia Woolf, and he undoubtedly witnessed them being discredited for the mere fact of their sex. It seems likely that he took some exception to this aspect of society, saw it as contributing to his perception of a “waste land”, and thus he sets out to criticize the principle through his subversion of the myth in his retelling.

Critics have long interpreted The Waste Land as some type of societal criticism in which Eliot points out the gloominess present in his realm. In his notes, Eliot describes Tiresias as this connecting figure in the poem. Interestingly, Eliot repeatedly presents some type of notion in these Tiresias scenes and proceeds to undermine it for the purpose of rebuking some societal principle. As a result, we can begin to understand Tiresias’ role as not only connecting these disparate scenes, but also connecting the criticisms concomitant with them. Tiresias, the “substance of the poem” (Eliot 70), is the thread that links these disparate condemnations.

The American-English poet, playwright and literary critic, Thomas Stearns Eliot, was a leader of the Modernist Movement in Poetry. Though his fame rests with poetry, his influence in the field of Drama in the first half of the Twentieth Century is predominant. He brought “Poetic Drama” back to the popular stage which is in fact a continuation of his poetry. It was his attempt to carry out his themes of Poetry to a larger and wider audience.

Eliot came from a family that played a central role in the cultural, religious and social life of his birthplace, Missouri. His paternal grandfather was a devout Unitarian and built various churches and served for his community. Thus, Eliot inculcated these qualities of public service and social responsibility from an early childhood which are explicit enough in his writings. Through Poetic drama, he sought to display his Christian sensibilities and instil religious awareness among his audience and readers of the early twentieth century wherein the very foundation of Christianity was shaken. The age saw people inheriting this legacy of scepticism and becoming agnostics and atheists. He was very much concerned as well as dissatisfied about the fate of the Modern society moving relentlessly towards thoroughgoing secularism, spiritual slackness and the materialism which accompanies it. His writings can be seen as an examination of Contemporary society, particularly its cultural, moral and religious characteristics. He cautioned his readers that “secular humanism” was not enough and that the urgent need was some form of religious belief in God and Religion. Thus, he extensively dealt with “Religion” in his plays and sought to promote a Christian worldview. He thus propagated that Men should live more nearly by Christian doctrine in their personal and social life.

With these views in mind, T.S. Eliot sought to wrote his fourth play, “The Cocktail Party”. It was first staged at the Edinburgh Festival, Scotland in 1949. Though this play by Eliot is not an overtly religious play like his earlier plays, “The Rock” and his much celebrated “Murder in the Cathedral” and starts off as a traditional British drawing room comedy so as to attract the then audience, it is essentially “A Religious(Christian) Play” and ends with a Christian message-that of “Martyrdom” as a way of cleansing and the ability of Saint’s sacrifice to benefit the lives of others. Anyone acquainted with the plays of Eliot are aware that a recurring theme in them is that of “Martyrdom”. As an ardent Christian, Eliot was very much concerned with the question of “Sin” and “Redemption”. Christianity is based on the firm belief that the Son of God became man and died on the Cross in order to “atone” for the sin of the children of Adam and to earn salvation for them. This play too uses the same Christian imagery: that of the strait and difficult road that leads to salvation. The Biblical idea of this strait road is repeatedly found in his plays, in Reilly’s description of the sanatorium to which he proposes to send Celia. Due to these viewpoints, this play also at once gained commercial success and is also regarded as twentieth century “Morality play”.

Through this play, Eliot sought to expose the isolation of the human condition and there runs an air of unrelieved depression in the atmosphere which highlights a society on the verge of crisis, with its individual trapped miserably in their personal mazes. The plot structure is woven around a High class couple, the Chamberlaynes- Edward, the husband and Lavinia, the wife, and Miss Celia Coplestone who was once Edward’s mistress but in the due course of the play feels discarded, lonely and depressed. The most important thing that drives the domestic lives of the couple to the brink of tragedy is Edward’s ‘incapibility of loving’ and Lavinia’s ‘unlovableness’. As both the charactes are caught in a failed marriage, they take recourse to having an affair outside it. They suffer from a sense of spiritual inadequacy because:

“…both husband and wife are naggingly aware of the inseparable mediocrity of spirit.” (Fraser: 217)

Sir Henry Harcourt Reilly appears as a professional psychiatrist as well as a spiritual advisor to the three main characters of the play- Edward and Lavinia Chamberlayne and Celia Coplestone. Like a ministering angel and a Christian conscious of his duty to his brethren, Reilly discerns the saint in Celia who is caught in a spiritual crisis by the failure of her love for Edward. He sends her along the right but torturous path with his loving benediction:

“Go in peace my daughter; work out your salvation with diligence.”

Thus like Eliot’s other plays, “The Cocktail Party” also resonates with the theme of Sainthood and Martyrdom, which in this play is introduced by Reilly. Eliot felt that martyrdom is the proper subject for a Christian dramatist. By dealing with the two themes along with contemporary issues and problems such as ‘failure in Love’, ‘ Failed Marriage hood” and “A sense of Unbelongingness and Alienation” with which almost all the characters in the play are grappled with, Eliot sought to show the relationship of sainthood and martyrdom to the lives of ordinary men and women of today.

In this play, there is little mystery about the Martyrdom of the heroine Celia Coplestone. She is certainly the most important character in the play and it is upon her that the mantle of sainthood descends. She is drawn in such a way that she appears quite distinct from the other characters that embody spiritual mediocrity. At first, she seems to exist at no higher level than the other guests at the opening scene in the titular cocktail party, but her spiritual greatness emerges at the end in her triumphant martyrdom. Though it is Celia’s own choice, she does not realise it at first of what actually constitutes of a life of potential sainthood. Her character evinces a marked difference from the character of the Chamberlaynes. Reilly, the psychiatrist cum spiritual advisor realizes that she has something that the others do not have. Celia with her capacity for great love and an almost visionless experience of a timeless love has caught almost an intimation of the higher goal before her. She at once becomes ready for this great goal by sacrificing her own “will” which in a way is her ‘first Martyrdom’. It alone can satisfy Celia’s innermost craving for a love that no human agency can satisfy. Thus showing courage in abundance, she takes on the journey blind through a risky path. Her ‘second Martyrdom” is her decision that she must “atone” and her subsequent death. Like Harry in Eliot’s “The Family Reunion”, Celia feels the urge for “expiation”. She has a “sense of Sin”. She confesses to Sir Henry that she has a feeling:

“… Of emptiness, of failure

Towards someone or something outside of myself

And I feel I must…. atone.”

In her passionate desire for atonement she readily embraces the goal pointed to her by Sir Henry. Her eager acceptance of the idea of the “sanatorium” suggested by Sir Henry shows her innocence. The path is indeed beset with difficulties and:

“Terrors…suffering…On the way of illumination”

, as is suggested by Julia Shuttlethwaite who plays the role of Celia’s guardian in the play. Armed with this innocence and this humility, Celia goes towards her death, martyrdom in fact. She dies a cruel and painful death, for she crucified on an ant-hill in Kinkanja during an insurrection.

Now the pattern found in “The Family Reunion” and “Murder in the Cathedral” repeats itself. Celia’s martyrdom has a tremendous influence on the lives of the others. After the shock experienced by all except Reilly on the news of Celia’s death, there is a mood of tranquillity, of understanding and of acceptance. The other characters are spiritual gainers because of her martyrdom or self-knowledge. Though the Chamberlaynes at first feel guilty and are tortured of having been responsible for Celia’s terrible fate. But Sir Henry explains things to them thus:

“If we all judged according to the consequences

Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention

And beyond our limited understanding

Of ourselve and others, we should all be condemned…

As for Miss Coplestone…her life was… triumphant.”

Thus it is not only the saint Celia that transforms but even Lavinia and Edward feel their bond strengthened. Celia’s crucifixion and the memory of it bring much benediction to the Chamberlaynes. Edward, along with Lavinia, is the recipient of the benefits occurring from Celia’s Martyrdom, just as the women of Canterbury in “The Murder in the Cathedral” receive the blessings of Becket’s martyrdom and sainthood. Lavinia feels it would do them good to talk about Celia. So she invites Peter Quilpe whom she earlier forces into the unwilling position of her lover but who on the contrary falls in love with Celia. His role in the play is seen as essential in connecting the love triangle of Lavinia, Edward and Celia and is thus connected with the main episode of the play. Thus Lavinia asks Peter to:

“Do try to come to see us.

You know, I think it would do us all good

You and me and Edward… to talk about Celia.”

This salutary influence of Celia’s martyrdom can be felt very much all through the last bit of the play. Thus, we see that, gone are the man and wife of frustrated longings and nagging tendency. In their place, we see the emergence of a new man and a new woman who have gained a spiritual stature. They start loving and caring for each other and are at peace with the whole world. That Lavinia is capable of feeling and giving positive happiness is clear from the scene of domestic happiness enjoyed by the Chamberlaynes and by her being excited and thrilled to host a “second Cocktail Party”.

Thus the theme of Martyrdom, Sin and Atonement broods over all the plays of Eliot. The hero always arrives at self-knowledge which is the first step towards salvation. Celia Coplestone, with the spiritual guidance of Sir Reilly gets the vision of that great love towards which her whole being had been yearning. It is not surprising that Eliot’s characters sometimes symbolize Jesus Christ. Celia’s resemblance to Christ is apparent in the manner of her death. Her death by crucifixion stresses her Christ-like quality. This links her with the other martyrs and potential saints of Eliot’s plays.

T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis’ writings differ due to their religious beliefs and time period. Both poets used their religious perspective in some of their writings. T.S. Eliot, a modernist, often wrote on a religious point of view. On the other hand, C.S. Lewis, contemporary, often wrote on an atheist point of view.

The modern era occurred took place from 1914 to 1939. A major characteristic in modernism is nihilism. “…the rejection of all religious and moral principles as the only means of obtaining social progress” (History of Modernism). Most people during this time period were atheists. Atheism is the lack of belief of any gods or any other religious beliefs. “A cause of this is linked to the change in culture. One of the causes of this iconoclasm was the fact that early 20th-century culture was literally re-inventing itself on a daily basis” (History of Modernism). During the modernist time period, artists noticed the lack of freedom within art, such as poetry.. As a result, artists began to break some rules. These rules were established to keep up with the upcoming advanced technology. Many artists strongly believed that everyone should be allowed have artistic freedom.

The contemporary era took place from 1939 to present. “By the late 20th century Christianity had become the most widely disseminated religion on earth. Virtually no nation remained unaffected by the activities of Christian missionaries, although in many countries Christians are only a small fraction of the total population” (Stefon, Matt). Anglicanism was the religion T.S. Eliot in which affiliated with. Although he was known to be a modernist poet, he still had connections to the contemporary era.

T.S. Eliot wrote the collection of poems “Four Quartets”. In the forth poem, he wrote about God’s forgiveness. His main idea in this poem was that if you don’t ask for forgiveness, you will not be saved. “The only hope, or else despair lies in the choices of pyre or pyre – to be redeemed from fire by fire” (Four Quartets).

C.S. Lewis wrote “Ode for New Year’s Day”. This poem was about how God did not care about any of us in this world. “The sky above is sickening, the clouds above God’s hate cover it, body and soul shall suffer beyond all word or thought, till the pain and noise terror that those first years have wrote” (Ode for New Year’s Day).

During the modernist era, many people were often not religious. “ Symbolically, the embrace of primitivism is a negation of the very principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition and an affirmation of authentic expression of that hidden self that only finds expression at night when we dream.” (History of Modernism). Ironically, T.S. Eliot was both a modernist and religious. “The 21st century is the century of the Christian Era…” (Contemporary History). This is ironic because C.S. Lewis was an atheist and contemporary.

T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis are different, but are joined together by one idea. “What joins Lewis and Eliot together is more important than what makes them different. Lewis later observed “I agree with him about matters of such moment that all literary questions, are in comparison, trivial”” (Wilson, Jared).They also have similar concerns. “In retrospect, Lewis’s view of myth and “literary religiousness” apply to Eliot’s work. Both poets’ early verse share common concerns, also. As Eliot’s early poetry seeks to recover the “lost story” by creating a verbal collage of divergent philosophies, religion, and folklores, Lewis’s early poetry evidenced his desire to integrate his modernist atheism with classic mythologies. The two writers appear to echo each other’s concerns” (Wilson, Jared).

C.S. Lewis struggled with his faith a lot throughout his life. In his childhood, he grew up in a Christian home. In September of 1911, he became an atheist, 18 years later, he abandoned atheism and converted to theism. Theism is a religion in which it is believed that one God has created and rules the universe. Then in 1931, he converted to Christianity. In 1959, he and T.S. Eliot become a member of a commission to revise the Psalter-a copy of the book of Psalms from the Bible. Four years later, C.S. Lewis dies. “Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most intellectual writers of his day” (Website, The Official).

T.S. Eliot graduated from Harvard in 1909. He later returned to Harvard and earned his PhD in 1916. Eliot converted to Anglicanism in 1927. Anglicanism is a religion in which it is believed that faith should be fully based on the Bible. This belief is similar to the ones of Catholicism. In 1965, T.S. Eliot dies. T.S. Eliot’s religious beliefs definitely play a role in his writing techniques and topics.

T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis had different views in their writing. T.S. Eliot focused on religion while C.S. Lewis often focused on atheism. Along with that, Eliot was a modernist while Lewis was contemporary. However, they agreed in some ways. For example, they agreed that some literary ideas may not be important. “These are the common elements of our universal experience. Stylistically, Eliot and Lewis may be worlds apart, but thematically they journey together” (Wilson, Jared).