Modernism & the Recovery of Tradition: T. S. Eliot’s Spiritual Poetics
A quintessential representative of Anglo-European Modernism, T. S. Eliot gradually
veered away from the aesthetic programs and default secularism of his modernist peers
(Pound, Woolf, Russell, et al.) and, after 1930, finds him writing poetry and prose within
a far more expansive, pan-European and emphatically religious context. Having
converted (in 1927) to Anglo-Catholicism, Eliot after 1930 becomes consumed with
reimagining political and religious community and with discovering and retrieving
potentialities within the English language suitable for that purpose. As he charts his
asymptotic trajectory vis-à-vis the liberal-secular-naturalist creeds held by most of his
contemporaries, Eliot shows himself profoundly concerned with how his poetic and
essayistic voices are informed by, and in turn respond to, a long and rich tradition of
poetic, intellectual, and religious writing.
In focusing, after 1927, on the deep affinities between poetry as a form of contemplation
and Anglo-Catholic religious thought and ritual, Eliot increasingly distances himself from
virtually all literary, philosophical, and theological movements, schools, and charismatic
individuals of his time. Thus he demurs at the home-spun mythology of Yeats as “but a
highly sophisticated lower mythology summoned, like a physician, to supply the fading
pulse of poetry with some transient stimulant so that the dying patient may utter his last
words” (After Strange Gods). Likewise, he rejects any straightforward humanist
proposals for remedying the deracinated and despairing character of modern life, such as
I. A. Richards invocation of poetry as a buffer against modern dissociation and despair.
Dismissing such humanist palliatives as but “a religious rear-guard action,” Eliot sees no
point in trying “to preserve emotions without the beliefs with which their history has been
involved” (“The Use of Poetry”).
Yet what most distinguishes Eliot’s fusion of poetic and religious contemplation is his
singularly capacious and dynamic understanding of tradition. It informs and organizes
Eliot’s astonishing range of reading and his deeply considered and subtly embedded
allusions to a vast and eclectic array of precursor texts, a modification of his earlier
montage-technique in The Waste Land and, in his time, almost without parallel (with the
exception of Joyce). Of supreme importance among Eliot’s literary precursors is Dante,
whose insistent presence and profoundly enabling role within the evolution of Eliot’s
literary persona will be an enduring concern for us. Other voices and genres significantly
bearing on Eliot’s literary formation include medieval mystery plays; Julian of Norwich;
the Anglican Divines of the seventeenth century; the metaphysical poets, particularly
Donne and Herbert; the French Symbolists, to name but the most prominent cases.
With the ongoing publication of Eliot’s complete prose writings, we are at long last also
in possession of Eliot’s wide-ranging engagement of issues and debates in theology,
philosophy, literature, and social thought. Our seminar will draw on a number of Eliot’s
prose writings in relation to his canonical poetry, both of which we shall put in
conversation with some of his most valued poetic precursors. Overall, the course will be
divided into three sections: Part I will explore a number of Eliot’s essays and his early,
high-Modernist poetry and from 1914-1922, culminating in The Waste Land. Part II will
focus on Eliot’s concept of “tradition” and his increasingly wide-ranging engagement of
poetic and religious interlocutors (Dante, Bramhall, Pascal, the Metaphysical Poets)
during the years 1922-1935. Part III will mainly explore writings between 1935 and
1945. Here we will focus on Eliot’s contemplative poetry and poetic drama (Murder in
the Cathedral), his critique of contemporary secular culture (After Strange Gods; The
Idea of a Christian Society; Notes toward a Definition of Culture, et al.). Our discussion
will conclude with a careful reading of Four Quartets (1936-1943), the last section of
which (“Little Gidding,” 1943) we will read in close conjunction with Julian of
Norwich’s A Revelation of Love.
Requirements:
1) Advance reading: Dante, Divine Comedy (Mandelbaum or Hollander
translation); read at least the opening ten cantos of Inferno, Purgatorio, and
Paradiso. – Strongly recommended, Russell Kirk’s, Eliot and his Age.
2) In-class presentation: a 15-20 min. presentation of one of Eliot’s prose pieces or a
work of secondary literature.
3) A research paper (approx.. 7,500-8,000 words), due by the beginning of Finals
Week.
Secondary Literature
(some selections of which will be part of our syllabus)
Ackroyd, Peter. T. S. Eliot: A Life. (London, 1984)
Asher, Kenneth T. S. Eliot and Ideology (1995)
Bottum, Joseph, "What T. S. Eliot Almost Believed", First Things 55 (August/September
1995): 25-30.
Bush, Ronald. T. S. Eliot: A Study in Character and Style. (1984)
Bush, Ronald, 'The Presence of the Past: Ethnographic Thinking/ Literary Politics'. In
Prehistories of the Future, ed. Elzar Barkan and Ronald Bush, Stanford
University Press. (1995).
Crawford, Robert. The Savage and the City in the Work of T. S. Eliot. (1987)
Donoghue, Denis. Words Alone: the Poet T. S. Eliot (2000)
Gordon, Lyndall. T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life. (1998)
Hughes, Glenn. A More Beautiful Question: The Spiritual in Poetry and Art (Columbia,
MO: U of Missouri Press, 2011)
Julius, Anthony. T. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form. Cambridge University
Press (Cambridge, U.K.,1995)
Kenner, Hugh. The Invisible Poet: T. S. Eliot. (New York, 1969)
Miller, James E., Jr. T. S. Eliot. The Making of an American Poet, 1888–1922. The
Pennsylvania State University Press. 2005.
Raine, Craig. T. S. Eliot. Oxford University Press (2006).
Ricks, Christopher.T. S. Eliot and Prejudice. (1988).
Robinson, Ian "The English Prophets", The Brynmill Press Ltd (2001)
Spender, Stephen. T. S. Eliot. (1975)
Spurr, Barry, Anglo-Catholic in Religion: T. S. Eliot and Christianity, The Lutterworth
Press (2009)