Justin Schwartz wrote:
>
> Fair enough, at least about Pound. Eliot became so thoroughly Anglicized (as
> I was not) that he was only from here, AMerican in the sense that, say,
> Conrad was Polish.
I haven't given much thought to Eliot for 40 years or so, but I'll
quibble a bit. Eliot _tried_ to become anglicized; perhaps _he_ thought
that he had succeeded in becoming anglicized. That is he had realized
one of the 1000 or so different fragments that make up that non-category
of "The American Dream." Moreover, it is only if you concentrate on his
prose, his rather dull plays, and perhaps his cat poems that he is even
in appearance so "non-american" (whatever it means to be "american").
Here is Eliot trying to be "English" in his poetry: [Notes: the chair of
Mary of Scotland: "En ma fin est mon commencement" (ref. "tattered
arras" in lines below); Mary was a contemporary of Sir Thomas Elyot, so
we go from an early Elyot to an air-raid warden Eliot in World War 2
(the end)]
In my beginning is my end. In succession
Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,
ARe removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place
Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.
Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,
Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth
Which is already flesh, fur and faeces,
Bone of man and beast, cornstalk and leaf.
House live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane
And to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots
And to shake the tattered arras with a silent motto.
In my beginning is my end. Now the light falls
Across the open field, leaving the deep lane
Shuttered with branches, dark in the afternoon,
Where you lean against a bank while a van passes . . . .
. . . . . . .
On a Summer midnight, you can hear the music
Of the weak pipe and the little drum
And see them dancing around the bonfire
The association of man and woman
In daunsinge, signifying matrimonie --
A dignfied and commodious sacrament.
Two and tow, necessarye coniunction,
Holding eche other by the hand or the arm
Whiche betokeneth concorde. Round and round the fire . . .
......
Lifting heavy feet in clumsy shoes,
Earth feet, loam feet, lifted in country mirth. . . .
(East Coker, lines 1 ff.)
This is England seen from the banks of the Mississippi.
Carrol
Are we boring most of Pen-L? Is everyone interested in this discussion
also on lbo?
