Time And Timeless Time

By looking through a critical lens at T Stearns Eliot’s poetry in light of his 20th century, modernist context, much is revealed about his personal and the rapidly evolving societal beliefs of that era. Through his repeating motif of time and fragmentation throughout his poems, Eliot reveals the prevalent feelings of isolation while in society along with the need to hide one’s feelings and emotions in this degrading society. His exploration of the use of ambiguity and stream of consciousness by Eliot, which is a characteristic of modernist artists, allows his work to resound over decades while being interpreted and differently understood by every audience that encounters them.

American born poet, T.S. Eliot reflects modernistic ideas of isolation, individual perception and human consciousness in his many poems. His poems express the disillusionment of the post–World War I generation with both literary and social values and traditions. In one of Eliot’s most famous poems, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which was published in 1915, a speaker who is very unhappy with his life takes readers on a journey through the hell he is living in. In this journey, Prufrock criticizes the well-dressed, upstanding citizens who love their material pleasures more than they love other people, while explaining he feels ostracized from the society of women. Eliot’s use of isolation, human consciousness and individual perception is quite evident in his dramatic monologue within the story of J. Alfred Prufrock. Prufrock wants to be seen as a normal citizen who can find friends or a lover, but his anxiety-driven isolation forces him to live a life that relates more to Hell than paradise. In over examining every fine detail of his life, Prufrock perceives himself as useless and even a waste of life. By using many poetic devices including repetition, personification, and imagery Eliot drives readers to feel the painful reality of Prufrock’s life. In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S Eliot uses modernistic ideas and poetic devices to portray how Prufrock’s life relates to Hell while simultaneously criticizing social aspects of the younger post–World War I generation.

Poetry can sometimes allow one to explore the unknown. However, in some works of poetry, one can realise that some known ideas or values remain relevant to current society. This is certainly applicable to T.S. Eliot’s poems, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Eliot’s manipulation of poetic techniques in both these poems allows the responder to realise that some ideas prevail in both modern and post-modern society. These poems explore the unknown phenomena of the obscurity regarding the purpose and meaning of life. This unknown phenomena causes the persona in both texts to resort to a sense of isolation or alienation. Eliot uses poetic techniques such as metaphors and personification to convey his ideas.

“Too much self-centered attitude, you see, brings, you see, isolation. Result: loneliness, fear, anger. The extreme self-centered attitude is the source of suffering” (“Dalai Lama Quotes”). T.S Eliot lived during the times of World War 1, which inspired Eliot to relate his poems to the life of disappointed European citizens after the war. He included thoughts about the social and political views of Europeans during this big time in world history, which comes during the Victorian Era. The poems “Preludes” and “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” by T.S. Eliot uses figurative language, such as metaphor and imagery to convey how solitude affects human behavior.

T.S Eliot’s poem, “The winter evening settles down” is a short, simple to read poem with several different examples of imagery. Eliot uses descriptive words, for instance, “withered leaves”, “broken blinds”, and “lonely cab-horse” (lines 7-10). He paints an extremely bleak image of a town that seems to be deserted of people. The tone of the poem plays hand-in-hand with the imagery used. This town is an unpleasant place where it has seemed to be neglected for some years now. Eliot’s use of imagery takes the reader to this deserted, torpid place; however, at the same time, his goal is to bring the life back into this grim town.

            I think this style of writing is also a reflection of Eliot's feelings about the time.  Eliot was more of a Modernist than Victorian poet and as such held to beliefs like: there is no higher power in the universe, man is alone on this planet to govern his own affairs, everyone is truly alone, there is no unity, no support, for we live in a godless heartless world (Stacey Donohue).  The floating, confusing, jumbled mix of emotions and directions in this poem mirrors the modernist image of society.

Eliot is not solely criticising modern life in the poem, it also serves as a reflection of Eliot’s social context and his own life, a product of its time.

Interestingly, analysts take extremes when relating to the focus on Eliot’s poetic style—that is, they either put great emphasis on it or ignore it almost entirely. This is likely due to the poetic style greatly enhancing the tone and feeling of the poem, but not effecting its particular meaning bar some choice scenarios. One such scenario is at the beginning of the fifth section; the first stanza here reflects a nursery rhyme, giving a “sing-song effect” that Cahill relates to implying the uselessness of “mental happiness” in life (60), while analyst Robert Crawford points to similar “childish” undertones as a reflection of the theme of “degrad[ing]... essential ritual[s]” (Crawford). Crawford continues by noting that the ending stanza of the poem,due to its “typography, placing, and… its rhythm”, seems to reference this nursery rhyme, giving it the feeling of “chant” that is “universal” (Crawford). Notably, this feeling is only possible due to Eliot’s careful use of regular, song-like rhythm.

The poetry of T.S Elliot portrays the nature of human conditions through the use of experiences such as alienation and how this leads to spiritual vacancy and paralysis which allow his poems to retain an enduring value. In Both the ‘The Love song of J.Alfred Prufrock’ (Prufrock, 1915) and Prelude (1917), poetic language convey the loneliness of humankind in a physical and moral way. Through a study of Eliot’s poetic forms, features and critical reception, we can better understand the message portrayed.

   Thomas Stearns Eliot was not a revolutionary, yet he revolutionized the way the Western world writes and reads poetry. Some of his works were as imagist and incomprehensible as could be most of it in free verse, yet his concentration was always on the meaning of his language, and the lessons he wished to teach with them. Eliot consorted with modernist literary iconoclast Ezra Pound but was obsessed with the traditional works of Shakespeare and Dante. He was a man of his time yet was obsessed with the past. He was born in the United States, but later became a royal subject in England. In short, Eliot is as complete and total a

Beyond the poetry he wrote, Eliot drove the world to modernist views through essays and other means of literature. Containing stories, news, and opinions of both T.S. Eliot and others who wrote about him, The Letters of T.S. Eliot offer an inside perspective on Eliot’s life (Eliot and Haffenden). In Volume 1 of the revised edition of the letters Patrick Query describes how T.S. Eliot felt so much passion for culture and how it must improve (Letters, Volume 1). In the volume, the writer states Eliot started a movement to modernize literature all on his own. Eliot contained such a strong passion for making the world a better place, that as society generally acted apathetically towards life, Eliot strived for a culture where people actually inserted energy and passion into life (Poetry Foundation). Also, in John Worthen’s biography of T.S. Eliot, the author believes Eliot focused the entire masterpiece of Four Quartets on illustrating to his audience despite painful times in life, people must focus more on the beauty of life (Worthen). After addressing the aspects of society he believed needed to improve, Eliot wrote several poems on each topic which showed the beauty of his opinion and a more joyful culture. The Waste Land helps describe how to improve the war stricken world, and other poems such as Four Quartets and The Sacred Wood deal with other cultural characteristics Eliot strived to improve. Devoting much of his literature career to impacting

The end of The Hollow Men can only be the beginning of a deep and long reflection for thoughtful readers. T.S. Eliot, who always believed that in his end is his beginning, died and left his verse full of hidden messages to be understood, and codes to be deciphered. It is this complexity, which is at the heart of modernism as a literary movement, that makes of Eliot’s poetry very typically modernist. As Ezra Pound once famously stated, Eliot truly did “modernize himself”. Although his poetry was subject to important transformations over the course of his

In part one 'The Burial of the dead', Eliot opens with a scene of isolation and desolation. 'April is the cruellest month…'which is an inversion of what spring represents, this being new life and hope. It is seen here as cruel because, for Marie, it stirs memories, which are no longer there and have led nowhere. He follows this image of isolation with an image of togetherness, 'Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow…' She recalls being free in the mountains, but freedom involves taking risks and she hesitates and goes 'south in the winter'. Marie's memories portray the shallowness of the aristocracy and in many ways we are reminded of the ladies in Prufrock who 'come and go talking of Michael Angelo'. There talking leads nowhere and so by implication their lives are meaningless and dead, as dead as the wasteland.

Eliot’s use of symbolism can be very disorienting. It has been proposed that this choppy medley is actually furthering his point by representing the “ruins” of a culture. An article

Eliot implies here that there are some who will quite simply miss the entire point of literature. The distinction seems slight, however it creates a very different notion of the author. It also raises unanswered questions about what the basic purpose of literature is if it is meant to be so inaccessible.