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T.S. Eliot<br />

369<br />

understand his poetry. In his essay The Use of Poetry and the Use of<br />

Criticism (1933), he sees this as ‘the feeling for syllable and rhythm,<br />

penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling . . .<br />

returning to the origin and bringing something back, seeking the<br />

beginning and the end’. Bringing together ‘the old and obliterated<br />

and the trite’ with ‘the current and the new and surprising’ was Eliot’s<br />

poetic intention, and in many ways his achievement.<br />

Eliot saw himself as English and the traditions he was working in<br />

as European rather than American, although he was born in Missouri.<br />

He was considerably influenced by French contemporaries such as<br />

Henri Alain-Fournier (author of the novel Le Grand Meaulnes) and by<br />

the critic and philosopher Henri Bergson; earlier figures such as Jules<br />

Laforgue and Charles Baudelaire helped to shape his Modernism, with<br />

its particular intensity and urban imagery. Historically, Dante was a<br />

life-long inspiration and influence.<br />

Difficulties are created by Eliot’s frequent allusions to other literatures,<br />

languages, and cultures. Many of these references are difficult to follow,<br />

require a specialised knowledge, or are simply highly personal to Eliot’s<br />

own individual reading. The Waste Land contains end notes which<br />

Eliot, perhaps not without some irony, supplies himself and which<br />

explain some of the more cryptic references. For example, in the lines:<br />

Son of Man<br />

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only<br />

A heap of broken images . . .<br />

(The Burial of the Dead, from The Waste Land)<br />

the allusion to ‘Son of Man’ is taken from the Bible (the Book of<br />

Ezekiel) and refers to God who addresses Ezekiel direct. In Eliot’s<br />

poem, communication between God and man is at best indirect, if it<br />

takes place at all. The ‘broken images’ are also the false idols of Israel,<br />

which God has destroyed. In the modern world the false and broken<br />

images are all that remain. Eliot achieves an ironic contrast by<br />

highlighting differences between ancient and modern worlds. One<br />

possible result of this poetic method is obscurity but it is an important<br />

part of Eliot’s overall purpose, as he explains himself:<br />

Any obscurity in the poem, on first readings, is due to the

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