I Will Show You Fear In A Handful Of Dust

Remembering T S Eliot

This day, the 26th of September, in 1888, T S Eliot was born. Let us celebrate it with a few excerpts and comments: first, The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. This was the poem that launched him into the modernist poety movement. An excerpt:

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous —
Almost, at times, the Fool.

The crux of the poem – called Prufrock for short – lies in the reference to Prince Hamlet, the tragic hero of Shakespeare’s drama, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Shakespeare’s Hamlet has been interpreted by modern critics as a character who foreshadows modern man’s moral dilemmas (“To be or not to be…”) Here, Prufrock says he is not such an important character, but merely an attendant, or may be a Fool (the court jester).

The famous line: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoon” is also in this famous poem.

His most famous work, The Waste Land, details the journey of the human soul searching for redemption. The Waste Land is known not only for its probing subject matter but also its radical departure from traditional poetic style and structure incorporating historical and literary allusions as well as unconventional use of language. Some excerpts:

There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust

[The burial of the dead]

Evelyn Waugh took the expression Handful of Dust as the title of his novel, and quotes these lines in the epigram. Another excerpt from this classic poem:

When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth.
He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
[A Game of Chess]

And here is one of the few rhyming lines in Wasteland:

O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et, O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

[The Fire Sermon]

And a reference to ancient Indian texts:

Then spoke the thunder
D A
Datta*: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment's surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms

[What the Thunder Said]

T S Eliot’s mentor, Ezra Pound, was influenced by Chinese/Confucian philosophy. Pound called Eliot Old Possum, for reasons best know to the two of them.

*Datta: What have we given?
We, Indians, have given a lot to the world, not among the least of which is Naren Datta, aka Swami Vivekananda - see the other blog of the day.