\"T. S. Eliot\'s Spiritual Poetics\"

Fall 2015 XIANTHE 890 / ENG 890.03 Prof. Thomas Pfau

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.). After 1927, Eliot conceives his poetry and prose within a far more expansive, panEuropean 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 wideranging 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.

Required Books (please order at your local bookstore or from amazon.com) T. S. Eliot, The Collected Poems, 1909-1962 - required T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land (Norton Critical Edition) – required T. S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture – required Russell Kirk, Eliot and his Age – strongly recommended (to be read prior to the seminar) ® identifies readings posted under > Resources at sakai.duke.edu

SYLLABUS PART I – Modernism & Disenchantment SESSION 1 – 8/24 T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” – “Portrait of a Lady” – “Mr. Apollinax” – “La Figlia che Piange” (1917) SESSION 2 – 8/31 T. S. Eliot, “Gerontion” – “Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar” – “Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service” – “Sweeney among the Nightingales” (1920) Christopher Ricks, from T. S. Eliot and Prejudice, pp. 25-54 ® Anthony Julius, from T. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form, pp. 41-74 ® Barry Spurr, from Anglo-Catholic in Religion (Appendix), pp. 254-265 ® SESSION 3 – 9/7 T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land” (1922) and reviews (in Norton Critical ed.), 137-185. ------. “Modern Tendencies in Poetry” (1922) ® SESSION 4 – 9/14 T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” (continued) – “The Hollow Men” (1927) ------. “Baudelaire” (1930) ® Elisabeth Däumer, “The Enigma of ‘The Hollow Men’” ®

PART II – From Tradition to Orthodoxy SESSION 5 – 9/21 T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919) ® ------. “After Strange Gods” (1933) [read here: https://archive.org/stream/afterstrangegods00eliouoft#page/n5/mode/2up] Lawrence Rainey, “Eliot’s Poetics: Classicism and Histrionics” ® Sanford Schwartz, “Eliot’s Ghosts: Tradition and its Transformations” ® SESSION 6 – 9/28 T. S. Eliot, from The Use of Poetry & the Use of Criticism (1933), “Introduction” and “The Modern Mind” ------. “Dante” (1920) – “Dante” (1929) ® Dante Alighieri, from The Divine Comedy, “Inferno” (Cantos I-V) ® SESSION 7 – 10/5 T. S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday” (1930) ------. “Thoughts after Lambeth” (1931) ® ------. “The Pensées of Pascal” (1931) ® SESSION 8 – 10/19 T. S. Eliot, “Religion and Literature” (1935) ® ------. Murder in the Cathedral (1935) SESSION 9 – 10/26 T. S. Eliot, “The Idea of a Christian Society” (1939) ® ------. ON HUMANISM (Babbitt essay and “Further Thoughts on Humanism” (19??) ® PART III – T. S. Eliot’s many voices: Reading Four Quartets SESSION 10 – 11/2 T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton” (1936) Lee Oser, “Coming to terms with Four Quartets” ® Denis Donoghue, from Words Alone 251-270

SESSION 11 – 11/9 T. S. Eliot, “East Coker” (1940) Kevin J. H. Dettmar, “’An Occupation for the Saint: Eliot as a Religious Thinker” ® SESSION 12 - 11/16 T. S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages” (1941) SESSION 13 – 11/23 T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” (1942) Denis Donoghue, from Words Alone, 271 Julian of Norwich, from A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman (~ 1385) ®

Requirements: •

A research paper (approx.. 7,500-8,000 words), due by the beginning of Finals Week. Select Bibliography

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). Chinitz, David E. A Companion to T. S. Eliot (2014) 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) Eliot, T. S. The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot, 8 vols. (Project Muse) – NOTE: This is the first complete edition of Eliot’s prose. To date, two volumes (out of a total of eight) have been published. The embedded link (above) will take you to Duke Library’s subscription for this edition.

Gardner, Helen. The Art of T. S. Eliot (1950) Gordon, Lyndall. T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life. (1998) Hughes, Glenn. A More Beautiful Question: The Spiritual in Poetry and Art (2011) Julius, Anthony. T. S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism, and Literary Form (1995) Kenner, Hugh. The Invisible Poet: T. S. Eliot. (New York, 1969) Kirk, Russell. Eliot and his Age, 2nd rev. ed. (1984) Miller, James E., Jr. T. S. Eliot. The Making of an American Poet, 1888–1922 (2005) Raine, Craig. T. S. Eliot. (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 (2009)