I don’t even know where to begin when broaching a person/subject, such as Katherine Mansfield and her short stories. I did not realize she was such a woman of flux as she bounced from New Zealand, England, France, and Switzerland, in addition to bouncing from man to man to woman throughout her lifetime. I had researched her a little at the beginning of class as I believed she might be more liminal in nature (I quickly discovered that “flux” was certainly more appropriate). I also found it odd that her relationship with Ida Baker/Leslie Moore/L.M.) was not described in greater depth in any of our readings as she was coined as Mansfield’s “wife” in Hermione Lee’s article (382). Further, she seemed to know Baker from 1908 until 1923 based on information provided in the “kirjasto” biography on Mansfield. Another article contends, “‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’ is a gentle satire on Mansfield’s close friend, Ida Constance Baker, and on Ida’s moody and irascible father, a ‘dried up old stick’ who shot himself after World War I” (Meyers ix). Maybe I’m more interested in Mansfield’s complex and somewhat disreputable side of life as opposed to her short stories that portray threads of her life’s perspective?
Nevertheless, she certainly posited a lot of her life’s views into her work(s). Beginning my reading of Mansfield’s Prelude was appropriate as it placed its reader in her New Zealand homeland. It also exhibited another parallel as Linda, Lottie, and Kezia Burnell began their move from one place to another at the short story’s start—similar to Mansfield’s childhood. As the title suggests, this move leads the reader to a more significant and deeper meaning. As I read through this story, I felt that Linda and Kezia were very Mansfield-like. Linda’s relationship with Stanley seemed similar to the New Zealand writer’s relationship with men, possibly Garnet Trowel. One of her biographical accounts noted, “She returned to Garnet, travelled with his opera company, became pregnant…” and later gave birth to a “still born child” (New Zealand Book Council). Mansfield’s personal experience seemingly evolved into Linda’s horrific dream. She sees the “lovely kingfisher perched on the paddock fence” and, in the following paragraph, she “caught the tiny bird and stroked its head with her finger…. As she stroked it began to swell…it grew bigger and bigger and its round eyes seemed to smile knowingly at her” (Mansfield 89). The “loud” attractive male kingfisher presents the musically inclined Trowel, and the swelling “tiny ball of fluff” that “had become a baby with a big naked head” presented a glimpse of Mansfield's stillborn infant who never truly came to be. Linda Burnell is also viewed as a “delicate sensitive invalid” (Meyer viii). Mansfield, too, was an invalid—not simply because she had tuberculosis. She longed for security and stability in her life. “Mansfield’s marriage stories reflect[ed] her own fear of abandonment and betrayal, her self-destructive jealousy, and her guild about being an invalid” (Meyer xiii). As much as Mansfield delivered her adult perspective, she also presented a child’s view.
Hermione Lee comments about this story’s “funny child’s eye view, its tiny coloured details, [and] its fluid movements between banal realities and inner fantasy”(385). I mentioned earlier that Kezia held Mansfield-like characteristics. I say this as it directly relates to another vivid depiction of a duck’s graphic death. As Pat chops off the duck’s head, Kezia is horrified and wants to fix something that cannot be mended. She has been horrified for an instant, but moves on within minutes as she finds the servant’s earrings. Mansfield seems to reveal her nature’s essence—an event can change one forever and alter one’s view, but one will move on without a second thought. I could be completely off, but it certainly seems fitting for Mansfield. For me, thirty years of this author’s life is wrapped up in the few stories that we’ve read.
The “coloured details” and “fluid movements” that Lee points out are reminiscent of what appear in Woolf’s short stories. I find construction of Woolf’s and Mansfield’s stories to be very different. They bare similarity because they incorporate bursts of color, images of nature/gardens. Yet, their styles are very different. Woolf’s short stories flow, but only as the clips of memory connect somehow, and, at the same time, are deliberately fragmented—dashes and clips of repeated words and images seem to burst forth. It seems more progressive than Mansfield’s stories. Mansfield’s works were more traditional as they maintained a more cohesive thread. Her words thread together to present a scene, which has the ability to burst forth. I realize that Woolf was six years older than Mansfield, but I am a bit confused, however, regarding who influenced whom. Was it typical for women writers to use the images of the garden and specific flowers—or was it Woolf’s influence over Mansfield or vice versa?
Overall, I would say that I am intrigued by this author more than the others we have discussed in class. Stating this, however, I find a greater respect for Woolf and Eliot and their works. Moreover, Mansfield’s flux is far more interesting than Forster’s—at least from a biographical account.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Laboring Woolf
With all of Virginia Woolf’s short stories, I cannot help but question my mind’s eye. I question interpretation and who and/or what is real. How is one to impose order on perception? This, I believe, is some of Woolf’s intent as she delivers stream of consciousness within her short stories. For in her short stories, I have developed a flipbook of sorts, building a fuller picture as I read Woolf’s pieces, but it is not the kind that begins with a piece of an image on one page and builds little by little until I see one full picture of “sameness.” Instead, each page holds a different and unique picture that shifts quickly from one page to the next. Yet, they build upon one another to create a meaning—with color, repetition, reflection, rhythm, and perspective.
The reflections that seem to stare back at us in Virginia Woolf’s short stories, such as the “reflected apples” in “A Haunted House” and the incessant “rubb[ing] hard at a spot” in “An Unwritten Novel,” depict both a still life flash and an active clip of memory, respectively. Throughout the stories, there are flashes that are filled with dimension, color, shadow and light, as well as angled perspectives. The memory seems to go from scene to scene and, somehow, manages to tie it all together. There is a sense of unity, which, I feel, is different than what we receive from T.S. Eliot’s fragmented poetry.
As I mentioned last week: Eliot’s imagery and language lend themselves to a disjointed snapshot taken in the dark—as Prufrock has “seen them riding seaward on the waves” and the “wind blow[ing] the water white and black” (lines 126-8). Eliot’s poetry seems to connect through his disconnections with in both his poetry and his personal life. Similarly, Woolf’s stories are pieces or “things.” However, “one thing…open[s] out of another” (Kemp 72). One sensory action or image flows into the next. In “An Unwritten Novel,” we see one woman, “rubb[ing] as if she would rub something out forever…” (21) Then, we see another woman compelled to take up the same action as, “[s]omething impelled me to take my glove and rub my window…” (21). A third offspring created through this sequence is “…the spasm [that] went through me” (21). Not only are the actions somewhat transferring from one sentence to the next, but the actions of the “she” and “me” characters transfer from one to the other. There are other images that Woolf presents in her work that parallel the narrative structure.
“Woolf shared T.S. Eliot’s wish to present the boredom, the horror and the reality of the everyday world rather than to construct a fictional one” (Kemp 63). As I follow the snail and dragon fly in “Kew Gardens,” I cannot help but place these images against Eliot’s “ragged claws” in “Prufrock” to gain a greater grasp on narrative and/or poetic structure. As we discussed in class two weeks ago, the “ragged claws” image in Eliot’s poetry emphasizes his concept of fragmentation in his personal life and, thus, his poetry. In contrast, the snail seems to portray this deliberate and laborious creature as it “…began to labour over the crumbs of the loose earth” (41). It plans its slow and determined movement, as “[i]t appeared to have a definite goal in front of it” throughout the story (41). The dragonfly, on the other hand, “went round and round” in reference to the past (40). Woolf’s stream of consciousness narrative is deliberate, yet it is repetitive and cyclical. This could be applied to Woolf’s personal life, as well. From the little biography that I have read on Woolf, her interior and exterior worlds—her struggle (“horror and reality”) with mental illness and her struggle with living and writing in a predominantly male society—were taxing and recurring.
Woolf is equally as complex, in my opinion, as Eliot or any of her literary companions. She brought her own vision to the Modernist-Bloomsbury table, which provided (and continues to provide) a picture of her time; a time filled with her perspective of color and nature. On critiquing E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End, she asserted: “Mr. Forster is extremely susceptible to the influence of time. […] He is acutely conscious of the bicycle and of the motor-car; of the public school and of the university; of the suburb and of the city.” (Forster 392). It was not that Woolf did not see these changes and modern advances that surrounded her; she did. However, her sense of realism within her narrative needed to delve deeper into the realm of art. There seems to be a subtle divide between imagination and reality creating one large canvas out of several flashes of words, rhythms, colors, and objects and/or creatures that develop out of Woolf’s elaborate world.
The reflections that seem to stare back at us in Virginia Woolf’s short stories, such as the “reflected apples” in “A Haunted House” and the incessant “rubb[ing] hard at a spot” in “An Unwritten Novel,” depict both a still life flash and an active clip of memory, respectively. Throughout the stories, there are flashes that are filled with dimension, color, shadow and light, as well as angled perspectives. The memory seems to go from scene to scene and, somehow, manages to tie it all together. There is a sense of unity, which, I feel, is different than what we receive from T.S. Eliot’s fragmented poetry.
As I mentioned last week: Eliot’s imagery and language lend themselves to a disjointed snapshot taken in the dark—as Prufrock has “seen them riding seaward on the waves” and the “wind blow[ing] the water white and black” (lines 126-8). Eliot’s poetry seems to connect through his disconnections with in both his poetry and his personal life. Similarly, Woolf’s stories are pieces or “things.” However, “one thing…open[s] out of another” (Kemp 72). One sensory action or image flows into the next. In “An Unwritten Novel,” we see one woman, “rubb[ing] as if she would rub something out forever…” (21) Then, we see another woman compelled to take up the same action as, “[s]omething impelled me to take my glove and rub my window…” (21). A third offspring created through this sequence is “…the spasm [that] went through me” (21). Not only are the actions somewhat transferring from one sentence to the next, but the actions of the “she” and “me” characters transfer from one to the other. There are other images that Woolf presents in her work that parallel the narrative structure.
“Woolf shared T.S. Eliot’s wish to present the boredom, the horror and the reality of the everyday world rather than to construct a fictional one” (Kemp 63). As I follow the snail and dragon fly in “Kew Gardens,” I cannot help but place these images against Eliot’s “ragged claws” in “Prufrock” to gain a greater grasp on narrative and/or poetic structure. As we discussed in class two weeks ago, the “ragged claws” image in Eliot’s poetry emphasizes his concept of fragmentation in his personal life and, thus, his poetry. In contrast, the snail seems to portray this deliberate and laborious creature as it “…began to labour over the crumbs of the loose earth” (41). It plans its slow and determined movement, as “[i]t appeared to have a definite goal in front of it” throughout the story (41). The dragonfly, on the other hand, “went round and round” in reference to the past (40). Woolf’s stream of consciousness narrative is deliberate, yet it is repetitive and cyclical. This could be applied to Woolf’s personal life, as well. From the little biography that I have read on Woolf, her interior and exterior worlds—her struggle (“horror and reality”) with mental illness and her struggle with living and writing in a predominantly male society—were taxing and recurring.
Woolf is equally as complex, in my opinion, as Eliot or any of her literary companions. She brought her own vision to the Modernist-Bloomsbury table, which provided (and continues to provide) a picture of her time; a time filled with her perspective of color and nature. On critiquing E.M. Forster’s Howard’s End, she asserted: “Mr. Forster is extremely susceptible to the influence of time. […] He is acutely conscious of the bicycle and of the motor-car; of the public school and of the university; of the suburb and of the city.” (Forster 392). It was not that Woolf did not see these changes and modern advances that surrounded her; she did. However, her sense of realism within her narrative needed to delve deeper into the realm of art. There seems to be a subtle divide between imagination and reality creating one large canvas out of several flashes of words, rhythms, colors, and objects and/or creatures that develop out of Woolf’s elaborate world.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Reflections of Past and Present in Modernism's Arts
I will try to make what I’m about to say connect to our reading scope of Modernism and art in the second portion of this blog, but I would first like to explore a connection or parallel linking Eliot’s past in both literature and relationships to enhance my understanding of his prose. (I only regret not being able to make this connection for last week’s blog.)
Intrigued by T.S. Eliot’s futile love for Emily Hale and his portrayal of her in both “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “La Figlia che Piange,” I could not help but attempt to recall lines from Shakespeare, which seemed to convey a similar concept when considering Eliot’s poetic language and untouchable sea images. In the The Winter’s Tale, Florizel is speaking to Perdita when he states, "When you do dance, I wish you/A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do/Nothing but that; move still; still so,/And own no other function" (lines 140-3). These lines, certainly more youthful, romantic, and optimistic than Eliot’s conveyance in “Prufrock,” capture an image of a love that neither Shakespeare’s Florizel or Eliot’s Prufrock can obtain. Yet, the two are able to memorialize a moment that will encapsulate the women they love. "Eliot froze Emily Hale into art so that he could possess her in memory as one might possess a statue of poignant beauty" (Gordon 82). In this statement, Gordon makes sense out of Eliot's wave imagery (and with the help of Shakespeare's wave imagery, I am able to make sense of this). “I have seen them riding seaward on the waves” (126) refers to the intangible images of mermaids that Prufrock can never touch. Perhaps, these images convey the several images of Hale that Eliot kept safely locked in his memory. Both male characters "lock" their female love interests into nature's art with wave imagery; something that one can remember forever through his mind's eye but cannot obtain physically. I do realize that Eliot’s language is dismal compared to that of Shakespeare, but I believe the language lends itself to the stark contrast of emotion that the reader should feel when reading either piece. With Shakespeare’s imagery, we are to convey an infinite sense of beauty that is both hopeful and light-hearted as we receive a poetic portrait of an optimistic love—as Florizel “wish[es]” Perdita “A wave o’ the sea…” . Eliot’s imagery and language, however, lend themselves to a disjointed snapshot taken in the dark—as Prufrock has “seen them riding seaward on the waves” and the “wind blow[ing] the water white and black” (126-8). Through this contrast, I am able to connect “…the difference between the present and the past…” through Eliot’s language and images (Kermode 39).
A second and final link that I found interesting is the parallel of Shakespeare’s pastoral imagery set next to Eliot’s garden imagery (I won’t elaborate on this as I did above.). The female character in Shakespeare's tale is adorned in flowers just as Eliot places Hale with flowers. Lyndall Gordon stated that Hale, "...became the source for a series of garden encounters in Eliot's poetry, moments of romantic attraction to a woman" (81). We see a similar floral setting surrounding Perdita in The Winter’s Tale. It is interesting that Eliot possibly revisits a similar setting that portrays a love set in the artist’s nature and further sets them in his fragmented reality and language. Eliot’s artistic structure seemed not only to resonate a historical past but also seemed to coincide with other art forms taking place around the same time, such as Cubism.
The artist’s reality seemed to create the nature of his/her art. This statement has two perspectives as taken from our readings. The first angle drawn from Glen MacLeod’s, “The Visual Art,” is the notion of the past influencing the present but out of the present comes something entirely new. Picasso, inspired by his post-impressionistic predecessor Cezanne, created a new geometric form that would “invent a new kind of pictorial space,” which would not only inspire other painters but writers as well. “The cubist techniques of fragmentation, multiple perspectives, and juxtaposition are part of the standard modernist repertoire, from Eliot’s The Waste Land to Steven’s The Man with the Blue Guitar.” This said, however, there is a difference between the post-impressionist painters and poets in relation to criticism as we’ve been reading. Stated in Jane Goldman’s article, “Bell…implies that sentiment, allegory, political or social comment (all paradoxically, literary qualities), are of no interest to the artist either: form and design per se, without specific meaning, have priority” (132). Seemingly, emotion and impulse serve as a potential ruin to the order of artistic creation. Would it be correct to say that Bell’s critical essay, “The Artistic Problem” was to his art world what Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent” was to the literary world?
Oddly enough, and maybe I should not admit this, but I could never see an image or create a meaning through the artistic vein of Cubism until I had something to compare it with—until I had a knowledge of its past. I can now see houses on the hill in Picasso’s “Houses on the Hill.” Similarly, with Modernist poetry, I could not see a deeper image or create a full meaning when reading Eliot’s poetry—until I had a knowledge of its/his past. This relationship—the sense of past influencing the present seems complimentary to understanding. Also, seeing the evolution of these mediums when placed side by side (Picasso next to Cezanne or Shakespeare next to Eliot) provides a visual understanding and a knowledgeable comprehension that would cease to take place if one existed without the other. This is not to say that the piece is incapable of solely existing; I just don’t think it can exist as wholly.
I believe this concept of wholeness or “unity” can be applied when looking at the relationship of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, as both served as an inspiration to one another within their respective mediums. The sisters collaborated on their works; Bell would illustrate for Woolf, and Woolf would attempt to create meaning that could parallel Bell’s paintings. Woolf explained that she was “…going to write an account of [her] emotions towards one of [Bell’s] pictures…. Bell, too, drew considerable inspiration from her sister” (Goldman 149). They understood one another as artists, women, and sisters. They certainly had an understanding of one another’s pasts and existed together within their modernist present. All of their parts created their artistic whole.
Modernism’s visual art presented a fragmented view of its social awareness and political society (whether it intended to display social or political awareness or not) that was infused with new linear and spatial concepts that transpired from its predecessors. It evoked literary response in prose and poetry. It pieced together parts of its society to gather a whole conveying a new nature of perspective for both its viewers and artists.
Intrigued by T.S. Eliot’s futile love for Emily Hale and his portrayal of her in both “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “La Figlia che Piange,” I could not help but attempt to recall lines from Shakespeare, which seemed to convey a similar concept when considering Eliot’s poetic language and untouchable sea images. In the The Winter’s Tale, Florizel is speaking to Perdita when he states, "When you do dance, I wish you/A wave o' th' sea, that you might ever do/Nothing but that; move still; still so,/And own no other function" (lines 140-3). These lines, certainly more youthful, romantic, and optimistic than Eliot’s conveyance in “Prufrock,” capture an image of a love that neither Shakespeare’s Florizel or Eliot’s Prufrock can obtain. Yet, the two are able to memorialize a moment that will encapsulate the women they love. "Eliot froze Emily Hale into art so that he could possess her in memory as one might possess a statue of poignant beauty" (Gordon 82). In this statement, Gordon makes sense out of Eliot's wave imagery (and with the help of Shakespeare's wave imagery, I am able to make sense of this). “I have seen them riding seaward on the waves” (126) refers to the intangible images of mermaids that Prufrock can never touch. Perhaps, these images convey the several images of Hale that Eliot kept safely locked in his memory. Both male characters "lock" their female love interests into nature's art with wave imagery; something that one can remember forever through his mind's eye but cannot obtain physically. I do realize that Eliot’s language is dismal compared to that of Shakespeare, but I believe the language lends itself to the stark contrast of emotion that the reader should feel when reading either piece. With Shakespeare’s imagery, we are to convey an infinite sense of beauty that is both hopeful and light-hearted as we receive a poetic portrait of an optimistic love—as Florizel “wish[es]” Perdita “A wave o’ the sea…” . Eliot’s imagery and language, however, lend themselves to a disjointed snapshot taken in the dark—as Prufrock has “seen them riding seaward on the waves” and the “wind blow[ing] the water white and black” (126-8). Through this contrast, I am able to connect “…the difference between the present and the past…” through Eliot’s language and images (Kermode 39).
A second and final link that I found interesting is the parallel of Shakespeare’s pastoral imagery set next to Eliot’s garden imagery (I won’t elaborate on this as I did above.). The female character in Shakespeare's tale is adorned in flowers just as Eliot places Hale with flowers. Lyndall Gordon stated that Hale, "...became the source for a series of garden encounters in Eliot's poetry, moments of romantic attraction to a woman" (81). We see a similar floral setting surrounding Perdita in The Winter’s Tale. It is interesting that Eliot possibly revisits a similar setting that portrays a love set in the artist’s nature and further sets them in his fragmented reality and language. Eliot’s artistic structure seemed not only to resonate a historical past but also seemed to coincide with other art forms taking place around the same time, such as Cubism.
The artist’s reality seemed to create the nature of his/her art. This statement has two perspectives as taken from our readings. The first angle drawn from Glen MacLeod’s, “The Visual Art,” is the notion of the past influencing the present but out of the present comes something entirely new. Picasso, inspired by his post-impressionistic predecessor Cezanne, created a new geometric form that would “invent a new kind of pictorial space,” which would not only inspire other painters but writers as well. “The cubist techniques of fragmentation, multiple perspectives, and juxtaposition are part of the standard modernist repertoire, from Eliot’s The Waste Land to Steven’s The Man with the Blue Guitar.” This said, however, there is a difference between the post-impressionist painters and poets in relation to criticism as we’ve been reading. Stated in Jane Goldman’s article, “Bell…implies that sentiment, allegory, political or social comment (all paradoxically, literary qualities), are of no interest to the artist either: form and design per se, without specific meaning, have priority” (132). Seemingly, emotion and impulse serve as a potential ruin to the order of artistic creation. Would it be correct to say that Bell’s critical essay, “The Artistic Problem” was to his art world what Eliot’s “Tradition and the Individual Talent” was to the literary world?
Oddly enough, and maybe I should not admit this, but I could never see an image or create a meaning through the artistic vein of Cubism until I had something to compare it with—until I had a knowledge of its past. I can now see houses on the hill in Picasso’s “Houses on the Hill.” Similarly, with Modernist poetry, I could not see a deeper image or create a full meaning when reading Eliot’s poetry—until I had a knowledge of its/his past. This relationship—the sense of past influencing the present seems complimentary to understanding. Also, seeing the evolution of these mediums when placed side by side (Picasso next to Cezanne or Shakespeare next to Eliot) provides a visual understanding and a knowledgeable comprehension that would cease to take place if one existed without the other. This is not to say that the piece is incapable of solely existing; I just don’t think it can exist as wholly.
I believe this concept of wholeness or “unity” can be applied when looking at the relationship of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, as both served as an inspiration to one another within their respective mediums. The sisters collaborated on their works; Bell would illustrate for Woolf, and Woolf would attempt to create meaning that could parallel Bell’s paintings. Woolf explained that she was “…going to write an account of [her] emotions towards one of [Bell’s] pictures…. Bell, too, drew considerable inspiration from her sister” (Goldman 149). They understood one another as artists, women, and sisters. They certainly had an understanding of one another’s pasts and existed together within their modernist present. All of their parts created their artistic whole.
Modernism’s visual art presented a fragmented view of its social awareness and political society (whether it intended to display social or political awareness or not) that was infused with new linear and spatial concepts that transpired from its predecessors. It evoked literary response in prose and poetry. It pieced together parts of its society to gather a whole conveying a new nature of perspective for both its viewers and artists.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Caution: Projections of Eliot's Earlier Poetry
As I laboriously plow through Eliot’s prose, poetry, and biography, I find common images and themes which seemingly connect.
When I began reading Eliot’s earlier poetry, I began with the first in his Collected Poems 1909-1962. I further began with the title, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, before looking at the lines of what I knew would be a taxing craft to remotely uncover and vaguely comprehend. (Unfortunately, I can’t seem to unleash myself from attaching definitions, as well as the definitions of others regarding Eliot in order to better understand him and his works.) Admittedly, I found myself reading through Wikipedia’s general breakdown of this particular piece and came to an answer that I thought Eliot-like in relation to his title (which he claims not to have any “recollection” of how it came to be). “It has been suggested that Prufrock comes from the German word ‘Prüfstein’ meaning ‘touchstone’ (Wikipedia). Is it possible that this title is indicative of a type of litmus test for the poem or the man in the poem as it pertains to the Eliot guidelines of criticism and/or poet?
Certainly, Eliot’s poem aids in defining his prose on Tradition and the Individual Talent. Prior to the start of Eliot’s four/five poems, there is an introduction from a Classic predecessor. In ‘Prufrock,’ he introduces his poem with an excerpt from Dante’s Inferno. Eliot begins with a keen awareness of the past as he specifies to every poet: “The historical sense involves a perception of the past, but involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; (Kermode 38). Through several of the readings, I recall (and I apologize for not finding something more concrete to support this) Dante’s works playing an integral part in Eliot’s work. This serves as Eliot’s perception of past but as it serves to create a new present or presence through Eliot’s poetry. This particular poem stands out from the rest as it fuses the old with Eliot’s present to create something altogether new with respect to the form of this poem--as he uses a variation of measured rhyming schemes and free verse. However, the images in this poem, for me, painted a more modern picture at times.
I couldn’t shake the images of “yellow smoke” and “yellow fog” that shaped itself into feline or canine form as it “…rubs its back upon the window panes” and again “…rubs its muzzle on the window panes” (15-16). Finally, it “Curled once about the house, and fell asleep” (22). I thought these images of smoke and fog “rub[bing]” so softly on a “house” could convey the encroachment of modern society on Eliot’s traditional society—much as we saw in Howard’s End with the rust rooftops that seemed to grow closer and closer to England’s traditional countryside. There are other images and possible themes that I could not seem to discard, such as age and time, but I didn’t fixate (as I probably should have) on these as much as I did the women in the poems.
I switched gears, readily, when I received a directive email to read the poems chronologically and invest some time in Ronald Bush’s biographical account of Eliot. I also referred to Lyndall Gordon’s book on Eliot’s life and works. It is in Gordon’s book, however, that I found that Eliot painted two women, Emily Hale and Adeleine Moffat into his poems (at least in his earliest two works, Le Figlia che Piange and Portrait of a Lady. “Eliot places women in sentimental situations.... He imagines in these poems a twittering, self-absorbed woman yearning to engulf a man in emotional claims, and assures us that female readers drip tears of gratification at such scenes.” (Gordon 38). His perspective of women is said to stem from his father’s negative attitude of them. Also, we spoke in class of his unfortunate medical condition that prohibited sexual relations with his first wife and, more than likely, several prior to her. Possibly, this poet’s romantic notions toward Hale fused with frustration when he bore Le Figlia che Piange. It is posed that Emily Hale serves as, “…the source for a series of garden encounters in Eliot’s poetry, moments of romantic attraction to a woman” (Gordon 81). This earlier work proves as no exception.
The poet presents her beautifully in the third line as she, “Weave[s], weave[s] the sunlight in [her] hair.” In contrast, we see her “…with a pained surprise—“ in the next line and “…fling[ing] her flowers to the ground in lines four and five. The next stanza switches from the original present to past tense and places a masculine figure in the poem. I cannot help but think that the female figure, Hale, dies and is memorialized in the poet’s imagination as a result of the past tense in the second stanza, the proceeding lines, and Eliot’s personal plight. In the first line of the third stanza, we see her “…turn away, but with the autumn weather.” Eliot uses the fall season to signify life’s past tense for this figure. Yet, the image of this woman forces itself into the poet’s “imagination.” Similarly, “Eliot froze Emily Hale into art so that he could possess her in memory as one might possess a statue of poignant beauty” (Gordon 82). These beautiful images convey such a sense of suffering—just as I’m sure beautiful images presented internal suffering for Eliot.
Placing this particular piece against Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock seemed to convey a sense of growth for the poet. He incorporated women into his evolved work but only as it related to the larger scope of Eliot’s more evolved intellectual world. The poem’s format was more complex as were the images and themes the author intended to evoke.
Although I don’t think I will ever wholly identify with Eliot, I believe I am developing a better sense of understanding him and his works through his biographies. How is it possible to truly understand Eliot’s work without a similar literary knowledge? He was a vastly educated man. My “apt” and literal question mark remains. I am sure it projects forth in this post.
When I began reading Eliot’s earlier poetry, I began with the first in his Collected Poems 1909-1962. I further began with the title, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, before looking at the lines of what I knew would be a taxing craft to remotely uncover and vaguely comprehend. (Unfortunately, I can’t seem to unleash myself from attaching definitions, as well as the definitions of others regarding Eliot in order to better understand him and his works.) Admittedly, I found myself reading through Wikipedia’s general breakdown of this particular piece and came to an answer that I thought Eliot-like in relation to his title (which he claims not to have any “recollection” of how it came to be). “It has been suggested that Prufrock comes from the German word ‘Prüfstein’ meaning ‘touchstone’ (Wikipedia). Is it possible that this title is indicative of a type of litmus test for the poem or the man in the poem as it pertains to the Eliot guidelines of criticism and/or poet?
Certainly, Eliot’s poem aids in defining his prose on Tradition and the Individual Talent. Prior to the start of Eliot’s four/five poems, there is an introduction from a Classic predecessor. In ‘Prufrock,’ he introduces his poem with an excerpt from Dante’s Inferno. Eliot begins with a keen awareness of the past as he specifies to every poet: “The historical sense involves a perception of the past, but involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; (Kermode 38). Through several of the readings, I recall (and I apologize for not finding something more concrete to support this) Dante’s works playing an integral part in Eliot’s work. This serves as Eliot’s perception of past but as it serves to create a new present or presence through Eliot’s poetry. This particular poem stands out from the rest as it fuses the old with Eliot’s present to create something altogether new with respect to the form of this poem--as he uses a variation of measured rhyming schemes and free verse. However, the images in this poem, for me, painted a more modern picture at times.
I couldn’t shake the images of “yellow smoke” and “yellow fog” that shaped itself into feline or canine form as it “…rubs its back upon the window panes” and again “…rubs its muzzle on the window panes” (15-16). Finally, it “Curled once about the house, and fell asleep” (22). I thought these images of smoke and fog “rub[bing]” so softly on a “house” could convey the encroachment of modern society on Eliot’s traditional society—much as we saw in Howard’s End with the rust rooftops that seemed to grow closer and closer to England’s traditional countryside. There are other images and possible themes that I could not seem to discard, such as age and time, but I didn’t fixate (as I probably should have) on these as much as I did the women in the poems.
I switched gears, readily, when I received a directive email to read the poems chronologically and invest some time in Ronald Bush’s biographical account of Eliot. I also referred to Lyndall Gordon’s book on Eliot’s life and works. It is in Gordon’s book, however, that I found that Eliot painted two women, Emily Hale and Adeleine Moffat into his poems (at least in his earliest two works, Le Figlia che Piange and Portrait of a Lady. “Eliot places women in sentimental situations.... He imagines in these poems a twittering, self-absorbed woman yearning to engulf a man in emotional claims, and assures us that female readers drip tears of gratification at such scenes.” (Gordon 38). His perspective of women is said to stem from his father’s negative attitude of them. Also, we spoke in class of his unfortunate medical condition that prohibited sexual relations with his first wife and, more than likely, several prior to her. Possibly, this poet’s romantic notions toward Hale fused with frustration when he bore Le Figlia che Piange. It is posed that Emily Hale serves as, “…the source for a series of garden encounters in Eliot’s poetry, moments of romantic attraction to a woman” (Gordon 81). This earlier work proves as no exception.
The poet presents her beautifully in the third line as she, “Weave[s], weave[s] the sunlight in [her] hair.” In contrast, we see her “…with a pained surprise—“ in the next line and “…fling[ing] her flowers to the ground in lines four and five. The next stanza switches from the original present to past tense and places a masculine figure in the poem. I cannot help but think that the female figure, Hale, dies and is memorialized in the poet’s imagination as a result of the past tense in the second stanza, the proceeding lines, and Eliot’s personal plight. In the first line of the third stanza, we see her “…turn away, but with the autumn weather.” Eliot uses the fall season to signify life’s past tense for this figure. Yet, the image of this woman forces itself into the poet’s “imagination.” Similarly, “Eliot froze Emily Hale into art so that he could possess her in memory as one might possess a statue of poignant beauty” (Gordon 82). These beautiful images convey such a sense of suffering—just as I’m sure beautiful images presented internal suffering for Eliot.
Placing this particular piece against Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock seemed to convey a sense of growth for the poet. He incorporated women into his evolved work but only as it related to the larger scope of Eliot’s more evolved intellectual world. The poem’s format was more complex as were the images and themes the author intended to evoke.
Although I don’t think I will ever wholly identify with Eliot, I believe I am developing a better sense of understanding him and his works through his biographies. How is it possible to truly understand Eliot’s work without a similar literary knowledge? He was a vastly educated man. My “apt” and literal question mark remains. I am sure it projects forth in this post.
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