Eliot's The Waste Land

[JBI]

I love most of Eliot's poetry, certainly his major works. He is definitely an elitist, but what difference does that make as to the quality of his work? None for me, and frankly i get a kick out Eliot's elitism.

It's interesting though, that as Elitist he may seem, he also almost always feels insignificant, and unworthy of the tradition and praise that he receives:

So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

From Four Quartets, East Coker V.

What does this gesture to then, if we read it as reflecting back on earlier works? There is no real Eliot in the Wasteland, and, even if we read him into the Grail Knight, or the timid man at the beginning of section two, or even the Hyacinth recieving man from section one, there is no real sense of his beloning or of being an elite - he seems utterly reduced and part of the desolation of The Wasteland - he, throughout his whole career was uncertain of everything - so, in a sense he was Elitist, given the tradition in which he belongs to and his own obsessions, but on the other hand - well it makes no difference anyway - he was no more Elitist than Tennyson or Keats or whomever else, it's just their images are far easier for us to understand, as we are more want to understand the metaphor of a nymph than we are of a promontory as in seen in Dry Salvages III for instance.

[Virgil]

It's interesting though, that as Elitist he may seem, he also almost always feels insignificant, and unworthy of the tradition and praise that he receives:

He does seem rather humble in his poems, doesn't he. Good point.

From Four Quartets, East Coker V.

What does this gesture to then, if we read it as reflecting back on earlier works?

I am agreeing with you. He is very humble in his poetry.

There is no real Eliot in the Wasteland, and, even if we read him into the Grail Knight, or the timid man at the beginning of section two, or even the Hyacinth recieving man from section one, there is no real sense of his beloning or of being an elite - he seems utterly reduced and part of the desolation of The Wasteland - he, throughout his whole career was uncertain of everything - so, in a sense he was Elitist, given the tradition in which he belongs to and his own obsessions, but on the other hand - well it makes no difference anyway - he was no more Elitist than Tennyson or Keats or whomever else, it's just their images are far easier for us to understand, as we are more want to understand the metaphor of a nymph than we are of a promontory as in seen in Dry Salvages III for instance.

I would say that Eliot is Tiresias in The Wastesland. If I recall correctly there is even a place where he says "I Tiresias..." I think his reputation as an elitist has to do more with his literary criticism. He is in the mold of Bloom as reverring a western cannon. Actually he tried to push out Milton from the cannon and he tried to ostracize DH Lawrence from the literary elite, considering him a primitive savage. Eliot really recoiled to Lawrence's open and honest sexuality.

[JBI]

True, there is that, but there is also the bringing over of Sanskrit and Indic texts into poetic language - as for his essays, oh certainly, but the context they are written in would imply as such - the bulk of them to me seem written as food-money than anything else. And he does bring Milton back into his Canon in East Coker as well, and reconsider him.

Still, he wrote great poetry - elitist or not it doesn't matter, the same way it doesn't particularly matter how Antisemitic Wagner was, or how radically bigoted Ezra Pound was - they are both still great artists, and thankfully, time has passed to the point where we can see them as artists, rather than as political speakers.

[stlukesguild]

JBI... I agree with Virgil that Eliot is an "elitist" as reverent of the canon as Bloom... yet this need need mean that he assumes an equal position for himself. Some artists... certainly Picasso, Wagner, ... and I suspect Dante, Virgil, Goethe are reverent of the canon... of the achievements of their predecessors and are equally certain of their own positions within that canon. Others may be just as innovative... and yet one doubts they ever really imagine that they themselves have equaled or even surpassed the achievement of those whom they revere. Was Van Gogh aware of his genius? Was Bach? Was Shakespeare?

[JBI]

JBI... I agree with Virgil that Eliot is an "elitist" as reverent of the canon as Bloom... yet this need need mean that he assumes an equal position for himself. Some artists... certainly Picasso, Wagner, ... and I suspect Dante, Virgil, Goethe are reverent of the canon... of the achievements of their predecessors and are equally certain of their own positions within that canon. Others may be just as innovative... and yet one doubts they ever really imagine that they themselves have equaled or even surpassed the achievement of those whom they revere. Was Van Gogh aware of his genius? Was Bach? Was Shakespeare?

Shakespeare would seem to think so - half his sonnets assume that they will be read forever at any rate.

[stlukesguild]

And yet while Shakespeare puts forth the effort to publish his "real" poetry, he doesn't give a second thought to his plays.

[JBI]

And yet while Shakespeare puts forth the effort to publish his "real" poetry, he doesn't give a second thought to his plays.

Oh, I suspect one can piece together traces of the same thing there - but even then - the Shakespeare voice seems more clouded in the plays than in the Sonnets - though the Sonnets arguably, like Sidney's Atrophil and Stella, assume a fictitious romantic plot.

The question of elitism though - well, I find it hard to think of any poet before 1950 as anything but elitist - then again, it is hard to think of any poet as "humble" in that the art of poetry seems elitist in itself. Art to me seems fundamentally elitist, in that the artist, as expression, must value their own work as to think it presentable to an audience.

[stlukesguild]

Certainly art is "elitist" to a great extent... and still is. There is a definite degree of ego involved in thinking that what one has to say through whatever artistic means is worthy of consideration. "Serious" artists also tend to think of an "elite" audience... not unlike themselves: an audience that is well read... educated... experienced. With a figure like Bach I imagine that he recognized his own mastery of his craft and professionalism... he was after all from a family of professional musicians. He must have had a certain degree of self-assuredness... but did he really fathom just how great his achievements were... especially as his work never achieved great acclaim... not even in his local parish...? Especially as the music he composed began to appear increasingly old-fashioned?

[Virgil]

True, there is that, but there is also the bringing over of Sanskrit and Indic texts into poetic language - as for his essays, oh certainly, but the context they are written in would imply as such - the bulk of them to me seem written as food-money than anything else. And he does bring Milton back into his Canon in East Coker as well, and reconsider him.

He does bring back Milton. I imagine Eliot in his later years feeling guilty over some of his exclusions. I don't really know that, just a feeling. I've never read an Eliot biography and so recently bought one and plan to read it in the coming months.

[kelby_lake]

And yet while Shakespeare puts forth the effort to publish his "real" poetry, he doesn't give a second thought to his plays.

The Shakespeare sonnets do have some sort of a narrative, so they may well be fictional. However a lot of them are about the same thing (he does repeat the fact that his words are immortal many times).

There are similarities in the plays- Taming of The Shrew is practically an earlier version of Much Ado.

[Petrarch's Love]

And yet while Shakespeare puts forth the effort to publish his "real" poetry, he doesn't give a second thought to his plays.

As an historical note, this difference in publication between the plays and the sonnets is relatively weak as evidence of Shakespeare's own personal estimation of either work. The decision to publish or not to publish has some pretty clear economic motives. Sonnets were more profitable the more they were circulated. Showing them to lots of important people and getting a reputation for yourself was a way to receive patronage. Publication could make you some money too if enough of the reading public liked them, and also would add to your potential circulation among potential patrons/flatter all those people who get dedication poems etc. in print.

Publishing plays, on the other hand, could lose more money than it would gain. In a copyright free age, publishing a play would mean that other theaters could steal it and make a profit off of it, thereby losing your theater money. Most theaters and playwrights in the period really don't want their plays published because that was putting the words out in the public domain, and enacting words was their business. It would be a little like Andrew Lloyd Weber posting the complete book and musical score to his newest musical on a security free website with no claim to copyright attached. That's one likely reason that there are so many variations between the published quartos of the plays: because some were probably compiled from the memories of actors who performed the roles and/or from surreptitious note takers/memorizers in the audience of performances. Naturally plays were published more legitimately when they had more or less run their course in the theatres and the author or theater managers thought they could make some additional money off of the publication, but the big money focus was the use of the script for performances, and the publication of a play wasn't really regarded as a big claim to fame or literary worth.

It wasn't until 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, that we get the combined ego and classicism of Ben Jonson and the publication of his (that is, Ben Jonson's) monumental first folio. Jonson was really quite an innovator in terms of the sorts of claims he made for the status of theatrical entertainments as "high" literature (of course, to get back to the economic side of things, he was also making a fair amount of money at court from Masques and other court dramatic entertainments rather than relying as heavily on public performances as Shakespeare apparently did). It's very hard to say whether, had he lived a few years longer, Shakespeare might have personally responded in kind with his own publication or might even have been planning to do so anyway, regardless of Jonson, since he had retired from the theatre and might be able to whip up a little modest retirement fame and fortune with such a publication. In any case, we all know that his friends did so in 1623, and if you've picked up a facsimile of Shakespeare's First Folio (or even the real thing) you'll see that economic concerns continued to motivate, both in the patronage dedication to the Earls of Pebroke and Montgomery, but in the address "To the great Variety of Readers" which begins:

"From the most able, to him that can but spell. There you are number'd. We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends upon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! It is now publique, & you wil stand for your priviledges wee know: to read and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and spare not. Judge your sixe-pen'orth, your shillings worth, your five shillings worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates and welcome. But, what ever you do, Buy. Censure will not drive a Trade or make the Jack go. And though you be a Magistrate of wit, and sit on the Stage at Black-Friers, or the ****-pit, to arraigne Playes dailie, know, these Playes haue had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, then any purchas'd Letters of commendation..."

It's a fascinating statement for thinking about the economic motives behind performance and publication, the shift toward addressing a slightly wider reading public rather than only an elite patron, and the shift from thinking of a play as something you go to hear and something you might like to read, clearly something they feel they may need to convince the potential literate buyer is a worthwhile enough activity to shell out the money for the volume.

[Virgil]

Which goes to show you how conscious Shakespeare was at making money. Those that advocate the poor suffering writer/artist free of societal influence as the means of great art can never explain why Shakespeare became enormously wealthy from his endeavors. And he didn't become wealthy by accident. He was conscious and pro-active in getting wealthy.

[stlukesguild]

I was certainly aware of the concerns for keeping the plays from being plagiarized and used by competing theaters, but was thinking more along the line of the fact that Shakespeare had made no known effort to publish his plays after his retirement as opposed to such efforts with his poems. Of course plays were not afforded the sort of respect that was held by poetry... perhaps not unlike the newer art forms of the last century such as film, photography, and television where some of the strongest work was irrevocably lost die to the lack of concern for its artistic merit... and many others have demanded extensive restoration work. Still... what I was thinking of was the fact that Shakespeare made no known efforts such as Jonson did to preserve the work and one wonders if he saw the work in a manner not unlike Bach or most pre-Renaissance artists as not really having some great lasting worth.

[stlukesguild]

Virgil, I doubt that any artist, outside of some starry-eyed romantic student, believes that the "starving artist" is some ideal to be sought after or a sure sign of artistic integrity. Certainly, one might question the integrity of the artist who makes a concerted effort to pander to a larger audience at the expense of the quality of the art, but I surely believe that even artists such as Van Gogh and William Blake were in no way adverse to making a living from their art. They were simply ill-equipped... or in the case of Van Gogh (and many others) did not live long enough to reach that audience which did recognize their merit. There is surely an audience for nearly anything. The challenge is to continue to create the best work possible while attempting to make a connection with that audience.

[Paulclem]

Certainly art is "elitist" to a great extent... and still is. There is a definite degree of ego involved in thinking that what one has to say through whatever artistic means is worthy of consideration. "Serious" artists also tend to think of an "elite" audience... not unlike themselves: an audience that is well read... educated... experienced. With a figure like Bach I imagine that he recognized his own mastery of his craft and professionalism... he was after all from a family of professional musicians. He must have had a certain degree of self-assuredness... but did he really fathom just how great his achievements were... especially as his work never achieved great acclaim... not even in his local parish...? Especially as the music he composed began to appear increasingly old-fashioned?

The elitist charge that we discussed a little in our 6th Form focused upon the requirement of the publisher - Faber - for more poetry to supplement The Waste Land, and Eliot's response in providing the notes. I didn't, and still don't find the notes helpful, and at the time - post WW1 - they did presume a very particular education. I suppose it was just a sign of the times, and as St Lukes has pointed out, a measure of his self image.