Transcription
[Music] Hello everyone. Welcome to the second video on T.S. Eliot. Hey, did you watch the video on *The Waste Land* that I made? I had given a brief overview. I hope you liked it. Now we are going to talk about the later works of Eliot. Eliot was a poet, critic, and playwright, as you might know.
After *The Waste Land*, he wrote a group of poems. Remember *The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock*, then *The Waste Land*, *Gerontion*. These three we already talked about. One more is there, *The Hollow Men*. It is actually a very interesting poem to read; short also. You should read it. Okay, it came in 1925. *The Hollow Men* is about hollowness, or incompleteness, or emptiness. There are two epigraphs, both representing hollowness. One is from *Heart of Darkness*: "Mr. Kurtz—he dead." The other refers to Guy Fawkes Day, which is the chant that people—children—chant; the chant that children make when they go from house to house collecting money: "A penny for the old guy." "Old guy" is, uh, the Guy Fawkes effigy. Guy Fawkes is just a straw person you make, you know, like a scarecrow, and it is also a hollow man. So, *The Hollow Men* is a poem about hollowness or meaninglessness. *The Hollow Men* is an objective correlative for the hollowness or meaninglessness of modern society.
Then there is *Journey of the Magi*. This poem came in the year Eliot converted to Anglicanism. It was a period of spiritual crisis for Eliot also, and this poem, in three parts, describes the desert journey of the three kings to meet, um, Christ. In the journey, the three kings—the Magi—they undergo a lot of troubles, and after they see Christ, life is never the same again. When they go back, they are confused about their own existence; they are not sure whether they belong to their life or not. After seeing Christ, life is not the same again. That is the spiritual ambiguity that you see in the poem. *Journey of the Magi*, 1927. The same year came a poem that is called Eliot's conversion poem. Can you tell me the name of that poem? Which poem is called Eliot's conversion poem? It is *Ash Wednesday*. *Ash Wednesday*. *Ash Wednesday*. Uh, is related to Dante's *Purgatorio*, or Purgatory. Here also you see religious themes and themes of, you know, unbelonging, penitence, uh, guilt, and also, at the end, some hope. So, *Ash Wednesday* is a very deep and, um, complex poem.
Then, in the 1940s, much later, came his *Four Quartets*, which are perhaps his most religious poems. There—there are four poems: *Burnt Norton*, *East Coker*, *The Dry Salvages*, and *Little Gidding*. Four, uh, poems; very religious poems that are, uh, together called *Four Quartets*. Now, at this time, Eliot also was writing criticism, as you might know. Eliot is a classicist and modernist both. He upheld the concept of tradition. His *Tradition and the Individual Talent* talks about tradition as a very dynamic concept where not only does the past direct and guide the present, the present also alters the past. And also, Eliot talks about his impersonality theory. Impersonality theory means a poet should not let loose his emotion, but he should escape from emotion. Poetry should not be letting loose of personality; it should be an escape from personality. Very important essays of Eliot's critical essays include *The English Metaphysical Poets*, or *Metaphysical Poets*, where he talks about the unification of sensibility. In the period after the metaphysical poets, there was a dissociation of sensibility, a disconnection between heart and brain, or between thought and feeling, and this disconnection is the, uh, is manifested as fragmentation in modernism. Eliot is trying to solve the malady of fragmentation in modernism by suggesting a return to the unification of sensibility of the metaphysical poets. And then he wrote *Hamlet and His Problems*, as you might know. This is where he says *Hamlet* is an artistic failure. Oh my god! *Hamlet* is the most important play in English literature, and he's an iconoclastic critic. He's saying *Hamlet* is a failure. Why? Because *Hamlet* does not condense emotion into an objective correlative. *Hamlet* does not, uh, express emotion quickly with an objective correlative or metaphor. Instead, *Hamlet* uses too many words—you know, soliloquies, dialogue—so much of expression; too much expression rather than condensation. That is the meaning of *Hamlet* being an artistic failure, Eliot says that. In poetry, emotion should be expressed not in words but through objective correlatives.
Now, there are many other essays that Eliot has written—*The Function of Criticism*, for example—and his most important collection of essays is *The Sacred Wood*. And in Eliot's criticism, you see an expression of his classicism, his influence of symbolism; he brings new critical ideas of tradition and form. These are all very defining features of Eliot's criticism. Now, Eliot's prose—before we go on to talk about his poetic drama, let us talk about his prose. Other than criticism, he has written about culture a lot, about religion. There are important books like *The Idea of a Christian Society*, *Notes Towards the Definition of Culture*. That is very important. Listen to me, guys. These days, uh, in NET set and other exams, they ask questions from major books of course, but they also, uh, find out whether you know about not so famous works; whether you have read on your own about, um, Eliot's biography and his works; whether you have understood the meaning of books. You know, they ask questions like that. Once you read and you understand the basic thing in—in a book, then it is not so difficult. So, when you read about Eliot, make sure you pay attention to the minor works. You should read the poems and major works in original. You should try to understand what is the major idea here. That is very, very important. Okay. *Notes Towards the Definition of Culture* is Eliot's essay about high culture. Eliot upheld the values of high culture, similar to Matthew Arnold and F.R. Leavis. High culture is elite culture; the culture of the educated people, against which, in cultural studies, you see an importance given to everyday culture and popular culture. Eliot—and before that, Matthew Arnold—were afraid, kind of, that popular culture will contaminate elite culture. You see such a contamination in *The Waste Land* and other works: how ordinary people, cheap people, low—low-class people, uh, their meaningless experiences—so-called meaningless experiences—are juxtaposed with, uh, mythical characters, etc.; how the typist in *The Waste Land*, or Lil, who has no teeth and her husband is going to, um, you know, desert her; he's going to leave her. Such characters are juxtaposed with mythical characters, great characters, to show how popular culture is corrupting and corrupted. So this is a very important idea. This elitist perception is a very important idea in Eliot, which is controversial. Later modernists like W.H. Auden, our movement boys like Philip Larkin, etc., greatly, uh, contested this elitism of Eliot. They did not subscribe to that elitist modernist perspective. Eliot has also written on poetry and poets, to criticize the critic, etc. So many important prose works are there. It would be great if you do your own reading and research also, based on that.
Now let me come to a very important area of Eliot's writing: poetic drama. Poetic drama is an attempt to revive poetic drama from the earlier period. I have made another video on poetic drama; please watch that also. In poetic drama, there is a bringing together of tradition and modernity. And poetic drama existed in the time of Byron. Byron wrote poetic drama; Robert Browning wrote; Tennyson wrote. In the time of Eliot also, people were like—W.B. Yeats wrote; Christopher Fry, etc. So poetic drama is, uh, in the hands of Eliot, a modernist device of blurring distinction between genres. And Eliot has written many poetic plays, starting from *Sweeney Agonistes*, *The Rock*, etcetera. *The Rock* is a pageant play. *Sweeney Agonistes* is subtitled "An Aristophanic Fragment." And then came his—These are all in the 1930s. Then came his most important play, *Murder in the Cathedral*, 1935. *Murder in the Cathedral* is about the murder of Saint Thomas Becket in 11—1170, and it is a fight between the king, or politics, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, or religion. Saint Thomas Becket chooses martyrdom; that is a temptation in the play, *Murder in the Cathedral*. *Murder in the Cathedral*, um, talks about the fragmentation of the modern man metaphorically. Uh, Becket is trying to hold on to his religion, but he does the mistake of choosing the temptation of martyrdom. He wants to be a martyr for religion, and four knights murder him. This fragmentation of modern man, uh, that is suggested in *Murder in the Cathedral*, which is a 1935 play, is also there in the later plays of the 1950s. 1939 came *Family Reunion*, and much later, in the 50s, came the other poetic plays such as *The Cocktail Party*, *The Confidential Clerk*, *The Elder Statesman*. So this condition of the modern man, which was a theme in *The Waste Land*, is a theme in the poetic plays, and all represented—that is represented by the objective correlative. *Sweeney Agonistes*, remember *Sweeney* is a play that I told you about, and the character Sweeney is an ape-like man, a working-class buffoon, more or less like a Leopold Bloom in *Ulysses*, I would say. So he is a representation of the modern man. Uh, this character Sweeney appears as a modern man in other works also. *Sweeney Among the Nightingales* is a poem that Eliot wrote. Then there are a few other poems, including *The Waste Land*, where Sweeney appears.
So let me tell you a little more about *Murder in the Cathedral*. Uh, the play is set on three days, actually. The play starts on the 2nd of December. Then there is the 25th of December, and then there is the 29th of December. On the 2nd of December, the setting is there. The chorus plays a very major role in this play. We know about the king's disagreement with the archbishop, and from the chorus we also know that the archbishop is going to have some unpleasant experience; something bad is going to happen. Then, on the 25th of December, which is Christmas Day, there is a sermon—that is, a Christmas sermon—and on the 29th, four, uh, knights are coming and murdering the archbishop. Before that, there are four tempters who are tempting. The first tempter is offering Thomas the glory of his past friendship with the king. The second tempter is offering him political power. The third tempter is giving—is tempting him with freedom, and the fourth tempter with martyrdom. And the four knights who are killing him are Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Bret. These are the four knights. So this is a play that intensely shows, uh, martyrdom as a theme. Love of God? Is it love of God, or is it love of martyrdom? You know, it is a little corrupted there, and life is also filled with temptations like this. Eliot shows that Thomas Becket is, after all, human.
Now, uh, the other four plays of Eliot—*Family Reunion*, *Cocktail Party*, *Confidential Clerk*, and *Elder Statesman*—they're all about upper-class characters and some secrets in their life; how they come to terms with it. This is similar to the plays of Oscar Wilde, in a way. *Family Reunion* is a modern variation of the Orestes story. Harry is an amalgam of Orestes and Hamlet. The protagonist, Harry, Lord Monchensey, he is thinking that he has killed his wife, but actually he learns that it is his father who killed his wife. *The Cocktail Party* begins and ends in London with a cocktail party. We see a couple, Edward and Lavinia Chamberlayne, who are the protagonists. *The Confidential Clerk* is about Sir Claude Mulhammer bringing a clerk to his house to work with him, but he's actually his illegitimate son. Colby, the clerk, is actually the son—illegitimate son—of Claude Mulhammer. *The Elder Statesman* is about Lord Claverton and how he is well respected in society, but he has a bad past which he confesses to his daughter. After the confession, he, uh, dies offstage.
Now, Eliot believed that the ideal form of drama is poetic drama because poetry is the right vehicle for drama. He even said that poetry and drama are inseparable from each other. Poetic drama brings emotional unity and depth, and poetry written in blank verse will be like natural speech. So Eliot upheld the values of poetic drama as a modernist technique in his writings. Why is Eliot so important? Eliot is so important because he changed the traditions of English literature and English poetry. He brought into being an utterly anti-humanistic approach to life and literature, which helped us to come to terms with the problems of modernism in new ways. Modernism is about the responses of modern European society to the devastating effects of war and, uh, you know, the materialism and industrialization that was rampant at this time. Eliot began, uh, in a way, a new era in literature, along with the other high modernists too, of course. And Eliot is a writer who is also much readable, even though much of his poetry is very, uh, difficult and esoteric. He has written interesting poems like, um, *The Hollow Men*, or even his *Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats*, which talks about cats. It is a collection of humorous verse for children. So please read some of these works, and read *Tradition and the Individual Talent*. These are masterpieces which will help you immensely in your exams. So I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you will do some research on your own, as I have suggested, and I hope you are liking all these videos of Everyday at 6 Videopedia. Sharing it with your friends—please share it—so that they will also be able to get the foundations right. Thank you so much for your support and love. I am reading your comments, even though I'm not getting time to reply to all of these. Every day morning, my day begins by—with—looking at your wonderful comments in YouTube. Thank you so, so, so much for your support and encouragement. I'm there with you to help you reach that amazing career. All best wishes. Bye-bye. You.