T.S. Eliot's 'Journey of the Magi'

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

A poem in three movements. In the first, Eliot catches the grumbling voice of a man unaccustomed to hard travelling, remembering the uncomfortable details of a preposterous journey. In the second, the Magi find what they thought they were looking for ‘and it was (you may say) satisfactory’. And in the third, the speaker admits to the ambiguity of that experience which marked the end of ‘the old dispensation’ and left him stranded between a death and a birth.

From Caedmon to the beginning of the Twentieth century, a poet writing in English could assume a shared Christian background with 99 percent of potential readers. I stopped using this poem in class a few decades ago. It wasn’t that the white horse, three crosses and dicing men were too obscure, or even that the word Magi was unfamiliar. The event at the centre of the poem, which the speaker assumes is well-known and therefore doesn’t need to be described in any detail, had to be explained.

This poem is taken from T.S.Eliot: The Complete Poems and Plays.

T.S.Eliot from 'East Coker'

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

‘For us there is only the trying, the rest is not our business’.

Eliot’s disenchanted view of writing poetry probably sounds familiar to anyone who is serious about practising the craft. It’s full of quotable phrases. Writing poetry as a ‘raid on the inarticulate’ is perhaps the best description of the process that I know.

This is only an extract. I would like to admire Four Quartets as a whole but I think it’s very uneven. It contains beautiful lines and images, profound thoughts, and then it clunks into bad prose or obscurity.

I suspect you can split Eliot devotees into those who admire everything, and those who prefer the early work.

Even in this extract ‘For us there is only the trying, the rest is not our business’ sounds magnificent but won’t sustain any prolonged consideration. Eliot was Banker, Critic, publisher and editor. He did a lot more than try to write poetry, and today the poet who thinks he or she can avoid all the trappings of ‘poeting’ and get by simply trying to write better poems is probably deluded.

This is taken from 'The complete poems and plays 1909-1950'.

T.S.Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Although this is one of the great poems of the Twentieth century it’s interesting to note how much trouble Eliot had getting it published. Extracts from Pound’s correspondence on his behalf can be read here https://ladygodivaandme.blogspot.com/2013/06/pound-and-publication-of-prufrock.html It seems that Harriet Munroe wanted Eliot to revise the poem and give it a more uplifting ending.

Eliot’s control of his line is enviable and perhaps not noticeable until the poem is read aloud. It swings, ebbs and flows. It’s too easy to chant the whole thing in a sing song, which I’ve tried to avoid. .