美国文学5、T.S.Eliot艾略特

.S.EliotThomasStearnsEliot(1888

-

1965)h

mas

Stearns

Eliotpoet,

dramatist,

andcriticDuring

his

studies

atHarvard

in

America,

theSorbonne

in

Paris,

andOxford

in

England,

Eliotmastered

French,

Italian,English

literature,

aswell

as

Sanskrit.With

the

help

of

Poundhe

published

his

best-known

work,

The

WasteLand,

in

1922.won

the

1948

NobelPrize

in

literature"classicist

inliterature,

royalist

inpolitics,

and

Anglo-Catholic

in

religion"o

tryPrufrock

and

Other

Observations(1917)

"Gerontion"

(1920)The

Waste

Land

(1922)

Ash

Wednesday

(1930)

Four

Quartets

(1935–42)o

tryEliot’s

early

poetical

works

employing

myths,religious

symbolism,

and

literary

allusion,signified

a

break

with

19th-century

poetictraditions,

express

the

anguish

and

barrennessof

modern

life

and

the

isolation

of

the

individuaparticularly

as

reflected

in

the

failure

of

loveTheir

models

were

the

metaphysical

poets,

Dante,

and

French

Symbolists.

Their

meter

ranged

from

the

lyrical

to

the

conversational.Eliot

turned

from

spiritual

desolation

to

hope

fhuman

salvation.s

Style

of

PoetryEliot

attempted

to

produce

“pure

imagery”

with

noadded

meaning

or

symbolism.He

began

adding

one

image

to

another

in

such

a

waythat

his

attitude

and

mood

became

clear.

In

his

bestworks,

the

image,

his

own

philosophy

and

the

music

ofwords

are

all

blended

although

he

mingled

grandimageswith

commonplace

ones

and

combined

trivialandtawdry

images

with

traditional

poetic

subjects.Eliot

rarely

made

his

meaning

explicit.

The

internallogic

of

his

poems

is

carried

out

by

swiftlyaccumulating

images,

suggestionsand

echoes,depending

for

their

interpretation

upon

the

imaginatioof

the

reader.l

ysHis

plays

attempt

to

revitalize

verse

drama

andusually

treat

thesame

themes

as

in

his

poetry.The

most

important

is:

Murder

in

the

Cathedral

(1935)

Thomas

Becket,

the

12th-century

Cathedrall

ysAccording

to

his

theory,

verse

dramashould

conform

to

natual-rhythm

and

notbe

consciously

poetic.

His

plays

arewritten

in

a

blank

verse

of

his

owninvention,

in

which

the

metrical

effect

inot

separated

from

the

meaning,

thusbringing

poetical

drama

to

the

popularstage.r

ticismEliot

was

an

extraordinarily

influential

criticrejecting

Romantic

notions

of

unfetteredoriginality

and

arguing

for

the

impersonality

ofgreat

art.

His

later

criticism

attempts

to

suppoChristian

culture

against

what

he

saw

as

theempty

and

fragmented

values

of

secularism.His

outstanding

critical

works

are

contained

in:The

Use

of

Poetry

and

the

Use

of

Criticism(1933)Essays

Ancient

and

Modern

(1936)Notes

towards

a

Definition

of

Culture

(1948).e

Criticism

New

Criticism,

anapproach

to

understanding

literature

throughclose

readings

and

attentiveness

to

formal

patterns

(of

imagery,metaphors,

metrics,

sounds,

and

symbols)

and

their

suggestedmeanings.

New

Criticism

became

the

dominant

American

critical

approach

inthe

1940s

and

1950s

because

it

proved

to

be

well-suited

tomodernist

writers

such

as

Eliot

and

could

absorb

Freudian

theory(especially

its

structural

categories

such

as

id,

ego,

and

superegandapproachesdrawing

on

mythic

patterns.

Ransom,

leading

theorist

of

the

southern

renaissance

between

the

wars,

publishedabook,

The

New

Criticism

(1941),

on

thismethod,

which

offered

an

alternative

to

previous

extra-

literarymethods

of

criticismbasedon

history

and

biography.

Other

representatives

include

Allen

Tate

andRobertPennWarren.i

Aesthetic

Views1.

A

poem

should

be

an

organic

thing

initself,

a

made

object.

Once

it

is

finishedthe

poet

will

no

longerhavecontrol

of

itIt

should

be

judged,

analyzed

by

itselfwithout

the

interference

of

the

poet’spersonal

influence

and

intentionalelements

and

other

elements.2.

Modern

life

is

chaotic,

futile,fragmentary,so

poetry

should

reflect

thifragmentary

nature

of

life

and

this

kindnature

of

life

should

beprojected,

notanalyzed.3.

objective

correlative:

a

set

of

objects,situation,

a

chain

of

events,

formula

inwhich

the

poet

expresses

his

emotionand

in

which

the

fusion

of

intellect,feeling,and

experience

should

beachieved.4.

The

poet

should

draw

upon

tradition:use

the

past

to

serve

the

resent

andfuture(

the

past,

present,

futureinterrelate),

borrow

from

authors

remotein

time,

alien

in

language,

diverse

innterest,

use

the

past

to

underscore

whatis

missing

from

the

present.hThe

Burial

of

the

DeadA

Game

of

ChessThe

Fire

SermonDeath

by

WaterWhat

the

Thunder

Saidy

bolsWaterThe

Fisher

KingMusic

and

Singinga

erIn

Eliot’s

poetry,

water

symbolizes

both

life

and

death.

Eliot’scharacters

wait

for

water

to

quench

their

thirst,

watch

riversoverflow

their

banks,

cry

for

rain

to

quench

the

dry

earth,

and

pass

by

fetid

pools

of

standing

water.

Although

water

has

theregenerative

possibility

of

restoring

life

and

fertility,

it

can

alead

to

drowning

and

death,

as

in

the

case

of

Phlebas

the

sailor

from

The

Waste

Land.

Traditionally,

water

can

imply

baptism,Christianity,

and

the

figure

of

Jesus

Christ,

and

Eliot

draws

uponthese

traditional

meanings:

water

cleanses,

water

provides

solace,and

water

brings

relief

elsewhere

in

The

Waste

Land

and

in“Little

Gidding,”

the

fourth

part

of

Four

Quartets.

Prufrockhears

the

seductive

calls

of

mermaids

as

he

walks

along

theshore

in

“The

Love

Song

of

J.

Alfred

Prufrock,”

but,

likeOdysseus

in

Homer’s

Odyssey

(ca.

800

b.c.e.),

he

realizes

thata

malicious

intent

lies

behind

the

sweet

voices:

the

poemconcludes

“we

drown”

(131).

Eliot

thus

cautions

us

to

bewareof

simple

solutions

or

cures,

for

what

looks

innocuous

might

turnout

to

be

very

dangerous.h

Fisher

KingThe

Fisher

King

is

the

central

character

in

The

Waste

Land.While

writing

his

longpoem,

Eliot

drew

on

From

Ritual

toRomance,

a

1920

book

about

the

legend

of

the

Holy

Grail

byMiss

Jessie

L.Weston,for

many

of

his

symbols

and

images.Weston’s

book

examined

the

connections

between

ancientfertility

rites

and

Christianity,

including

following

the

evolutiothe

Fisher

King

into

early

representations

of

Jesus

Christ

as

a

fisTraditionally,

the

impotence

or

death

of

the

Fisher

King

broughtunhappiness

and

famine.

Eliot

saw

the

Fisher

King

as

symbolic

ofhumanity,

robbed

of

its

sexualpotencyin

the

modern

world

andconnected

to

the

meaninglessness

of

urban

existence.

But

theFisher

King

also

stands

in

for

Christ

and

other

religious

figuresassociated

with

divine

resurrection

and

rebirth.

The

speaker

of“What

the

Thunder

Said”

fishes

from

the

banks

of

the

Thamestowardthe

end

of

the

poem

as

the

thundersounds

Hindu

chantsinto

the

air.

Eliot’s

scene

echoes

the

scene

in

the

Bible

in

whichChrist

performs

one

of

his

miracles:

Christ

manages

to

feed

hismultitude

of

followers

by

the

Sea

of

Galilee

with

justasmallamount

of

fish.u

ic

and

SingingLikemost

modernist

writers,

Eliot

was

interested

in

the

dividebetween

high

and

low

culture,

which

he

symbolized

using

music.He

believed

that

high

culture,

including

art,

opera,

and

drama,was

in

decline

while

popular

culture

was

on

the

rise.

In

TheWaste

Land,

Eliotbl