Instructions
20 marksEvaluate how Eliot's distinctive style has enhanced your understanding of complex ideas represented in his poetry. In your response, make close reference to your prescribed text.
Response
Through the analysing of construction, language and context of a universal text, audiences are able to garner their own interpretations on the author's desired intention in their respective context. It is clear, in Eliot's unified poetic oeuvre, Eliot's distinctive and compelling voice as well as his subversion of typical poetic forms characterises him as a modernist writer. In "Rhapsody on a Windy Night" Eliot condemns the dissolution and fragmentation of memory, subverting typical Romantic forms to comment on the pursuit of superficiality which leads to disillusionment. Eliot further extends audience understanding in "Hollow Men" compelling avoidance of the lack of spiritual fortitude influenced by the horrors of World War One and the dissolution of Christian paradigms. He compels the need for a reconnection with spirituality, urging audiences against doubt of faith resulting in paralysed psyche. With this, Eliot provides hope, enhancing audiences understanding on the complex nature of the solution to preventing emotional disorientation through "The Journey of the Magi" urging the necessary undertaking of a spiritual journey paralleling his own conversion from unitarianism to Anglicanism in 1927, in order to reach fulfilment and catharsis. Eliot enhances audience understanding of the harmful consequences of pursuing superficial paradigms, resulting in a lack of spiritual fortitude that can only be cured through a reconnection to religion.
Eliot condemns the fragmentation of memory and time in "Rhapsody" with the pursuit of hedonistic ideals, resulting in estrangement and disillusionment. The title of "Rhapsody" is known as a musical piece with an often upbeat and jolly rhythm, however Eliot subverts this through his use of decaying and disorientating imagery that parallels a jolting rhythm. This is also combined with the jolting momentum of "Twelve o'clock, one-o'clock" highlighting modernity ruled by objective time, fragmenting the individual to deadlines and schedules which undermine their sense of fulfilment. This is furthered by the subversion of Romantic forms in "like a madman shakes a geranium" this simile underscores emotions of hysteria and madness, urging the audience to remain cognisant of their urban surroundings cautioning against a state of insanity perpetuated by pursuit of superficial paradigms in modernity. In addition, Eliot utilises an ironic tone in "Memory! you have the key!" his declarative and exclamatory tone paralleling a sense of hope for the individual in being able to rediscover purpose and fulfilment in life, however it immediately juxtaposed by daily, mundane imagery of "shoes" and "toothbrush" ultimately destroying all hope for the individual to attain purpose in a superficial and hedonistic society. Eliot in "Rhapsody" criticises the fragmentation of time and memory, urging the audience to understand the hopelessness of discovering fulfilment in an urban landscape.
Eliot further extends on this idea with his condemnation of modern society's lack of spiritual fortitude resulting in an ultimate disconnection with religion which render individuals lost and disillusioned. Eliot opens with an epigraph with allusions to Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, as well as Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" displaying the ultimate downfall of individuals in the pursuit of hedonistic ideals with greed and ambition, urging audiences against a loss of spirituality to not become estranged or disillusioned. Furthermore, Eliot integrates inclusive pronouns in "we are the hollow men, we are..." perpetuating a direct connection to the audience, further compelling audiences' understanding of the collective emotional deterioration and stagnation that is felt due to a collective loss of religion and spiritual belief due to the impact of world war one and the dissolution of Christian religion in modernity. Eliot further describes individuals imprisoned within a state of paralysis due to the loss of belief in God in "shape without form, gesture without motion" demonstrating a liminal and paradoxical space where individuals are entrapped within and ultimately estranged from a sense of purpose and rendered empty. Eliot's further subversion of poetic forms in his allusion to the Lord's prayer in "For Thine is... For life is..." illustrates the fragmentation of the image of God and religion, with the motif of eyes "throughout" also contributing to a doubt in faith and spirituality for individuals. Thus, Eliot urges against the complex nature of a loss of spiritual fortitude which results in empty and estranged collectives who are ultimately purposeless.