T.S. Eliot

1. T.S. Eliot 1888-1965

2. T.S. Eliot

3. “Almost” British • Eliot was American, but he moved to England in 1914 (the year that the First World War began.) • He became a British citizen in 1927.

4. The Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock 1917

5. Modernist • It is a MODERNIST poem. • It uses stream of consciousness technique. • It is also a….

6. Dramatic Monologue • A type of poem “invented” by Robert Browning. • The “voice” of the poem is a man named J. Alfred Prufrock. • The “audience” seems to be us the reader…..

7. Lines 1 - 4 LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised* upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, *Etherised means anaesthetised before an operation

8. New ways to say things • The modernists were looking for new ways to write. • T.S. Eliot uses interesting and powerful metaphors and similes. (Like describing the sky as a patient).

9. Secrets • The Italian quotation at the beginning of the poem is a quote from Dante’s Inferno. • It is one character speaking to another. • He is explaining that he is only revealing his secrets because he knows that they will never be repeated to anyone.

10. Prufrock • The poem is about a middle-aged man thinking about his life….and death. • He is telling “us” his secret thoughts.

11. What makes a life? • He is particularly thinking about the repetition involved in daily life. • He feels like all the days are the same.

12. Lines 49 - 51 For I have known them all already, known them all:— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

13. The Modern World • Prufrock is a man who is exhausted and depressed. • But The Wasteland describes a whole society that feels this way….

14. The Wasteland 1922

15. It is divided into 5 parts: • 1) The Burial of the Dead • 2) The Game of Chess • 3) The Fire Sermon • 4) Death by Water • 5) What the Thunder Said

16. Part One: The Burial of the Dead • The Wasteland is a PESSIMISTIC poem. • It reflects how Eliot felt about contemporary society.

17. Lines 1 - 4 APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain.

18. Interwar • The poem reflects the mood of the interwar years. • The references to death connect to the First World War and the number of people who died.

19. Lines 62 - 65 A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many I had not thought death had undone so many Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet….

20. Modernist • The Wasteland also uses stream of consciousness technique. • It is full of ALLUSIONS. (Like Ulysses) An allusion is a reference or quote from another piece of literature.

21. Many voices • Unlike Prufrock, The Wasteland is not being told by one “voice,” but many different “voices.”

22. Confusing! • The Wasteland is deliberately confusing: • It uses several different languages. • It references hundreds of other pieces of literature. • The “voice” keeps changing.

23. Lines 19 - 22 What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images

24. A Heap of Broken Images • This line is often used to sum up the poem. • The poem itself is a jumble of parts of different things.

25. Things that are difficult • The Wasteland, like Ulysses, is hard to understand. • VERY few people would be able to understand every line of the poem.

26. Something to think about (again): • Do you think good literature should be accessible to everyone? • Does it matter that only a small number of people can really understand this poem?

27. Anti-Semitism Heading towards World War Two…

28. Anti-Semitism • Anti-Semitism is a prejudice against Jewish people. • T.S. Eliot has been accused of being Anti-Semitic.

29. Anti-Semitism is about to become very important…

30. World War Two • During the Second World War Hitler attempted to murder all the Jews in Germany. • When someone tries to kill a whole ethnic group it is called GENOCIDE.

31. Children in a Nazi Concentration Camp

32. BUT, Anti-Semitism didn’t just occur in Germany • Throughout British history Jewish people have been STEREOTYPED as greedy, mean or untrustworthy.

33. Stereotype • A stereotype is the assumption that a person will act a certain way because they belong to a certain group.

34. Famous Jewish characters in Literature A very short history!!

35. Shylock • Shylock is a character in The Merchant of Venice. • The Merchant of Venice was written by Shakespeare around 1596.

36. Shylock • Shylock is a greedy money-lender. • In the play the “Merchant of Venice” borrows money from him and cannot repay him. • Shylock demands a “pound of flesh” cut from his body instead.

37. However….. • Shylock is treated VERY BADLY by the Christian characters in the play. • Many modern actors make him a sympathetic figure.

38. Shylock

39. Fagin • Fagin is a character in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. • Oliver Twist was written in 1838. • Dickens later regretted his anti-Semitism

40. Fagin • Fagin takes in homeless boys and sends them out to steal things. • He is a greedy miser who never spends any money but just keeps it hidden (like Scrooge). • At the end of the novel he is hanged.

41. However…. • He does keep the young boys reasonably safe. • Modern film versions of Oliver Twist make him much more sympathetic and let him survive at the end.

42. Fagin

43. Stereotypes • Both Shylock and Fagin are stereotypes of Jewish men. • But the memory of the Second World War means that now actors interpret these characters in a different way.

44. Nazi Propaganda

45. Leopold Bloom • Ulysses was published in the same year as The Wasteland. (1922) • The central character in Ulysses is a Jewish man named Leopold Bloom.

46. Leopold Bloom • Bloom is NOT a stereotype. • He is treated as an individual and unique person, not a “type.”

47. Outsider • Bloom is “an outsider amongst outsiders.” • The Irish were treated as inferior by the English. • A Jewish Irish man is likely to encounter even more prejudice.

48. …But back to Eliot….

49. The lines that he CUT from The Wasteland: Full fathom five your Bleistein* lies… Graves' Disease in a dead jew's** eyes!… See the lips unfold unfold From the teeth, gold in gold***.... *Bleistein is a Jewish name. **He refers to a “dead Jew” not a “dead man.” ***Gold teeth are a reference to wealth

50. Was T.S. Eliot Anti-Semitic? • We don’t know!! • Many critics are still arguing about it! • He did choose to cut the lines.