DOCSLIB.ORG

Modernist Poetic Epiphanies in Eliot, Williams, Levertov, and Revell

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Modernist Poetic Epiphanies in Eliot, Williams, Levertov, and Revell RECONFIGURING SELF, WORLD, AND WORD: MODERNIST POETIC EPIPHANIES IN ELIOT, WILLIAMS, LEVERTOV, AND REVELL Jessica G. Drexel A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: John McGowan Eric Downing Gabriel Trop Tyler Curtain Thomas Pfau © 2019 Jessica G. Drexel ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT: Jessica G. Drexel: Reconfiguring Self, World, and Word: Modernist Poetic Epiphanies in Eliot, Williams, Levertov, and Revell (Under the direction of John McGowan) This dissertation examines the occurrence of epiphanies in modernist and contemporary poetry. The time period addressed in this dissertation traces the development of poetic epiphanies through a series of related poets: T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams represent opposing approaches to poetry in the modernist era, while Denise Levertov and Donald Revell represent the extended influence of the earlier poets through the late-twentieth century and the present day. By surveying these four poets, I aim to establish a conception of post-Romantic transcendent experience in the form of an epiphany. The dissertation includes both secular and religious poetry, and I show how even traditionally religious approaches to epiphany are radically reconfigured through poetic form and innovative representations of dualistic distinctions. My research uses the prose works by these poets to establish a framework for interpreting their poetry; I also use this prose framework to challenge and add to leading interpretations of the epiphany in modernist poetry. Furthermore, I include extensive close-readings of the poetry. I conclude that the epiphanies present in the work by these poets is fundamentally distinct from a traditionally Romantic or religious epiphany. Despite their many differences, these four poets employ an immanentist view of the cosmos, which means that dualistic distinctions exist, but that the space of transcendence and totality is at hand, and not cosmically distant. The implication is that modernist poetic epiphanies paradoxically reveal totality in the immediate, iii material world. These epiphanies are also distinctive because they gesture toward an ongoing mode of perception rather than a bounded, temporal event of sudden illumination. Through the close-readings of the poems, I show how each poet uses innovative aesthetic techniques— musicality, vernacular speech, imagism, spatialization, perception, and attention—to explore dimensions of transcendence, to articulate their experience of this space, and to connect their readers to this space. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is the culmination of a long journey shaped by the kindness of many people. First, I thank my undergraduate mentors: David Jones, Eberhard Geyer, and Robert Blackstock. From my Master’s in Linguistics at UNC, I am indebted to the influence of my advisor Randy Hendrick and to Paul Roberge. From my doctoral work in Comparative Literature and English, I am grateful to Philip Gura for his class on American Transcendentalism and for first introducing me to William Carlos Williams’ poetry. I thank Joel Nickels, a conference co- presenter, and poet John Greening, for affirming my nascent interest in Levertov and encouraging me to pursue her in my research. I am grateful to poet and scholar Donald Revell, for your support of my work and your generous correspondence about Levertov and Williams. I am beyond grateful for my fellow UNC CoLEAGS graduate students—I cannot imagine better colleagues. Your camaraderie made graduate school rich, your intellect challenged me, and your friendship is dear. I am also grateful for the graduate student communities I befriended at Duke University and Baylor University—thank you extending your warm collegiality to me. Most importantly, I am deeply grateful to my doctoral committee: Eric Downing, for your mentorship even before I even joined the program, and for making me a better teacher and scholar. I thank Gabriel Trop, for your patience, enthusiasm, and for your profound insight into poetry and poetics. I thank Tyler Curtain, for your challenging questions, generous time and thoughtful input on my research. I thank Thomas Pfau, for your time and direction over years and across university boundaries. To John McGowan, my gratitude is beyond words. Your v wisdom, advocacy, passion for literature, and care for students have truly shaped me as a reader, scholar, and teacher. Outside the academy, I thank my mother, who first taught me to love language, literature, and hard work. You never doubted me, and you have cheered me in person and from afar my whole life. I also thank many others—family, friends, especially Erin and Suzanne—for supporting me throughout this project. Thank you to Christ Community Church, who were a family to me in Chapel Hill for six years. Most of all, I am grateful for my husband, Andrew, for walking with me through the entirety of my doctoral work with good humor and selfless joy in this adventure. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: MUSIC, INCARNATION, AND THE CONTINUOUSLY PRESENT EPIPHANY IN T. S. ELIOT’S FOUR QUARTETS .................................................................. 11 A. INTRODUCTION AND EPIPHANY REVIEW ........................................................................... 11 B. REVIEW OF SCHOLARLY APPROACHES TO THE EPIPHANY ................................................ 13 C. MUSICAL PATTERN AND THE BEYOND ............................................................................ 26 i. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 27 ii. ‘Musical Pattern’—Double Existence in Drama ........................................................ 30 iii. “Necessary and dangerous” Duality ......................................................................... 38 D. ‘MUSICAL PATTERN’: FROM POETIC DRAMA TO POETRY ................................................. 43 i. ‘Musical pattern’ in Four Quartets ............................................................................ 43 E. CLOSE-READING FOUR QUARTETS ................................................................................... 49 i. Burnt Norton ............................................................................................................. 51 ii. East Coker ................................................................................................................. 55 iii. Dry Salvages ............................................................................................................. 59 iv. Little Gidding ............................................................................................................ 62 F. THE HINT HALF GUESSED .............................................................................................. 65 CHAPTER TWO: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AS MODERNIST MYSTIC .................. 70 A. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................... 70 vii B. TWO TRADITIONS OF TRANSCENDENCE ........................................................................... 75 C. WILLIAMS AND RELIGION ............................................................................................... 75 D. TRANSCENDENTALISM .................................................................................................... 79 E. WILLIAMS REJECTS TRANSCENDENTALISM ..................................................................... 81 F. WILLIAMS’ MODERNISM: CREATION AND DESTRUCTION ................................................. 85 G. POST-ROMANTIC UNITY ................................................................................................. 90 H. MODERNIST MYSTICISM .................................................................................................. 92 I. WILLIAMS’ POETIC EPIPHANIES ...................................................................................... 99 CHAPTER THREE: FROM HELL AND BACK AGAIN: WILLIAMS’ EPIPHANY, FORGIVENESS, AND IMAGINATION ................................................................................ 108 A. BEGINNING IN HELL ..................................................................................................... 108 B. PERCEPTION ................................................................................................................. 110 C. INNER PERFECTIONS ..................................................................................................... 113 D. DANCE ......................................................................................................................... 127 E. RESISTANCE AND LIMITS .............................................................................................. 137 i. Dependence on others and the world ....................................................................... 139 ii. Corruption Within ................................................................................................... 141 iii. Human Evil ............................................................................................................. 156 iv. Despair and Descent ..............................................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • J.M. Reibetanz Four Quartets As Poetry of Place One Thinks of Four
    J.M. Reibetanz Four Quartets as Poetry of Place One thinks of Four Quartets preeminently as a religious and philosophical poem; yet its argument does not proceed simply or preeminently on an abstract level. Rather, ideas enter our consciousness and our understanding through felt experience. Whether it be the paradox of the still point, the mystical negative way of illumination, the attitude of humility, the nature of time, the relationship of attachement, detachment, indifference and history, the necessity for atonement, or any of the other difficult ideas Eliot argues, the poetry leads us into a full experience of concepts by grounding them in places. Thus, we know the still point primarily through our vision in the rose-garden of Burnt Norton; the negative way of ilJumination is presented spatially as a descent into the darkness beneath the level of the London underground; the attitude of humility is derived out of the atmosphere of death that pervades East Coker; the nature of time is seen through our experience of the river and the sea; the thorny relationship of attachment, detachment, indifference and history is argued through the paradigm of the nettles on the hedgerow of Little Gidding; and the necessity for atonement arises from our experience of the tongues of fire that descend on wartime London. Even the primary religious concept of the Quartets. the Incarnation, is not fully argued in conceptual terms until three­ quarters of the way through the poem, at the end of The Dry Salvages. Long before that, however, its mystery is revealed to us in particular moments of illumination that transpire in time and also in place.
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry, Place, and Spiritual Practices by Katharine Bubel BA, Trinity
    Edge Effects: Poetry, Place, and Spiritual Practices by Katharine Bubel B.A., Trinity Western University, 2004 M.A., Trinity Western University, 2009 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English Katharine Bubel, 2018 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This dissertation may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Edge Effects: Poetry, Place, and Spiritual Practices by Katharine Bubel B.A., Trinity Western University, 2004 M.A., Trinity Western University, 2009 Supervisory Committee Dr. Nicholas Bradley, Department of English Supervisor Dr. Magdalena Kay, Department of English Departmental Member Dr. Iain Higgins, Department of English Departmental Member Dr. Tim Lilburn, Department of Writing Outside Member iii Abstract "Edge Effects: Poetry, Place, and Spiritual Practices” focusses on the intersection of the environmental and religious imaginations in the work of five West Coast poets: Robinson Jeffers, Theodore Roethke, Robert Hass, Denise Levertov, and Jan Zwicky. My research examines the selected poems for their reimagination of the sacred perceived through attachments to particular places. For these writers, poetry is a constitutive practice, part of a way of life that includes desire for wise participation in the more-than-human community. Taking into account the poets’ critical reflections and historical-cultural contexts, along with a range of critical and philosophical sources, the poetry is examined as a discursive spiritual exercise. It is seen as conjoined with other focal practices of place, notably meditative walking and attentive looking and listening under the influence of ecospiritual eros.
    [Show full text]
  • Wordsworth, Shelley, and the Long Search for Home Samantha Heffner Trinity University, [email protected]
    Trinity University Digital Commons @ Trinity English Honors Theses English Department 5-2017 Homeward Bound: Wordsworth, Shelley, and the Long Search for Home Samantha Heffner Trinity University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/eng_honors Recommended Citation Heffner, Samantha, "Homeward Bound: Wordsworth, Shelley, and the Long Search for Home" (2017). English Honors Theses. 28. http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/eng_honors/28 This Thesis open access is brought to you for free and open access by the English Department at Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Homeward Bound: Wordsworth, Shelley, and the Long Search for Home Samantha Heffner A DEPARTMENT HONORS THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AT TRINITY UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR GRADUATION WITH DEPARTMENTAL HONORS DATE: April 15, 2017 Betsy Tontiplaphol Claudia Stokes THESIS ADVISOR DEPARTMENT CHAIR _____________________________________ Sheryl R. Tynes, AVPAA Heffner 2 Student Agreement I grant Trinity University (“Institution”), my academic department (“Department”), and the Texas Digital Library ("TDL") the non-exclusive rights to copy, display, perform, distribute and publish the content I submit to this repository (hereafter called "Work") and to make the Work available in any format in perpetuity as part of a TDL, Institution or Department repository communication or distribution effort. I understand that once the Work is submitted, a bibliographic citation to the Work can remain visible in perpetuity, even if the Work is updated or removed. I understand that the Work's copyright owner(s) will continue to own copyright outside these non-exclusive granted rights.
    [Show full text]
  • T. S. Eliot Collection
    T. S. Eliot Collection Books and Pamphlets (unless otherwise noted, the first listing after each Gallup number is a first edition) The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock in Poetry. A Magazine of Verse. Edited by Harriet Monroe. June 1915. Gallup C18. The first appearance of the poem. Near fine copy. A2 Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry, Alfred A. Knopf, 1917 [i.e. 1918]. Good copy, a bit worn and faded. A4 Ara Vus Prec, The Ovid Press, 1920. Very good copy, light wear. Poems, Alfred A. Knopf, 1920 (first American edition), Head of spine chipped, otherwise very good. A5 The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. Alfred A. Knopf, 1921 (American issue). Fine in chipped dust jacket. ----- Alfred A. Knopf, 1930 (American issue). Good, no dust jacket. The Waste Land in The Dial, Vol. LXXIII, Number 5, November 1922. Gallup C135. Published “almost simultaneously” in The Criterion. Extremities of spine chipped, otherwise a very good copy. A8 Poems: 1909-1925, Faber & Gwyer Ltd., 1925 (first edition, ordinary copies). Very good, no dust jacket. ----- Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1932 (first American edition). Good only, no dust jacket. Poems: 1909-1925. Faber & Faber, 1932. Reset edition. Fine in dust jacket. 1 T. S Eliot Collection A9 Journey of the Magi, Faber & Gwyer Ltd., 1927. Very good. ----- Faber & Gwyer Ltd., 1927 (limited copies). Fine copy. ----- William Edwin Rudge, 1927 (first American edition). Copyright issue, one of only 27 copies. Fine copy. A10 Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca, Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1927. Very good. A11 A Song for Simeon, Faber & Gwyer Ltd., 1928.
    [Show full text]
  • A CRITICAL EXPLORATION of EPIPHANIC Discourse, with SPECIAL REFERENCE to THREE of ROBERT SROWNING's MAJOR RELIGIOUS Poems
    INSUBSTANTIAL PAGEANTS FADING: A CRITICAL EXPLORATION OF EPIPHANIC DIScouRSE, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THREE OF ROBERT SROWNING'S MAJOR RELIGIOUS PoEMS by CAROL JULIA KEEP submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the subject ENGLISH at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: PROFESSOR E R HARTY NOVEMBER 1994 i SUMMARY This dissertation examines the nature of epiphanic discourse in three of Robert Browning's religious poems, namely, 'Christmas- Eve', 'Easter-bay' and 'La Saisiaz'. Chapter 1 investigates epiphany from religious, historical and theoretical perspectives, followed by a discussion of Browning's developing Christian beliefs. Chapters 2 and 3 explore the epiphanic moment in the companion poems, 'Christmas- Eve' and 'Easter-DayF. Chapter 4 explores how the double epiphany initiated from Browning's personal experience recounted in 'La Saisiaz', finds its resolution in '~he Two Poets of Croisic'. Browning's 'good minute' or 'infinite moment' originates in Romanticism and reverberates into the twentieth century mainly in the writing of James Joyce, who first used the word 'epiphany' in its literary sense. Because Browning's faith allowed continual interrogation of Christian doctrine, his experience and reading of epiphanic moments avoid any attempt at closure. Thus they offer the reader both a human image for recognition and a coded legend for individual interpretation. 'Christmas-Eve'; 'Easter-Day'; epiphanic; epiphany; 'La Saisiaz'; religious; Robert Browning; Romantic; 'The Two Poets of Croisic'; Victorian ii CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ......................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: Epiphany and Epiphanic Discourse ..................... 9 CHAPTER 2: Christmas-Eve 32 CHAPTER 3: Easter-Day ........................................... 49 CHAPTER 4: La Saisiaz 66 CHAPTER 5: Conclusion 96 BIBLIOGRAPHY .
    [Show full text]
  • Epiphanies in Dubliners
    Epiphanies in Dubliners Epiphanies in Dubliners* Takashi Suzuki Epiphanies appear in Dubliners in various ways. Some stories present them directly. These epipha- nies are apparent to every reader. One of these is in “After the Race”. Jimmy Doyle is a son of the successful father who is called a merchant prince by the Dublin newspapers. Jimmy is a spoiled youth who has money and is popular but of no particular talent. He is very excited, sitting in a car that a wealthy Frenchman drives with his companions through the cheers of spectators. He has joined the Frenchman’s company without no reason. Jimmy takes this car race as the opportunity to deepen his relationship with the Frenchman from mere acquaintance to friendship. The Frenchman is reputed to own some of the biggest hotels in France, and is about to start motor business in Paris. Jimmy is going to “stake”(47)1 the greater part of his money on the Frenchman’s venture, and the Frenchman gives him the impression that the investment is made possible by a favour of friendship. The idea of this investment is initiated by his father’s suggestion. Therefore Jimmy and his father treat them in a very friendly and hospitable manner. But this design leads Jimmy to a fatal card game, and he loses more than he can afford: He knew that he would regret it in the morning, but at present he was glad of the rest, glad of the dark stupor that would cover up his folly. He leaned his elbows on the table and rested his head between his hands, counting the beats of his temples.
    [Show full text]
  • An Examination of TS Eliot's Four Quartets
    European Scientific Journal January 2016 edition vol.12, No.2 ISSN: 1857 – 7881 (Print) e - ISSN 1857- 7431 Crisis of the Modern Age and the Way Out: An Examination of T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets Dr. Fatima Falih Ahmed Al-Badrani Assistant Professor, South Carolina University, USA Dr. Abdullah Fawaz Al-Badarneh Assistant Professor, Department of English, Jerash University, Jerash, JORDAN doi: 10.19044/esj.2016.v12n2p225 URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.19044/esj.2016.v12n2p225 Abstract The twentieth century was one of change and unrest. What characterises the age is that society, up to a high degree, was hostile to spiritual life. The spiritual values seemed to be neglected or totally abandoned for the material, more matter-of-fact values. This left society in a state of increasing confusion that was substantially realised in the outbreak of World War I. The impact of the war revealed the degeneration of the modern world with the breakdown of religion and moral and spiritual traditions. T. S. Eliot was fully aware of the ills of modern civilisation that surrounded people with a number of faiths established haphazardly to fight against the troubles of modern life. These faiths refer to political and social ideologies, parties, and allegiances. Eliot finds that all modern ideologies are poor and futile substitutions for religious faith. He finds that society should be built not upon power and its corruption, but upon a higher system of values which are mainly spiritual and moral. This research paper demonstrates how Eliot's Four Quartets affirms the possibility of spiritual regeneration and gives a positive projection of hope.
    [Show full text]
  • Spiritual Paralysis and Epiphany: James Joyce's “Eveline”
    Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (http://sbe.gantep.edu.tr) 2012 11(2):587 -600 ISSN: 1303-0094 Spiritual Paralysis and Epiphany: James Joyce’s “Eveline” and “The Boarding House” “James Joyce’un ‘Eveline’ ve ‘The Boarding House’ adlı Hikayelerindeki Ruhsal Çöküntü ve Epifani” Zennure Köseman Inönü University Abstract This article intends to highlight James Joyce’s ironical outlook for the existence of epiphanies in women’s lives to be released from their spiritual paralysis and stagnation as indicated in “Eveline” (1904) and “The Boarding House” (1906) in Dubliners. In “Eveline” and “The Boarding House,” Joyce portrays women who are in a struggle for setting aside the inequalities and miseries of their social environment through their representative wish for emancipation in their lonely and alienated state of minds. Trapped in a web of social expectations and constraints, women intend to escape from the strict patriarchal society of Dublin in these short stories. Structured and controlled by the issue of femininity, James Joyce writes about the effects of the Irish society on female adolescents. “Eveline” and “The Boarding House” offer two portrayals of women who are enclosed by the dominance of the rigid patriarchal society which ends up the need for emancipation from social rigid rules. In these stories, however, the women characters portray a continuation of the choice of their domestic female roles, i.e., their struggle for emancipation turns out to be useless. "Eveline" is the story of a young teenager who faces a dilemma where she has to choose either she has to live with her father or escape with his boyfriend.
    [Show full text]
  • The Eliot - Hale Archive: First Readings II the Eliot-Hale Archive: First Our Readers Will Recall That in the Spring Issue of Time Present (No
    The Newsletter of the International T. S. Eliot Society Number 101 Summer 2020 CONTENTS The Eliot - Hale Archive: First Readings II The Eliot-Hale Archive: First Our readers will recall that in the Spring issue of Time Present (No. 100), we Readings II published a set of six first-response pieces to the letters T. S. Eliot wrote to Emily Eliot’s Ghost Story, Hale from the 1930s to the 1950s. In this number of our newsletter, we follow by Jewel Spears Brooker 1 that collection of responses with three more offerings from those readers fortunate enough to visit Princeton’s Firestone Library before the coronavirus necessitated Unbuttoned and Unimportant, the closing of the library and the shutting of this newly opened archive. We are by Anthony Cuda 2 grateful to this issue’s contributors—Jewel Spears Brooker, Anthony Cuda, and Love’s Errors and Effacements, Gabrielle McIntire—for sharing their early responses. We look forward to the day by Gabrielle McIntire 6 when Firestone and its archives are open to us all; we trust that these responses Program of the 41st Annual will illuminate aspects of this important, extensive, extraordinarily complex Meeting of the International correspondence. T. S. Eliot Society 3 Reviews Eliot’s Ghost Story: Reflections on his Letters Faber & Faber: The Untold Story, to Emily Hale by Toby Faber Rev. by David Chinitz 5 Jewel Spears Brooker Christian Modernism in an Age of Eckerd College I feel like the ghost of youth Totalitarianism, by Jonas Kurlberg, At the undertakers’ ball. Rev. by Elena Valli 7 “Opera,” Nov.
    [Show full text]
  • A Cycle of C-Changes
    A Cycle of C-changes: a working model for the literary epiphany Artur Schouten s1092146 MA thesis June 2014 first reader: Dr. Wim Tigges second reader: Prof. Dr. Peter Liebregts A Cycle of C-changes: a working model for the literary epiphany Schouten 1 Table of Contents: page: 1. Introduction 2 2. Defining epiphany and associated notions 6 3. The literary epiphany - an overview of received knowledge and previous research 10 4. Thesis Statement: A Cycle of C-Changes 25 5. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: entering the world of the artist as he enters into the world 34 6. Vision and revision: the long road to realization in the development of Kerouac’s On the Road 57 7. Conclusion 84 Selected bibliography and works cited 90 A Cycle of C-changes: a working model for the literary epiphany Schouten 2 1. Introduction Change is a keyword in much of the world’s literature, as human beings are hardly ever static and unchanging. Although there are instances in which hardly any change of character, or change of heart, or change of scene occurs in the course of a narrative – Beckett’s Waiting for Godot comes to mind – more often the protagonist’s progress is marked by significant changes. Hence, one of the most commonly discussed aspects when dealing with a work of literature is that of character development. Another key mechanism is that of rising and falling action. This is conventionally associated with drama, but equally applies to prose. Introduced in 1894 by the German critic and dramatist Gustav Freytag (Prince 36), the framework for plot analysis which became known as Freytag’s Pyramid consists of an upright triangular shape depicting on the left-hand side of the triangle the notion of rising action or the increase of tension, the tip of the pyramid representing the climax or culmination of the action, and the right-hand side standing for falling action or the decrease of tension.
    [Show full text]
  • “All Manner of Things Shall Be Well”
    School of Languages and Media Studies English Department Master Degree Thesis in Literature, 15 hp Course code: EN3053 Supervisor: Billy Gray “All Manner of Things Shall be Well”: Tractarianism, Eliot, and the Natural World in Four Quartets Monica Murphy Dalarna University English Department Degree Thesis Spring 2016 At Dalarna University it is possible to publish the student thesis in full text in DiVA. The publishing is open access, which means the work will be freely accessible to read and download on the internet. This will significantly increase the dissemination and visibility of the student thesis. Open access is becoming the standard route for spreading scientific and academic information on the internet. Dalarna University recommends that both researchers as well as students publish their work open access. I give my/we give our consent for full text publishing (freely accessible on the internet, open access): Yes ☒ No ☐ Table of Contents Introduction 1 I. The Oxford Movement: Liturgy and Poetics 7 II. Analogy 10 III. Sacramentality 13 IV. Burnt Norton and East Coker: Formed nature 15 V. The Dry Salvages: The Voyage Transformed 21 VI. Little Gidding: Language Transformed 26 Conclusion 30 Works Cited 33 Murphy 1 INTRODUCTION When T. S. Eliot announced his conversion to Christianity in 1928, Virginia Woolf wrote to her sister that “poor dear Tom Eliot [. .] may be called dead to us all from this day forward. He has become an Anglo-Catholic, believes in God and immortality, and goes to church [. .] There’s something obscene in a living person sitting by the fire and believing in God” (qtd.
    [Show full text]
  • SERMON: “A L Based on Part V of “East Coker” by T.S. Eliot by Dr. John Tamilio III the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis
    SERMON: “A LIFETIME BURNING IN EVERY MOMENT” Based on Part V of “East Coker” by T.S. Eliot By Dr. John Tamilio III The First Unitarian Church of St. Louis Sunday, September 27, 2015 © 2015, Dr. Tamilio I bring you greetings from the members and friends of the United Church of Christ in Canton, Massachusetts, where I serve as their Pastor, and from my colleagues at Salem State University, Endicott College, and Andover Newton Theological School where I serve as an assistant professor of philosophy, theology, and literature. I also bring words of deepest gratitude from the T.S. Eliot Society for your generosity in hosting the Sunday program that is part of our annual meeting. It is an honor to preach at the spiritual home of the young T.S. Eliot — and that of his father (Henry Ware Eliot) and his grandfather and founder (William Greenleaf Eliot) before him. It is also strange and a bit liberating to be preaching in a Unitarian Universalist Church. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure, I must confess. As you may know, we in the United Church of Christ (the UCC) are often referred to as “Unitarians Considering Christ.” This is much better than the name that inevitably arises when someone misspells the word “united” and we become “The Untied Church of Christ.” While my theology is a bit more “traditional” than most UCC pastors, my deep affinity for anything Eliot makes us sisters and brothers of a different mother. In my tradition, the “readings” for worship always come from Scripture: the Hebrew Bible as well as the New Testament.
    [Show full text]