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"Preludes" is a series of verses about the decadence and decline of modern society, and more
particularly of modern urban society. Each prelude deals with a different aspect of this decline.
THE POET AND HIS POEM
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888. He attended Harvard University and
graduated with a Masters degree in Philosophy. While there, he published several poems in the
Harvard Advocate.
The poet left the United States in 1910, moving first to France, then Germany and finally London. He
married Vivienne Haigh-Wood in 1915, which caused him to settle permanently in England.
His marriage was never successful, however, and they separated in 1933. In 1956 he would remarry, this
time to Valerie Fletcher.
Early during his stay in London, Eliot fell under the influence of Ezra Pound -- the great American poet
-- who also assisted in the publication of his early poetry.
The publication of his first book of poetry -- Prufrock and Other Observations, 1917 -- revealed
Eliot as a forerunner of Modernism, the philosophy of Modern Art. His next book -- The Waste
Land, 1922 -- is claimed by many to contain some of the most important poetry of the 20th century.
Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. He died in London in 1965.
"Preludes" has been described as a vivid portrayal of the decadence and decline of modern society,
and more particularly of modern urban society.
This was not a new theme. Indeed, Oswald Spengler -- the great German Philosopher of History -- was
already writing about the collapse of Western Society. The Great War of 1914-18, Spengler wrote, was
simply a manifestation of this collapse.
Eliot and Spengler were contemporaries and it is probable that the poet would have read the German's
writings while studying philosophy at Harvard University, although Spengler's best known work -- The
Decline of the West -- would be published only in 1918, one year after Eliot's own publication of
"Preludes".
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
"His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o'clock."
- Whose soul is being referred to here? (4)
[Need help?]
There could be two or more interpretations here. Perhaps the poet is speaking about humanity's soul.
Or is Eliot perhaps using a religious image: a reference to the soul of Jesus Christ which is being
stretched across the polluted skies, or trampled underfoot by mankind's irreverence?
Could it be both? Or maybe more?
Eliot himself has said that our interpretation must always be correct as long as it is based on a logical
reading of the poem. There is no single interpretation. Once written, the poem takes on an existence
of its own and can be interpreted in many different ways according to the reader's thoughts.
This makes examining such a poem as this difficult, doesn't it? Unless, of course, the examiner chooses
to ignore Eliot's own directive and claims but a single interpretation of his poetry -- namely the examiner's
own! But how then do you know what the examiner is thinking?
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- Why should his soul be "stretched tight across the skies" or "trampled by insistent
feet"? (4)
[Need help?]
Being stretched was a form of torture. Or remember Bilbo Baggins who said it felt that his life was being
stretched, and how uncomfortable this made him. Perhaps Western Society was now old and nearing
death -- and, like Bilbo, was being stretched by the evil which had possessed it.
To be trampled underfoot is to be humiliated. The rubbish, the outcasts of life, get trampled underfoot.
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"And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world."
- While the "short square fingers" are stuffing pipes, what are the eyes doing? (1)
[Need help?]
Surely the eyes are reading the newspapers?
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- What news would the newspapers have been featuring? (2)
[Need help?]
T.S. Eliot wrote this poem in 1917. The Great War was being waged and so the newspapers would have
been full of news from the war-front.
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- Why then does the poet speak of the eyes that are assured of "certain
certainties"? (4)
[Need help?]
Perhaps Eliot is poking gentle fun at the little grey-haired men reading their newspapers. They believed
every word that the broadsheets were telling them. They were certain the journalists were correct. On
the other hand, the journalists themselves believed in the certainty of victory. There could indeed be no
doubt of victory.
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- What is "the conscience of a blackened street"? (4)
[Need help?]
The "conscience of a blackened street" was possibly the conscience that had taken mankind into
war in the first place. But this was the same conscience that had blackened the street, polluted it,
strangled the life from it.
This was the great age of what is now called "Social Darwinism" -- the belief that certain nations
had not only the right but the God-given moral obligation to rule over the other nations. It was a misguided
belief but which was accepted as true by all the governments back then.
If this is so, then the poet is pointing to the logic -- or illogic -- of such beliefs: that it is the same idiotic
belief in the right to rule the world that had taken the world into a major war -- and which had destroyed
the conscience of humanity.
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- Why would this conscience be "impatient to assume the world"? (4)
[Need help?]
In terms of Social Darwinism, it was a case of the survival of the fittest. The fittest nation therefore had
the right and the duty to rule over the unfit. The strongest nations at the time -- Britain, Germany, France,
Russia and Austria -- were therefore mostly impatient to become involved in warfare because armed
struggle was the means by which they would indeed rule the world.
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"I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing."
- The poet has studiously avoided use of the personal pronoun "I". What is the significance of
his using it now? (4)
[Need help?]
Having striven to remain on the outside while looking in, the poet suddenly reveals his own soul. Does
he point out that the picture he has painted is not quite so gloomy, that his intuition tells him that there is
something greater out there beyond the control of society?
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- What is this "infinitely gentle infinitely suffering thing"? (4)
[Need help?]
This "infinitely gentle infinitely suffering thing" could be a reference to the Christian concept that
Jesus Christ is there, looking after those who have trampled his name. (It does seem that the poet was
indeed exploring Christian religion at this moment in his life.) Or perhaps he has in mind some other
world-soul, an earth-goddess along the lines of Wordsworth's pantheism?
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"Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots."
- Explain the change in tone in "Wipe your hand across your mouth, and
laugh". (4)
[Need help?]
The tone of the preludes thus far has been gloomy. The poet has portrayed society in a remarkably poor
light, as being in a state of decay, of living a masquerade, of fostering social isolation, destroying the world
with pollution and spiritual neglect. Suddenly, however, the poet tells us to laugh because life will carry
on, no matter what.
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- Comment on the image of the ancient women "gathering fuel in vacant lots". (4)
[Need help?]
Is the poet being cynical here? After all, what type of fuel can be gathered from vacant lots? The image
is of women gathering sticks from ancient forests, but the forests have gone and there are no sticks
available in the empty lots.
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