lesson8

• Triple identities: poet, dramatist, critic. • Writing period: 1915-1965 • Nationality: first American, then English in 1927. • Literature: modernism. • Notable prize: Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.
c. 433-line long, consisting of five parts I. The Burial of the Dead II. The Game of Chess III. The Fire Sermon IV. Death by Water V. What the Thunder Said d. quotations and allusions from 35 different writers and 6 languages, obscure and hard to understand
Thomas Stearns Eliot
(T. S. Eliot)
Outline
• Profile • Works • Award & literary position
Profile
“In my beginning is my end; in my end is my beginning.”—East Coker, Four Quartets
• 3. objective correlative: a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events, formula in which the poet expresses his emotion and in which the fusion of intellect, feeling, and experience should be achieved.
Marriage life
• On June 26, 1915 , Eliot and Vivienne HaighWood got married. Vivienne was dead in 1947 . • On January 10, 1957, Eliot at the age of 68 married Esmé Valerie Fletcher, who was 32. In contrast to his first marriage, Eliot knew Fletcher well, as she had been his secretary at Faber and Faber since August 1949.
Critical essays
the Sacred Wood 《圣林》 Essays on Style and Order 《风格及秩序论文集》 Elizabethan Essays 《伊丽莎白论文集》 After Strange Gods 《拜异教之神》
• a. landmarks of modernism b. In October 1922, published in the Criterion and delicated to Ezra Pound
Family background
◆ His father, Henry Ware Eliot,a successful businessman, was the president of the Hydraulic Brick Company. ◆ His mother, Charlotte Champe Stearns, was a volunteer at the Humanity Club of St. Louis. Before becoming a volunteer, she was a teacher.
秘书》 秘书》
• 1959:The Elder Statesman 《元老》 元老》 • 1935: Murder in the Cathedral《大教
堂凶杀案》 堂凶杀案》 • Sweeney Aginistes 《力士斯威尼》 力士斯威尼》
Main Poetry
• 1915:The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock • 1925:The Hollow Man • 1922： The Waste Land • 1930: Ash-Wednesday • 1943：Four Quarters (Noble Prize for literature)
Writing style
1. Eliot’s poetry was becoming noted for its fresh visual imagery, its flexible tone, and highly expressive rhythm. 2. Eliot’s poetry is difficult to read. a. images and symbols seem disconnected b. his learned quotations and allusions.
Awards & Recognitions
Eliot received: • the Hanseatic Goethe Prize in 1954. • the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. • the Order of Merit in January 1948. • the Dante Gold Medal in 1959. • Eliot was recognized as an Officier de la Legion d’Honneur.
• 4.The poet should draw upon tradition: use the past to serve the present and future( the past, present, future interrelate), use the past to underscore what is missing from the present.
• 2. Modern life is chaotic, futile, fragmentary, so poetry should reflect this fragmentary nature of life and this kind nature of life should be projected, not analyzed.
• Birthday: 26 September, 1888. Birthplace: St. Louis, Missouri, United States • Death day: 4 January, 1965 (aged 76). Death place: London, England, United Kingmages, visual, auditory, olfactory, and more for the readers to figure out what is being said. • 4. Dramatic monologue
themes
• • • • Death Sexuality Lost generation The modern society was futile and chaotic • Religion • War
His aesthetic views:
1. A poem should be an organic thing in itself, a made object. Once it is finished, the poet will no longer have control of it. It should be judged, analyzed by itself without the interference of the poet’s personal influence and intentional elements and other elements.
Smith Academy 1898 to 1905
Milton Academy 1905 Harvard 1906-1910 1911-1914
Education
Oxford. 1914 Sorbonne 1910-1911
WORKS
Main Plays
• 1939:Family Reunion《全家团聚》 全家团聚》 • 1949:The Cocktail Party 《鸡尾酒会》 鸡尾酒会》 • 1954:The Confidential Clerk 《机要
Literary position
“a classicist in art, a royalist in politics, and an Anglo-Catholic in religion.”
• One of the literary leaders and the most outstanding writers of the 20th century; • A leader of the modernist movement in English poetry • A great innovator of verse technique