Intro to Eliot

Ah Eliot! We've finally begun with Eliot...

I found our first class to be a great introduction. The films were great. They gave a good depiction of Eliot's life and mostly, the man he was in it. It's an odd view...because I think many of us in the class are infatuated with his writing, and so to think of him as 'a man who writes' seems odd; seems odd to call him ordinary.

He seemed like a nice man. That may sound wierd but, so many modern writers I study seem to be off the wall somehow...under the influence of something. But he seemed like a man that loved one woman for quite some time, and was very dedicated to her. After many years that ended, and much later he fell in love again. He seemed like a happy, calm man, not quite as tempermental as one might imagine: with all that emotion he writes with.

And I suppose that may have taken me aback a little bit. I expected there to be something aBOUT him. Where did the Waste Land come from? "You brought me hyancinths first a year ago..." Who did? Where is the intensity of his voice in his life? Watching the film, I searched for it, but found only a the part when it mentioned that he spent a certain amount of time producing the Waste Land. But from where? What was the influence? What exactly was he unhappy with...his writing, too, seems so historical that, while his writing is personal and his voice distinct, the subject matter does not seem to be of his life...perhaps he was a very internal person?

These questions, I expect, will be soon under investigation...

I liked that we resumed with a bunch of Eliot's poems. We got in a good variety, and the poetry was light. I really like the Love Song of Alfred Prufrock...and the hippopotamus one was interesting! It's crazy how many references he makes...more to come on this soon!