Sárospataki Füzetek 17. (2013)

2013 / 1-2. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Sawyer, Frank: Krisztus, egyház és világ T. S. Eliot Kórusok "A sziklá"-ból, 1934 c. versében

SAWYER FRANK

Christ, Church & world IN T.S. ELIOT'S 1934 CHORUSES FROM THE ROCK

/. 1 Eliot — introductory remarks

T

homas Steams Eliot1 was born in 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. He moved to England in 1914, where he lived and worked as a writer and editor until his death in 1965. His early and deepest impression was made on his contemporaries through The Waste Land (1922). But many of his other works are still read with awe, such as Four Quartets (1943). He is further remembered for his plays, perhaps especially Murder in the Cathedral (1935), and in another way for his Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939), which was adapted into a popular musical, called Cats (1982). In yet other ways he is remembered for his essays as a literary critic, and also for essays such as The Idea of a Christian Society (1939) and Notes Toward the Definition of Culture (1948). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948 and he is considered to be one of the most influential poets and literary critics of the twentieth century.

The style of his poetry displays a great variety. He introduces elusive eloquence that tickles the mind, and then mixes in jocular vernacular that jars the ears. All his poems play with intellectually discordant thoughts, discordant sounds, and unexpected juxtapositions, often depending on word-plays and half-hidden meanings or pointers. His writing is heavy with allusions, often in very short echoes of numerous centuries of past literature mixed with thoughts about contemporary situations. Indeed, his style, themes, and rhythmic versatility continually charm, while his evasive irony frustrates the reader who wants to know exactly what the poet means. His understatement is unarming, just as his continual inner monologues and pastiches of half-statements jump without providing a logical bridge to anywhere (or so it seems).

1 Cf. www.answers.com/topic/t-s-eliot. Peter Ackroyd, T.S.Eliot (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984). Lyndall Gordon, T.S.Eliot - An Imperfect Life (London: W. W.Norton, 1998).

2013/1 -2 SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK 65