Sárospataki Füzetek 12. (2008)
2008 / 2. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Frank Sawyer: A reading of T. S. Eliot's Ashwednesday
Frank Sawyer defined as the ideological pursuit of good things that have been averted and distorted, whether power, money, pleasure, and so forth. In the same way recent writers analyzing the ideologies of modern times and the global problems of poverty, environmental degradation, terrorism, and other issues, say: ...if today’s paralyzing uncertainty and agonizing problems do indeed have deep, spiritual roots (roots that are ideological), then only a spiritual turn or reversal, a turn at the level of people’s deepest longings and convictions, will be able to generate practical ways out of today’s stubborn dilemmas. Problem-management solutions articulated independently of such a turn will not be effective.8 9 The repeated use of the term ‘turn’ in the quoted paragraph is veiy much in line with Eliot, who also wrote two books on faith and society and indeed had a keen nose for ideologies. So the poet-pilgrim hopes to press forward, distinguishing things that last from things more frivolous, and also distinguishing ideological blindness from a turning toward the good. However a contra-voice also warns the pilgrim that these steps in saintliness are limited: Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place And what is actual is actual only for one time And only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed face What we have here is the acknowledgment of the ambiguities of our life and spirit. The well-known theologian, Tillich, expressed this in an impressive way.9 Tillich speaks of many kinds of ambiguities, which enter into our understandings and our actions. In relation to aesthetic expression, he says the following, which fits very well with Eliot’s purposes: “...the aesthetic image is no less ambiguous than the cognitive concept and the grasping word”.10 We are tied to time and place. There are actualities at hand and potentialities cannot always be reached. In his turning the poet seems to point to two paths. He does not wish to follow the old path, but he can only follow the new path a little ways. He renounces the ‘blessed face’,11 which for Eliot also means a turning from former values to new ones. 8 Bob Goudzwaard, Mark Vander Vermen & David Van Heemst, Hope in Troubled Times: A New Vision for Confronting Global Crises (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 58. 9 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (James Nisbet & Co, 1968), vol. Ill, part IV. 10 Tillich, vol. Ill, part IV, 76. 11 This is usually seen as a reference to Dante’s Beatrice. Dante was a spiritual and literary master for Eliot. However, the reference to Dante has a personal setting for 68
