
Why T.S. Eliot still matters - apollinaire
https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/may-june-2020/why-t-s-eliot-still-matters/
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brian_cunnie
I remember the first time I read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. It spoke
to me, powerfully.

I tried The Wasteland next, but I didn't get it.

~~~
zebraflask
You have to be in the right frame of mind. I think it can help to look at it
like a series of short stories, each one building up a psychological or
philosophical premise under the surface that is then layered onto by the next.

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Animats
Because, Cats.

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Mediterraneo10
In the public forum, Eliot’s stature does seem to be high. Yet I wonder how
many people celebrating him are under the age of thirty. Readers over thirty
are likely to have discovered him in decades past when, firstly, there was
more of a culture of actual print books (Eliot’s long and intricate verse
works best on the physical page), and secondly, much of the canon (and the
whole idea of a canon) had not yet been so savagely criticized as white, male
and elitist.

Readers under the age of thirty, on the other hand, may have grown up
discovering poetry through a phone screen, and for readers who believe that
favoring female and minority voices is a moral and ethical issue, Eliot’s male
and privileged background works against him.

Thus, while Eliot’s stature is momentarily high because readers of an older
generation with older values are presently in a position of authority and can
celebrate him, I suspect a critical backlash in the years to come.

~~~
jaredklewis
> and for readers who believe that favoring female and minority voices is a
> moral and ethical issue, Eliot’s male and privileged background works
> against him.

I find it strange that you suggest younger readers would pass over Eliot given
his race and background. If one is going to mix ethics and art, surely the
fact that Eliot was an adamant anti-semite would be considered long before
Eliot's race or background.

Even when Eliot was alive, there were calls from those in the currently "over
thirty" crowd to discard Eliot (or fellow anti-semites like Ezra Pound) from
literary study.

My own impressions of "under thirty readers" is far more favorable than yours.
They seem as thoughtful as ever and take a very nuanced view of such issues. I
think one can recognize the brilliance of Eliot's work, but also argue that
time for literary study is limited at every level, so making cuts is
inevitable. If we are making cuts anyway, arguing that diversity and ethical
considerations are worth considering seems quite reasonable.

~~~
starkd
The literary critic, Christopher Ricks, disputes that characterization of
Eliot as an anti-semite. He wrote a book in defense of him here:
[https://www.amazon.com/T-Eliot-Prejudice-Christopher-
Ricks/d...](https://www.amazon.com/T-Eliot-Prejudice-Christopher-
Ricks/dp/0571170358)

~~~
dntbnmpls
"And the Jew squats on the window sill, the owner,

Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp,

Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London."

[https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47254/gerontion](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47254/gerontion)

There is no disputing Eliot's antisemtism. Eliot was born in the late 1800s.
Back then pretty much everyone, especially the educated, were antisemites and
racist. Even the "lovable" Albert Einstein was racist. It was a different
world/time. And the racism of Eliot or Einstein doesn't detract from the work.
You have to separate the art/science from the artist/scientist.

~~~
starkd
"Back then pretty everyone were antisemites and racist".

That's a pretty bold statement, but I will add that the modern state of Israel
could not have come about without some key luminaries who stood up for the
Jewish people. One being Benjamin Disraeli, UK prime minister. Among many
others. In fact, it could be argued that the uk in the 1800s was one of the
friendliest places for Jews to live and work.

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fmajid
That's assuming he ever mattered in the first place, as good an example as any
of begging the question.

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irishcoffee
He didn’t. He was a fad of high school English teachers in 2000-2005, so now a
handful of 30-somethings think he was some kind of important figure. Silly.

~~~
dang
Please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN. You've done it a lot,
unfortunately, and it's not what this site is for.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
irishcoffee
How is it unsubstantive?

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dang
It is a shallow dismissal, snarky, and a non sequitur, for starters.

~~~
irishcoffee
Should I find all the other comments that mimic mine in the past week to see
if you’ve singled them out? There’s twitter threads full of them.

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irishcoffee
Never long dang you’re right. I won’t comment or submit anything again. I
clearly don’t understand the criteria. Cheers.

~~~
dang
You're entirely welcome to participate here, and it's not hard to understand
the criteria, if you read the guidelines and take the intended spirit of the
site to heart. Basically, we want to have a place on the internet that's good
for curious conversation and manages to escape the default outcome of internet
forums, which is to decline and eventually destroy themselves.

If you take a look at these links maybe the reason why we do things this way
will get a little clearer, and if not, we're happy to answer any questions
from users who sincerely want to use HN as intended.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20scorched%20earth&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20stave&sort=byDate&type=comment)

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sideshowb
He wrote a whole collection about cats. Cats are like 56% of the internet
right? Definitely still matters.

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mhd
"...what can be saved from the ruins"

What ruins would this apply to now? I see that the mission statement of the
magazine is "defending Western civilization". Erm...

~~~
mcantelon
Law of the jungle's where it's at.

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preordained
The Waste Land might be the most pretentious thing I've ever read. It just
oozes self-importance. I've never seen any work that could be described as
great that has an overt peacocking quality to it.

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dang
If you think that's bad, try Byron. "Overt peacocking" has been a thing in
poetry for centuries. The hiphop of our era is an example.

I have the opposite impression of Eliot though. I thought self-erasure was a
core principle of his poetics.

