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Even after all that, I simply do not feel I have a basic understanding of
what TSE is trying to convey.
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Not meaning to be contentious, only deliberative,
I wonder if Eliot was trying to convey anything.
I think the search for meaning in such a work is
a second order endeavour at best, and the result of
such work is one's own construction, quite removed from
Eliot's work.

SO what do I offer as an alternative?
I think E. was working with perception, not ideas.
He was trying to develop new modes of perception as
was Picasso, and as were the Quattro Cento folk way
back when, when they developed 3D in 2D techniques.
Imagine what realism must have done to the sensibilities
of the time. And then there was the bomb blast of "David"
propelling his inertia towards an overwhelming question.
Through the womb the women come and go...

A poem that is an instrument of perception is meant
to be looked through, not looked at. What it conveys
in itself is secondary(unless one is prepoccieyed with form).
What does it help us see within our own fields of
perception? Is Sweeney, say, a forerunner of the mindless
cowboy set that keeps the National Ryefull Ass. in buisness?

Cheers,
P.

Dr. Peter C. Montgomery
Dept. of English
Camosun College
3100 Foul Bay Rd.
Victoria, BC CANADA V8P 5J2
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www.camosun.bc.ca/~peterm