Because that was the question that was asked.
P.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DIana Manister" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 9:05 AM
Subject: Re: 'Gerontion' -- the dramatic arc


> Dear Peter,
> 
> I'm just leaving for a reading so have only a minute to respond. Why  
> do you focus so exclusively on Christian topoi in the poem? There are  
> other
> aspects to it that might inform your main interest, like the role of  
> nature, for example.
> 
> I'm off now to Greenwich Village and the Dada Salon!!
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Diana
> 
> Sent from my iPod
> 
> On Mar 19, 2010, at 12:51 AM, Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]>  
> wrote:
> 
> > I put off answering this until I could give it some time.
> > Even still I'm not sure how to respond.
> >
> > Is the question whether Eliot was manifesting or even asserting a  
> > Christian
> > faith?
> > I demure on that because I get the sense of a kind of sitting on the  
> > fence
> > in the poem --
> >  the effect that caused several to say the poem doesn't have a  
> > dramatic
> > arch
> > ( I disagree, having been in one two many Beckett plays.[pun  
> > intended, of
> > course.])
> >
> > I am still taken with the idea that G. may represent or somehow be  
> > connected
> > to St. Paul's "old man",
> > in effect he stands for human nature as fallen or decrpit or flawed or
> > whatever, a crucifer of original sin,
> > even if St. Paul didn't use the word "geron" to describe the old guy  
> > (a
> > penny for, &c.).
> >
> > I wonder if the tiger is Blake's, esp given Blake's illustration.
> > Blake's tiger is awesome. Eliot's is vicious.
> > Eliot's tiger emerges in spring; Blake's is in the forests of  the  
> > night.
> >
> > Inevitably Blake's cat comes up, but I don't think that is why ELiot  
> > is
> > using
> > this particular practical cat. The tiger ius everything geron. isn't.
> > Geron. is just cat food, or so he seems (pretends?) to see himself.
> > The cavern of the tiger's gut could well be a very windy house.
> >
> > Is that windy house a church?
> >
> > Or maybe Geron.is just good old Guy Fawkes ruminating as a failed  
> > member of
> > Al Qaeda,
> > the Catholic Church, lost in the bowels of Gitmo.
> >
> > Sorry. My imagination is starting to take over, so I better quit  
> > while I'm
> > still
> > on the fence. Quit. Quite. Quiet.
> >
> > P.
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Ken Armstrong" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 1:14 PM
> > Subject: Re: 'Gerontion' -- the dramatic arc
> >
> >
> >> Gerontion may be an old man, but he/it certainly is also something  
> >> else,
> >> perhaps two or three something elses, a house of a certain sort with
> >> windy spaces for sure. So packing the whole emotional content into  
> >> one
> >> Geron may not make a true, or at least a final, yield. In a way, a
> >> Gerontion is the diminutive of Geron, so Gerontion could be a knock- 
> >> off
> >> of a little old man, a small something made by man.
> >>
> >> Peter Montgomery wrote:
> >>> Well he seems to be a frustrated old man who has literally
> >>> lost his senses. I feel so much irony in what he says, but  that is
> >>> just the effect it has for me.
> >>>
> >>  But irony and frustration in Gerontion's words are not the same as  
> >> TSE
> >> mocking, although he seems to be qualifying the thought of many poets
> >> and philosophers here. That he is doing it in an age of unbelief  
> >> has to
> >> constitute some of the ground of the poem and therefore some of the
> >> effect. As McLuhan observed, just making an observation about  
> >> something
> >> in the descendent comes off as criticism, while about the ascendent  
> >> the
> >> effect is praise, even though in both cases it is neutral  
> >> observation.
> >>> Then there is the fact that he is not using a standard Christian  
> >>> image.
> >>> Christ is
> >>> usually associated with the lion as a king image.
> >>>
> >>   Blake's Tiger broke that ground, though, so the effect of TSE using
> >> Tiger here is not in its innovation.
> >>> The tiger has a vicious, emotional character, the kind of thing that
> >>> is dead in Gerry.
> >>   Yes, but again, what kind of person is it who sits and listens to a
> >> boy reading  --SANS ALL SENSES? The kind who is not a man, right?
> >>> There is a certain fatalistic quality.
> >>> Us he devours once and for all, the whole sinful human race, down
> >>> the gullet all at once present, past and future.
> >>>
> >>> The idea of a similar tiger doing a similar thing in our modern
> >>> culture rather appeals, even though it's already been done, once for
> > all.
> >>>
> >>   OK, so I've gotta ask: isn't this somewhat like taking a sign for a
> >> wonder?
> >>
> >>  I'm still grappling with that "changing human nature" thing.
> >>
> >> Yrs.
> >> Ken
> >>> "Christ who had no sin, became sin for us."
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> Peter
> >>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>> From: "Ken Armstrong" <[log in to unmask]>
> >>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> >>> Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 4:22 PM
> >>> Subject: Re: 'Gerontion' -- the dramatic arc
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>  Peter,
> >>>>
> >>>>  Do you think he's mocking it? Yes or no make very different poems.
> >>>>
> >>>>  Is it that human nature is transformed?
> >>>>
> >>>>  My impression, just to be out front, is that it is an unmocking,  
> >>>> or
> >>>> rather unmocked, Christian vision at work in Gerontion.
> >>>>
> >>>>  Ken
> >>>> //
> >>>> Peter Montgomery wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Thanks Ken. It doesn't mean that Eliot believed that; he just
> > understood
> >>>>>
> >>> the
> >>>
> >>>>> theology very clearly, and was perhaps mocking it.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> That he later came to believe it creates an interesting shadow  
> >>>>> effect.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> ...this is very nice
> >>>>>> Peter, and makes sense in a number of ways. Christ the Tiger thus
> >>>>>> assimilates us to the Body of Christ. In Eliot, the way up and  
> >>>>>> the
> > way
> >>>>>> down are often the same, and what appears to be a negative has an
> >>>>>> ostensibly positive import.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Peter Montgomery wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I suspect that the tiger's pouncing in spring is Jesus'
> > resurrection.
> >>>>>>> In overcoming death, he devours the old man and transforms
> >>>>>>> human nature into something new which actually participates in
> >>>>>>> the divine nature as adopted sons of God.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Jesus did say at one point in one of the gospels, "You are as  
> >>>>>>> gods."
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Hope that adds some zest to your being munched.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >