And where might one find such hagiography?
I would be very interested. It'sexistence keeps getting asserted, but its
presence is nowhere to be found.

P.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DIana Manister" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 3:47 AM
Subject: Re: 'Gerontion' -- the dramatic arc


> Dear Ken,
> 
> Firstly, no one asserted that Eliot was out of control. Every text  
> comprises signifieds that escaped the authors attention and intention,  
> often bringing contradictory meanings into it. Absolute control is a  
> fantasy. Eliot was more aware than most writers of polyvalent  
> connotations in his work, but he had his blind spots.
> 
> Second, Eliot's genius created formal innovations as well as  
> transforming poetic content. Not to study Eliot because of a distaste  
> for his inhumane prejudices would be foolish.
> 
> You indicate that anyone not engaged in writing Eliot hagiography  
> should be banned from discussing his work.
> 
> Diana
> 
> Sent from my iPod
> 
> On Mar 1, 2010, at 9:03 PM, Ken Armstrong <[log in to unmask]>  
> wrote:
> 
> > George Carless wrote:
> >> Ken Armstrong ([log in to unmask]) wrote the following on  
> >> Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 09:30:08AM -0500:
> >>
> >>> DIana Manister wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Who says the Jew is Jesus? He's depicted as negatively as Fresca  
> >>>> and von Kulp. Who are they? Mary Magdelene and The Blessed Mother?
> >>> You have to place yourself in the poem. Where is Gerontion while  
> >>> being read to by a boy? What is being read? Where does one find  
> >>> "the jew" (not "a jew") squatting on a window sill? One who owns  
> >>> "the house"? One who has been spawned, blistered, patched and  
> >>> peeled, i.e. the "fish" in stained glass in just those city- 
> >>> centers of Europe? What is the significance of the poem's locale  
> >>> to "the field overhead"? You'd have to give up your fantasy Eliot,  
> >>> the negative one for whom all things created in his poetry somehow  
> >>> equate to psychological fissures and fractures, to dig to the real  
> >>> one whom the critics you quote do not touch. The odd thing to me  
> >>> is how obvious it is that he hasn't been touched, that such an  
> >>> easy identification of "the jew" is so difficult for the Eliot  
> >>> Distraction League to simply see, not to say they couldn't sober  
> >>> up, gather themselves, and push on from that obvious beginning
> >>>
> >>
> >> Go on, then. Where *is* Gerontion, while being read to by a boy?  
> >> What is being read? Where *does* one find "the Jew" (and is it too  
> >> much to hope that you can justify in some way, from the text, your  
> >> implication that the 'the' in "the Jew" makes it Christian rather  
> >> than derogatory?   Justify, indeed, *any* of this from a reading of  
> >> the text that doesn't simply fall back to "why, it's so obvious!   
> >> how can you not see it?"
> >>
> >   George,
> >
> > The questions sort of answered themselves, I thought. Once you see  
> > them, at least, you have to give up the superficial view that  
> > Gerontion is hate speech composed by an out of control poet. I mean,  
> > what foolishness.
> >> All of this talk of the "Eliot Distraction League" and its like  
> >> becomes quickly tiresome.
> > Perhaps you should expend your limited energies elsewhere?
> >> What of the Eliot Sycophancy League?
> >>
> >   If you were right, why bother with Eliot at all? The League of  
> > Distracted Eliot Scholars (just like that, an upgrade to 2.0) is in  
> > the oddest of positions: its members claim Eliot to be the crassest  
> > of individuals while at the same time being a poet who  
> > created......what? What's worth "recovering" of Eliot if you  
> > honestly think he is the small-minded, mean-spirited poet whose  
> > treatment of Jews and others is "sordid"? Sorry, but these critics  
> > are fashion mongers who add nothing to Eliot studies, except of  
> > course bean hill after bean hill of distraction. Based on the  
> > fanciful idea that if they just find ENOUGH ELIOT LIFE BEANS, the  
> > scale will be tipped in their favor. It will never happen, of  
> > course, but they do not realize it, nor wish to.
> >
> > Do you recollect what Eliot said would be the fate of his Poems  
> > 1920? Gerontion is waiting for rain, the spirit. Where do you think  
> > he is?
> >
> > Ken
> >