Carrol Cox wrote:
>> On Mar 5, 2010, at 6:37 AM, Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> The poem contains A LOT of Chritian elements and so they need to be
>>> dealt
>>> with.
>>> Are we to pretend they aren't there?
>>>       
>
> So does Lightr in  August. So the question is, first of all, from what
> perspective are we to approach the explanation of these items. In both
> cases we have knowledge that it is simply childish to ignore: Neither
> Faulkner when he wrote Light in Aughuse nor Eliot when he wrote
> Gerontion was Christian. So the interpretive 'problem' involves
> expalinng the existence of Christian imagery or references in a
> non-Christian poem written within a given cultural context.
>
> I don't care to waste time or energy responding to arguments which begin
> with a clear error and by rigojrous logic end up in bedlam. The idea
> that Gerontion was a Christian poem is the kind of error that makes
> further discussion pointless.
>   
   Carrol und Alles,

  Why is it pointless to discuss? The error seems to me to be yours (& 
others'), and an error, to be accurate, of the most simplistic kind. You 
assume you know the constitution of Eliot's inner life prior to 1927, 
but logic (bad logic is one of my pet peeves, too, and Lord knows 
there's plenty to be peevish about on this list) doesn't dictate at all 
that to be committed to a Christian vision he had to be publicly 
baptized in a particular Christian communion. Then, where there IS 
evidence of said Christian commitment, you (the general "you" of this 
class of Eliot readers, not to say of this sect of co-conspirators 
[.........that last is a joke.....]) simply deny it or gloss over it: 
"But this or such was Bleistein's way" could not have been a louder 
announcement of Eliot's particular poetic way (as he conceived of it), 
the way of the crucified Christ. Now, my definition of "pointless" is 
not admitting this into the discussion, and with self-righteous 
expressions of fatigue at having to entertain scenarios which do not fit 
your world view. If you "don't care to waste time or energy responding 
to arguments which begin with a clear error," how is that I keep reading 
exactly, by your professed lights, those posts from you? Seems a tad 
disingenuous.
 
  Missed or not, I'm sorry to be little present to the Gerontion 
threads. I've been rereading Guy Brown's appreciation of the poem, ten 
years old now, and laboring under a heavy work schedule. There have been 
a few good calls for substantiation of certain claims or to take into 
account the syntax of the poem and Guy's reading supplies those 
interstices of thought and word in great detail, line by line, stanza by 
stanza, source by source (you're right about Dream of Gerontius, Diana), 
word by word, and epigraph. I'm surprised here that no one has really 
taken up the significance of the epigraph.

 I looked up the letter in which TSE predicts how his Poems 1920 would 
be taken and will post it later if no one else does.

Ken