I note that this post overlaps my post. Lots here to work out. 

Carrol

Diana Manister wrote:
> 
> Dear Peter,
> 
> By de-civilized I meant less civilized than previously. Not
> uncivilized. Europe's sense of itself as Enlightened could not be
> maintained after the mutual butchery and unethical practices of the war.
> 
> But Kurtz is a paradigm or symbol for  de-civilization. It's the
> book's main theme to which all sub-themes and leitmotifs relate.
> 
> Thanks for thinking of that.
> 
> Diana
> 
> Sent from my iPod
> 
> On May 24, 2010, at 2:16 AM, Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> 
> > Eliot was a big fan of THE HEART OF DARKNESS.
> >
> > Is Kurtz de-civilised?
> >
> > Mr. Civilisation, he dead!
> >
> > P.
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Carrol Cox" <[log in to unmask]>
> > To: <[log in to unmask]>
> > Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2010 7:19 AM
> > Subject: Re: Mr. Eugenides
> >
> >
> >> Diana Manister wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Peter,
> >>>
> >>> Yes dehumanized. De-civilized too, if you will,
> >>
> >> "decivilized" (which is also not Eliot's word) is an even more
> >> inappropriate metaphor than dehumanized. The behavior of the clerk is
> >> only possible within civilization! For one thing, even in a
> >> pre-capitalist class societies she would not have been living alone
> >> or
> >> preparing her own meal. Those tins involved international commerce.
> >> Moreover, the entire episode presupposes the atomized social
> >> relations
> >> which appeared embryonically in the 175th-c (and Milton with amazing
> >> prescience grasped) and only fully (and only in England & the U.S.)
> >> in
> >> the 19th-c. They were only beginning to develop in France & Germany
> >> (and
> >> this enters into the causes of WW1).
> >>
> >> So whatever the young man and woman are or are not, they are highly
> >> civilized -- and surely Eliot had enough of an historical sense and
> >> was
> >> precise enough in his language (even the silent language of thought
> >> and
> >> intention) that he would never have seen these characters as
> >> de-ciivilized. These vague, sloppy categories introduced by readers
> >> rather than the poem trivialize the whole poem.
> >>
> >> Carrolk
> >