I'll buy that, but I don't think one can isolate and separate so easily.
The word HYPNOTISED is important. There is a trance like experience here.

My Britsh friends often refer to their electrical space heaters as fires.
The etymology here could be quite tricky. As with the women talking
about michelangelo, I think this needs to percolate until the obvious effect
surfaces.
Keep in mind that Eliot likes to create effects, and this one is VERY
effective, very tricky.

See you again after some percolcations.

Cheers,
Peter
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Dillane" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 3:11 PM
Subject: Re: electric heat, deep lane in East Coker


> Hey folks,
>
> Doesn't he mean more the kind of static charge in dry hot conditions.
Which
> was the earlier use of "electric" ( I know the etymology is argued )
before
> - as Faraday observed - electricity became a commodity which could  be
> taxed.
>
> Cheers Pete
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: T. S. Eliot Discussion forum. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
> Of Carrol Cox
> Sent: Thursday, 30 June 2011 8:33 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: electric heat, deep lane in East Coker
>
> Re: electric heat, deep lane in East Coker
>
> As Nancy noted, "electric" seems to present more difficult in finding the
> immediate 'literal' sense (or material base of that sense) than does "deep
> lane." I dobut very much that that reference could be actual "electrical
> heating systems." Any how, such heating systems tend to 'feel' more like
> hot-water heat than anything direct. Also, presumably the lane is shaded:
> the heat is invisible. But maybe that casts doubt on my first sentence.
> Electrical heating systems are invisible: no registers, no radiators, no
> noise of gurgling water, hissing steam, or rumbling fans. Still, the
> context, unlike the subway passages in Burnt Norton, does not seem to
> encourage bringing in modern technology as the image base. "Electric heat"
> has always 'felt' right to me, but then I never inuired into it as Tim now
> has.  The kind of electric heat common in Eliot's day would have been
stoves
> and toasters. Perhaps the cliché "hot as an oven" is floating in the
> background. Nah.  Then, incandexcent light bulbs give off a good deal of
> heat (as do the contemporary low-energy bulbs for that matter).
>
> On 6/29/2011 10:35 AM, Materer, Timothy J. wrote: Can anyone say what
Eliot
> might mean in East Coker by "electric heat"? I agree with the hermeneutic
> tradition that a word or phrase must first be construed in its immediate
> context before one goes wfhoring off after "deeper meanings." And in a
poem
> (or set of poems) concerned, both directly and indirectly, with "purifying
> the language of the tribe," with refusing to accept a worn-out poetic
> practice as adequate, I would hate to think Eliot would have allowed
himself
> the dissolute practice of merely depending on the vague suggestiveness of
a
> term. (For example, "awful daring of a moment's surrender" in TWL
resolutely
> rejects thinkingof "awful" in such contexts as "Wasn't that an awfully
> meal." It forces the reader back to "awe-inspiring"; something that forces
> attention to halt and gaze in "admirationd" (in the Horatian sense, as in
> Pope's "Not to admire is all the art I know / To make men happy and to
keep
> them so"). (All quotations from memory.) In short, I really would like an
> answer to Tim's question - and my quasi-freeassociation hasn't carried us
> very far.
>
> Carrol
>
> "And the deep lane insists on the direction / Into the village, in the
> electric heat / Hypnotised."
>
> Maybe it has to do with the etymology of the word?
>
> Also, a question for those who are better acquainted with the mother
tongue,
> is "deep lane" Eliot's original image, or is he using a common term for a
> road?
>
>
> Timothy Materer
> English Department
> Univ. of Missouri