Thanks to Rickard for posting the link. I get a sense of how deeply
involved TSE is with the entertainments and entertainers he discusses,
especially of course Marie Lloyd. His cheap motorcars for horses may not
have held, autos and their gigantic, national economy-driving service
environments being anything but cheap; but he certainly saw the coming
of ear buds and bluetooth (or whatever the newest audio transmitter may
be): "when electrical ingenuity has made it possible for every child to
hear its bed-time stories through a wireless receiver attached to both
ears"; between texting and randomly crossing streets while listening to
iPods, I sometimes wonder how the students in this college town survive
(some don't, of course, as the occasional meeting of oblivious walker
stepping in front of distract driver inevitably does occur).

   I'm pretty sure Muldoon would be aware of the London letter. And I
appreciate some of the feedback I definitely unwittingly prompted. I
actually know, BTW, what a metaphor is. And it's fair to say that TWL is
a drama that takes place on Eliot's stage. It did occur to me, as Carrol
noted, that viewing TWL as a night at the music hall, is a way, or an
attempt at a way, to organize the experience of reading TWL. And the
Marie Lloyd letter, including the time of publication of it, definitely
lends some appeal to this idea. I'd just say that it's legitimate if it
is the organizing principle of the poem, not just an external tool
brought in to fashion coherence where without it none is perceived.

Ken A


On 10/18/2013 5:40 PM, P wrote:
> In all the banter which you evoked (unwittingly I'm sure) Ken, I saw
> no reference to Eliot's little essay on Marie Lloyd, which provides a
> pretty definitive view of Eliot's high regard for the music hall, esp.
> its moral dimension. See Selected Essays. I wonder if Mr. Muldoon
> was/is/will be aware of it.
> P. M.
>