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OK, in fact I do not think his work is at all about a sense of being abandoned himself. He depicts abandoned women constantly (usually first violated or emotionally rejected): Portrait of a Lady, La Figlia, Prelude III, Rhapsody, Hysteria, the hysteric in Sweeney Erect, the Hyacinth girl, the neurotic wife (patterned on Vivienne), Lil, the Thames daughters, the typist, the girl who got "done in," the strangled lover in The Love Song of San Sebastion, the woman in Entretien dans un parc, the little girl in Dans le Restaurant, the girl of Paysage Triste, the woman in Suppressed Complex. . . . I omit the plays, the allusions to Dido, Queen Elizabeth, Philomela, Procne, etc., etc., etc. Prufrock, no doubt, expresses a feeling of being rejected, but he is not simply Eliot though that poem can be read as at least a deep anxiety about women. It was originally titled "Prufrock among the Women," and clearly they evoke anxiety and insecurity. But it is women who are abandoned constantly in the poems. In which poems do you find this personal abandonment of the poet? That it can be argued (and has been) that Eliot also in one sense identifies with these women is a different and more complicated issue. And where specifically do you find a sense of being abandoned by god instead of abandoning god? I said nothing at all about trying to find oneself in a lost world or about whether that is or would be pointless, so I have no comment on that. Nancy Date sent: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 21:12:28 EST Send reply to: [log in to unmask] From: [log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Thoughts on "La Figlia che Piange" In a message dated 1/26/02 1:37:53 AM !!!First Boot!!!, [log in to unmask] writes: > Well that makes his poetry pretty pointless. Summed up in one > word--even were it agreed on. > > I don't see how what I said makes his poetry pointless. If you don't agree that he expresses in much of his poetry a sense of being abandoned (by his mother, by women, by viv, by god)? At least you must admit that he comes across as person in a lost world attempting to find himself or the truth, or both. I don't consider that endeavor pointless. Kate (hurried home from a barbecue by her husband who wanted to watch Jennifer Capriotti in the finals of the Australian Open; and for my own part, I would say, in keeping with the subject matter of our various discussions, that Jennifer is the most poetic professional tennis player today and I might even watch some of the match).