Dear Peter,
You're a task-master, indeed! Not so stern though ;-)
A little more exploration brought me to the following elucidation at:
http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/hmcl1007/1007anth/eliot.html
19. Eyes: In the Purgatorio, xxx and xxxi, Beatrice's eyes are a symbol of
spiritual reality -- on which account Dante both longs and dreads to behold
them.
64. multifoliate rose: Cf. Dante's Celestial Rose made of light, Paradiso,
XXX 116 --"how vast is the spread of this rose in its outermost leaves."
The rose is traditionally Christ's emblem (and the Virgin's).
Regards.
~ CR
cr mittal <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Dear Peter: You seem to have in mind what Grover Smith said on this:
Theirs is the "dream kingdom" where the eyes are but a memory. They
must invade the "other kingdom," the "twilight kingdom" of actual death,
which, after further purgatorial trial, may vouchsafe to them, through the
eyes of pain and joy, a way upward, even to the "multifoliate rose"
of the final cantos of the Paradiso, to "the perpetual star,"
a symbol of the Holy Virgin. [emphasis mine]
It was Beatrice, though, I always associated these images with.
I'm prompted to go back to the Commedia. Thanks.
Regards.
~ CR
Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Any thoughts about these particular lines:
................................
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
..............................
For Thine is the Kingdom
..............................
Here's a clue: Dante.
Cheers,
Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: cr mittal
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 7:18 AM
Subject: Re: Eliot's visit to pre-historic Tombs
The Hollow Men ??? Wow! I never thought of that. Many thanks, Peter.
At your instance, I explored the poem and found, to my great surprise,
that it was, indeed, saturated in primitive lore -- the mindset, the magical
rites et al. I wish to draw the List's attention to the following lines in the
poem:
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
It should be interesting in this regard to read the following excerpt
from an article by David Chinitz.
~ CR
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chinitz, David "In the Shadows: Popular Song and Eliot's Construction
of Emotion" Modernism/modernity - Volume 11, Number 3, September
2004, pp. 449-467. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/modernism-modernity/v011/11.3chinitz.html
Excerpt:
The "Shadow" that falls in The Hollow Men "Between the emotion / And
the response / . . . Between the desire / And the spasm" thwarts sexual consummation in a land where "Lips that would kiss / Form prayers to
broken stone."3 Neither emotion nor desire is absent; indeed, the hollow
men "trembl[e] with tenderness" at night. But the Shadow interposes,
and desire is spent in obscure and ineffectual religious rites.
Eliot's poetry is full of such frustrating shadows...
----------------------------
Peter Montgomery <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Curious that "The Hollow Men" is never referred to on this list.
Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: cr mittal
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2006 3:34 AM
Subject: Re: Eliot's visit to pre-historic Tombs
Many thanks, Peter, for these insightful remarks.
The contemplation of "the original primitive sensibilities" was, indeed,
a core concern to Eliot.
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