In a letter around the time of the War (I am in Scotland and do not have
my books here, so I cannot quote), Eliot described himself as a liberal.
The Nation was a leftist magazine, and Eliot chose to send an anti-war
letter in from a soldier--probably Maurice Haigh-Wood. He also praise
Keynes's book on the Economic Consequences of the War. It suggests that
Eliot's views were in a kind of flux, and his extreme conservatism a later
development. Clearly it was complicated at that time.
Nancy
>>> Peter Montgomery <
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4/17/2009 7:25 AM >>>
From: Nancy Gish
On the line you quote,
it clearly draws on Dante, as all the notes of all
scholars have noted for
decades, but it also evokes the dead of the War and
Eliot's own reactions
to it--as is so intense in the material Rickard sent.
And it is also a
response to the London life of his own experience. These
are also not
my own new notes, just what has been pointed to by others, but
the letter
to the Nation is
fascinating.
=============================================================
Interesting.
In what way is it fascinating?
When I first visited London in the late
60s, having finished an MA on TWL,
and preparing
material for my
doctorate at the British Meuseum, I visited the places
referenced in
TWL.
I was very surprised (naively so perhaps) to discover the Royal
Stock
Exchange
(of course no longer being used in the late 60s) right at
the centre of the
City.
All the streets radiate from it. It was the
magnate of the economy of the
British Empire, very
much a symbol of the
deadening economic forces that it housed. I have always
wondered
a bit,
why Eliot didn't use such a potent symbol of the syndrome he
was
exploring.
Maybe he did and I just missed
it.
P.