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Eliot was a big fan of THE HEART OF DARKNESS. Is Kurtz de-civilised? Mr. Civilisation, he dead! P. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Carrol Cox" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Sunday, May 23, 2010 7:19 AM Subject: Re: Mr. Eugenides > Diana Manister wrote: > > > > Peter, > > > > Yes dehumanized. De-civilized too, if you will, > > "decivilized" (which is also not Eliot's word) is an even more > inappropriate metaphor than dehumanized. The behavior of the clerk is > only possible within civilization! For one thing, even in a > pre-capitalist class societies she would not have been living alone or > preparing her own meal. Those tins involved international commerce. > Moreover, the entire episode presupposes the atomized social relations > which appeared embryonically in the 175th-c (and Milton with amazing > prescience grasped) and only fully (and only in England & the U.S.) in > the 19th-c. They were only beginning to develop in France & Germany (and > this enters into the causes of WW1). > > So whatever the young man and woman are or are not, they are highly > civilized -- and surely Eliot had enough of an historical sense and was > precise enough in his language (even the silent language of thought and > intention) that he would never have seen these characters as > de-ciivilized. These vague, sloppy categories introduced by readers > rather than the poem trivialize the whole poem. > > Carrolk