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You'll excuse me, Rickard, but IMHO, when a sharp and perceptive mind like Eliot's comes into contact with another language, be it Greek, Latin, French, German, Sanskrit or Pali, it is not just a language per se but through that medium an art, a culture, a way of life that informs his creative mind. He imbibes as well the rhythms of that language, the syntax and structure of its thought, as well as its vision of life. Surely it affects in many subtle ways his music of poetry. I wonder in how many subtle ways Eliot's poetry is informed by such influences. Regards, CR |
| I've been thinking but I haven't come up with any way the Eliot's facility with foreign languages actually helped his writing poetry in English. As for his use of the foreign phrases though he often combined several languages rather close together. Mostly epigraphs but then there is the closing of TWL. The quickest switch must be in the later dedication to Verdenal where he has English and French in the first line and then goes on to a quotation from Dante in the Italian. It seems to me to the by using the languages so close together E. was striving to show a universality in life. Regards, Rick Parker |