Just as people tend to be extraverts or introverts, perhaps innate personality traits lead them into either ascetism or affirmation. Eliot, maybe, was a dyed-in-wool aesthete, but perhaps, especially post-Valerie, mellowed considerably in his later years. Your article was interesting, CR. I've always associated 'East Coker' with Eliot at his finest: in a short poem, he evokes that which it took even Thomas Hardy exceedingly many more words to celebrate: it's a masterpiece of precise conciseness, yet such effective and reflective observation of ancestral agrarian village existence. To me, but I don't think to the author of the article, the image of the dance is syonymous with and inseparable from that of Yeats - particularly eg the last stanza of 'Among Schoolchildren' .Whether this was deliberate on Eliot's part, or just a case of two great visionaries seeing the same thing, I'm not too sure of, though. Happy Christmas Day !! On 24 December 2012 18:44, Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > "there we have been" > > "The inner freedom from the practical desire, > The release from action and suffering, release from the inner > And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded > By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving, > Erhebung without motion, concentration > Without elimination" > > a foretaste of paradise > > CR > > > _____________________________________________________________________________ > > Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]> wrote Sunday, December 23, 2012 8:30 AM: > > I was disappointed in the article you sent, David, on Eliot's Affirmative > Way. In the first para itself there are three glaring > distortions/misperceptions, one in each argument. The progress of thought, > for instance, is from EC III to EC V and not in the reverse order. //Nor > are epiphanical experiences as meaningless as "disturbing the dust ..."// The half a (mis)quotation "We had the experience but ..." fructifies in > the other half which is ignored. And the point about the failure to find > grace in ordinary experience is fallacious. Here is my answer by way of an > article. > The "East Coker" Dance in T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets: An Affirmation of > Place and Time > By Karey Perkins > http://www.kareyperkins.com/papers/eliot.html > > CR > > David Boyd <[log in to unmask]> wrote Saturday, December 22, 2012 4:55 AM: > > In case of any interest, please see the attached. [two attachments] > > On 22 December 2012 01:46, P <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > I have always been disappointed at the lack of attention garnered by the > Inklings compared to Yeats & Joyce. > P. M. > > David Boyd <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > Interesting topic, thanks, CR. > > Haven't read it in full, but curious, possibly, that the profound > influence of the thinking of an Eliot contemporary, Charles Williams, both > upon Eliot and many others, regarding negativity and affirmation isn't > mentioned, and neither seems to be relevant religious aspects of 4Q > > Prof. Grevel Lindop near Manchester UK is presently working on a biography > of Charles Williams. > > > > On 21 December 2012 16:11, Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > "And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of light." > > The via negativa of 'The Waste Land' > > The Aristotelian Mr. Eliot: Structure and Strategy in 'The Waste Land' > By Timmerman, John H. > Yeats Eliot Review, Vol. 24, No. 2 > Summer 2007 > > > http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-201711531/the-aristotelian-mr-eliot-structure-and-strategy > > CR > > ------------------------------ > Chokh Raj <[log in to unmask]> wrote Thursday, December 20, 2012 6:26 PM: > > T.S. Eliot > O Light Invisible > From The Rock > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBGXU37Ch58 > > CR > > > > > > > >