I did not ask if missionaries were ever killed: I asked about crucifixion.
Nancy
On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 10:30 PM, Kate Nichols <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> As to Africa, there were missionaries trying to convert the people there.
>
> As to The Waste Land, what always struck me is how he depicted the typist
> and her "friend" as oh so boring middle class. For certain, the "American
> Dream" had little interest for him; in fact, he found it threatening to his
> way of thinking.
>
> If he lived in America today, what would he find, but Jews named Smith and
> Christians name Cohen because of a high intermarriage rate, another words,
> assimilation. He would find a lot of black people and Hispanic people with
> good jobs and their own businesses. And, half, at least, of the American
> military consisting of blacks.
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 8:07 PM, Chanan Mittal <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> *Celia’s death in The Cocktail Party *
>>
>> ELIOT’S FICTION IS DERIVED FROM FACTS.
>>
>> The circumstances of Celia’s death in The Cocktail Party do correspond to
>> certain facts in the history of Christian missions among the aborigines.
>>
>> 1901 - Missionary James Chalmers was killed and eaten by cannibals in
>> Papua New Guinea.
>>
>> 1943 - According to Time Magazine, five NTM missionaries (New Tribes
>> Mission, an evangelical Christian mission) were killed by aboriginal
>> Bolivians.
>>
>> That the non-converts in Eliot’s version resorted to crucify Celia is not
>> unimaginable as a mode of punishment. There were their brethren, the
>> converts, and the story of Christ would not be unknown.
>>
>> Where is RACISM in all this?
>>
>> CR
>>
>> On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 4:00 PM Nancy Gish <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> Celia's death is worse than just racist (though it is racist). It is
>>> also misogynist and, in the play, totally gratuitous. For her to die as a
>>> missionary might well make sense within the terms of the play, but the
>>> gruesome scene of an upside-down crucifixion over an ant hill does nothing
>>> for the play and is a kind of low horror only matched by the "Love Song of
>>> St. Sebastian."
>>>
>>> And is there any historical evidence for African natives using
>>> crucifixion, or is it just a sick imagination? (Serious question)
>>> Nancy
>>>
>>> On Sat, Nov 18, 2017 at 3:53 PM, Cox, Carrol <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> TWL is, I still think, a great and important poem. But any attempt
>>>> whatever to defend the despicable racist views it embodies makes it
>>>> impossible to grasp its greatness or importance. Many great poems embody
>>>> despicable attitudes-- a glaring example is "An Irish Airman Foresees His
>>>> death. That poem has to be seen through the lens provided by the last 10
>>>> minutes or so ob All Quiet On The Western Front." The Airma is a
>>>> _Terrorist_, and the poem praises individual joy in death and destruction
>>>> for the sake of death and destruction. No admirer of Yeats (and I am a
>>>> strong admirer) should try to defend the a ttitudes the poem embodies.
>>>>
>>>> Anyone who defends or excuses Eliot's contempotible racism is
>>>> slandering his poems, not praising them.
>>>>
>>>> Tom & Nancy have it right. Denial of their arguments is contemptible.
>>>>
>>>> Incidentally, Celias death in The Cocktail Party is also contemptibly
>>>> racist.
>>>>
>>>> I am not criticizeing Eliot's poems. And I love "Irish Airman" -- but
>>>> to praise the peoms we have to see them clearly, not through a broken lens
>>>> of Eliot-Worship.
>>>>
>>>> Carrol
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: T. S. Eliot Discussion forum. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>>>> Behalf Of Tom Gray
>>>> Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2017 8:21 AM
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: Re: NY Times On Works of Unethical Artists
>>>>
>>>> In saying that TSE's antisemitism and class prejudice were typical of
>>>> his time, I did not mean to minimize them. Here in Canada, Pier 21 in
>>>> Halifax Nova Scotia was the centre for European immigration in the first
>>>> half of the 20th century. A museum dedicated to this immigration has been
>>>> set up there. Associated with the museum is a memorial with inscription
>>>> reading "None is too many". This was the reply of a Canadian civil servant
>>>> when asked what the acceptable level of Jewish immigration to Canada was.
>>>> This was supported by the prime minister of the time and was official
>>>> government policy. Nice inoffensive polite typical Canadians held
>>>> despicable prejudices. Typical antisemitism of that time was a very ugly
>>>> thing and was something that nice respectable educated people professed.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Two rapes are presented in “The Waste Land” – that of the typist and
>>>> that of Philomel. The social contexts and implications of these rapes are
>>>> strikingly different and to my mind betray a pernicious class prejudice.
>>>> Philomel’s rape is presented in “A Game of Chess” in a privileged and
>>>> educated context. It is presented as part of a long classical tradition in
>>>> a painting in a rich opulent room. Her rape is presented as a horror that
>>>> brings on savage revenge and the intervention of the gods. She is
>>>> transformed to the nightingale
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The typist's rape in “The Fire Sermon is of quite another sort. It is a
>>>> rape that is not resisted and only slightly understood
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
>>>>
>>>> Hardly aware of her departed lover;
>>>>
>>>> Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
>>>>
>>>> “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”
>>>>
>>>> When lovely woman stoops to folly and
>>>>
>>>> Paces about her room again, alone,
>>>>
>>>> She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
>>>>
>>>> And puts a record on the gramophone.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Rapes are presented as differing with social class. The rape of the
>>>> Philomel in the wealthy educated context is a horror. The rape of the
>>>> typist in the working-class environment is not. The class prejudice shown
>>>> with the typist and the young man carbuncular manifests itself in a
>>>> portrayal of these people having little self-awareness and no sense of
>>>> reality beyond the immediate. The same class prejudice can be seen in “A
>>>> Game of Chess”. The wealthy characters are shown immersed within a
>>>> classical tradition full of allusion. The working-class are presented as
>>>> the typist and her rapist as living only in the eternal immediate. I find
>>>> it interesting to read “A Waste Land” and interpreting it it based on this
>>>> subliminal prejudice which influenced it. The same contrast between
>>>> tradition and the eternal immediate based on class can be seen in "A game
>>>> of Chess" between the wealthy educated characters and the pub scene
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This class prejudice was typical of the educated elite of the day and
>>>> not restricted to Eliot. Bill Bryson’s book “At Home: A Short History of
>>>> Private Life”, contains quotations illustrating it. Edna Saint Vincent
>>>> Millay wrote: ‘The only people I really hate are servants. They are not
>>>> really human beings at all”. Virginia Woolf comes quite close to capturing
>>>> Eliot’s portrayal in describing one servant as: “She is in a state of
>>>> nature untrained and uneducated … so that one sees a mind wiggling
>>>> undressed.” Eliot's class prejudice was typical. It is reflected in the
>>>> "the Waste Land" and hinders a valid portrayal of working-class life. In
>>>> that, it makes "The Waste Land", the less.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 12:47 PM, Nancy Gish <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Dear Tom,
>>>>
>>>> Well, depending on what you mean by "typical," probably yes.
>>>> But many artists and intellectuals did not hold anti-Semitic views or
>>>> attitudes. The issue is not that some did but that it was clearly
>>>> repudiated morally also.
>>>>
>>>> In the US before the Civil War, it was "typical" of many
>>>> ('serious") people--including many religious leaders and their churches--to
>>>> support slavery. It was the abolitionists who were not "typical." So are we
>>>> now to say it was really quite ok to believe a god made African people
>>>> inferior and suited to slavery because that had been inculcated as a
>>>> "typical" belief?
>>>>
>>>> And does the suffering of those who were treated as inferior or
>>>> disgusting or even illegal mean those who did not think through the wrong
>>>> they perpetuated were to be given a pass.
>>>>
>>>> Was it, for example, an excuse for the fact that after largely
>>>> saving Britain in WWII with the Enigma machine Alan Turing was driven to
>>>> his death because homophobia was "typical"? Or that Oscar Wilde was
>>>> destroyed by that "typical" belief, even if he made a really great mistake
>>>> in going to court.
>>>>
>>>> Eliot had not the excuse of lacking knowledge, intelligence, or
>>>> cultural experience. And given the constant insistence that he had Jewish
>>>> friends and colleagues, he had every reason to know better regardless of
>>>> common, "typical" attitudes.
>>>>
>>>> As for class prejudice, was that ever excusable either? Is it
>>>> now? Consider the brilliant exposés of its effect in Dickens even. And
>>>> whatever Woolf may have also said or supported, it is Septimus, I think,
>>>> who gets our sympathy even more than Mrs. Dalloway. And WWI literature is
>>>> full of the recognition that it meant nothing in the trenches, and making
>>>> ignorant, unprepared young elite men officers did not necessarily work out.
>>>>
>>>> My point is that Eliot had all this context, as did others of
>>>> his circle and class.
>>>> Best,
>>>> Nancy
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 12:20 PM, Tom Gray <
>>>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> TSE's description of the typist and the young man
>>>> carbuncular displays an extreme class prejudice bordering on contempt.
>>>> Wouldn't this be typical of the attitudes of upper class English society in
>>>> the early part of the 20th century just as his antisemitism is?
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 11:17 AM, Nancy Gish <
>>>> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As one who agrees that Eliot's writing has
>>>> anti-Semitic material (one only need read it), I think the way this is
>>>> written is a problem. He says "T. S. Eliot out and out hated Jews." I have
>>>> not seen evidence of such a total claim. It also makes the statement easy
>>>> to reject.
>>>>
>>>> That is not, by the way, what Anthony Julius
>>>> ever claimed either: he claimed that Eliot's writing included anti-Semitic
>>>> material (which it does) and that it treated that as normal (which can be
>>>> the effect). I wondered at the time how many of those who got outraged
>>>> actually read the whole book--which I did.The response is always the same
>>>> to any claim of bigotry: "He had Jewish friends and he supported Jewish
>>>> writers.) That is also the case but not the point. It's the "a lot of my
>>>> best friends are Black" and "I love women" and "I don't care who is gay but
>>>> they shouldn't talk about it" response.
>>>>
>>>> I think most readers who love literature agree
>>>> that horrible people wrote some of the best work. But one can separate a
>>>> judgment of the work and a judgment of the artist and accept both.
>>>> I think, for example, that some of Eliot's most
>>>> disturbing images are so powerful because he knew what he was writing about
>>>> in his own feelings.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nancy
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 9:35 AM,
>>>> [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]
>>>> <mailto:[log in to unmask]> > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I know the author. I'm not positive it
>>>> is worth asking the basis for his short statement about Eliot. Print and
>>>> internet media are filled with unsupported broad and often incoherent
>>>> declarations. Witness Lord Donald's tweets. I think this NYT entry is
>>>> just identifying an issue, in a casual style that may be more accessible to
>>>> readers.
>>>>
>>>> More importantly, we have a new dog:
>>>> Perceval.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers...
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 15, 2017, at 4:51 AM, Tom Gray <
>>>> [log in to unmask] <mailto:
>>>> [log in to unmask]> > wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Opinion | He’s a Creep, but
>>>> Wow, What an Artist! <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/
>>>> 11/14/opinion/artists-assault-fans.html?ribbon-ad-idx=13&rre
>>>> f=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action
>>>> =click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/
>>>> 11/14/opinion/artists-assault-fans.html?ribbon-ad-idx=13&rre
>>>> f=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action
>>>> =click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article>
>>>> <https://s.yimg.com/nq/storm/assets/enhancrV2/23/logos/nyti
>>>> mes.png>
>>>> Opinion | He’s a Creep, but Wow, What an Artist!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Clyde Haberman
>>>>
>>>> Can we appreciate art even if it was created by someone who behaved
>>>> deplorably, like Kevin Spacey or Dustin Hoff...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> An opinion article from the New
>>>> York Times that discusses the issue of how the artistic or intellectual
>>>> work of people who violate ethical norms should be addressed. It derives
>>>> from the recent sexual harassment revelations and puts them in some sort of
>>>> historical context. TSE's antisemitism is noted
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>
>
> --
> Karen "Kate" Nichols
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