Ellis - ENGLISH ELIOT: design, language and landscape in four quartets

Design, language and landscape in
Four Quartets

Steve Ellis

First published 1991
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

1991 Steve Ellis

Set in 10/12pt Palatino by Witwell Ltd, Southport Printed and bound in Great Britain by T J Press (Padstow) Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Ellis, Steve
The English Eliot: design, language and landscape in
Four Quartets
I. Title
821.912

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Ellis, Steve.
The English Eliot: design, language and landscape in
Four Quartets/Steve Ellis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888-1965. Four Quartets. 2. Landscape in literature. 3. England in literature. I. Title.
PS3509.L43F6445 1991
821'.912-dc20 91-9517

ISBN 0-415-06688-3

Note: Plates can be found between pp..

The author and publishers would like to thank the following copyright holders for permission to reprint material:

Collected Poems of 1954 by C. Day Lewis: The Magnetic Mountain, reprinted by permission of The Estate of C. Day Lewis, Random Century Group, Jonathan Cape & The Hogarth Press, and the Peters Fraser & Dunlop Group Ltd.

Faber & Faber Ltd. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (US):

Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T. S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Hollow Men, Mr Apollinax, The Journey of the Magi, Whispers of Immortality, AshWednesday, Sweeney Erect, The Rock, A Note on War Poetry, The Waste Land.

Four Quartets, by T. S. Eliot: Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages and Little Gidding.

Murder in the Cathedral, by T. S. Eliot.

The Family Reunion, by T. S. Eliot.

Faber & Faber Ltd. and Random House (US):
(Some of the following poems appear in the text under their original titles.)

Collected Longer Poems by W. H. Auden: Letter to Lord Byron.

Nones by W. H. Auden: In Praise of Limestone.

The Orators by W. H. Auden.

The Ascent of F6 by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood.

Another Time by W. H. Auden: Spain 1937.

The Dog Beneath the Skin by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood.

Poems 1930 by W. H. Auden: Sir, no mans enemy, Paid on Both Sides.

Collected Shorter Poems 1927-57 by W. H. Auden: 1929, Deaths Echo, Easy Knowledge, As I Walked ..., Five Songs no III, Sonnets from China, A Bride in the 30s, Twelve Songs: III.

Look, Stranger! by W. H. Auden: 1. Prologue, XIV. Brothers ... , V. Look, Stranger ... , the Epigraph.

Collected Poems, by Louis MacNeice: Eclogue from Iceland and The Hebrides.

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Room of Contemporary Art Fund, 1948.

For support and advice of various kinds in the writing of this book I should particularly like to thank Anne Buckley, A. S. Byatt, David Lodge, Chris Lord, Joanna Porter, Jane Redfearn, Steve Regan, John Sinclair, Michael Spender, Mark Storey, and the staffs of the University of Birmingham Library, the Barber Institute Library, the City of Birmingham Reference Library and the British Library. I dedicate the book to my colleagues in the School of English, University of Birmingham; they have stretched me and tested me, and made me feel at home.

I would also like to thank Jane Armstrong, Rebecca Barden, Jill Rawnsley and Sarah Yorke from Routledge, and Jenny Overton, for their work on the manuscript.

Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyright material. If any proper acknowledgement has not been made, or permission not received, we would invite the copyright holder to inform us of the oversight.

CPPThe Complete Poems and Plays (Faber, 1969)

ICSThe Idea of a Christian Society and Other Writings, introd. David L. Edwards, 2nd edn (Faber, 1982)

NDCNotes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948; rpt. Faber, 1962)

OPAPOn Poetry and Poets (Faber, 1957)

SESelected Essays, 3rd edn (Faber, 1951)

TCTCTo Criticize the Critic and Other Writings (1965; rpt. Faber, 1978)

EAThe English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings 1927-1939, ed. Edward Mendelson (1977; rpt. Faber, 1986)

He had become more English than the English in dress and manner. The words are those of a recent British Council touring exhibition on Eliots life and work, held to mark the centenary of his birth, and found under the section headed More English than the English, 19251945. In this book I am discussing a rather more problematic conception of Eliots Englishness than is allowed for by the above commonly received idea of him; indeed the cliche more English than the English totally obscures the qualifications attaching to nationalism and patriotism that are foregrounded in much of his later work, poetry and prose. The fact is that the years of Eliots greatest concern with English institutions and contexts in his writing which we can agree are 192545 coincide with his keenest interest in a Latin tradition that, in writers like Virgil and Dante, represents a universality that all national concerns must be related to. This study is indeed rather more about Eliots being less English than the English.