Eliot's "Gerontion" is a very haunting poem that takes the reader through the mind of an "old man" (1). The interpretations that I was able to come up with lead me to two different meanings. The "old man" is either Eliot himself having some sort of writers block ("I have lost my sight, smell, hearing and touch" (60)). Or that the poem itself is a dream that Eliot had; which would describe the cold descriptions and vacant windy references.
At the end of stanza one, Eliot introduces the motif of wind and whispering. The old man is "a dull head among windy spaces" (16) and "in a draughty house/Under a windy knob" (32-33) where "vacant shuttles/ weave the wind" (30-31). In stanzas two and three, Christ the tiger is "to be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk/ among the whispers" (22-23). The poem even ends with an image of a "gull against the wind, in the windy straits of Belle Isle" (71-72) and the old man is taken far away by trade winds. Not only does Eliot create a haunting, hollow sound to this poem with these images, he also presents the wind as a symbol of a constant pressure and force against the old man himself. On one level, especially in connection with the images of the draughty house, the wind represents decay from age, the unstoppable pressure asserted on a person by time. We can be led to believe that the "old man" feels some level of guilt for not being at the "hot gates" (3). All of this seems to strand the old man with "a dry brain in a dry season" (76) on a far-removed, "sleepy corner" (74).
We can sense some sort of relief in the end; however, as it seems that the "old man" finally comes to term with his problems. It almost seems as if his entire recollection was only a temporary dream. He speaks of losing his five senses, "I have lost my sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch" (60). When one sleeps aren't all of his/her senses dulled for the moment but only while in a deep slumber.
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It is later clear when T.S Eliot uses phrases such as "rubs its back"," "rubs its muzzle"," and "curled once about the house."" ... T.S. Eliot's use of hyperbolic metaphor best illustrates Prufrock's paralyzed personality. ... The poem offers a unique analysis into the mind of a social outcast. Eliot's use of literary techniques portray a man who is incapable of normal day-to-day interactions and constantly mulling over every action he takes, hindered by his mental paralysis....
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Analysis Henry James uses The Art of Fiction to publicly notify writers that they are not taking their writing seriously, and to try too defining his own work as an art form. ... Among the authors that he influences are Joyce, Conrad, Virginia Woolf and T.S. Eliot. ...
(Thames and Hudson, 15) For the longest time Duchamp's work was difficult to obtain and conveying the meanings of his work was an equally demanding task .It is here where the difficulty of understanding Duchamp and his work begins In a writing directed towards Duchamp, T.S. ... Much like the quotation by T.S. Eliot, there is much to understand and investigate about Marcel Duchamp' s work. ... This is where in the case of iconological analysis questions arise. ... Iconological analysis focuses on the way an artist handles his concept and his choices, it would be influence by the...
l. Definitions Transcendentalism- a system of philosophy, especially that associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson and other New England writers, that emphasizes intuition or the divine Romanticism- in the arts, the style and theories of the romantic movement, or the movement itself Aphorism- a literary, artistic, and philosophical movement originating in the 18th century 11. The transcendentalists A. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) - American essayist and poet, a leader of the philosophical movement of transcendentalism. Influenced by such schools of thought as English romanticism, ...
