called life “behind reality” was an aber- was an alienated ascetic, a conscience-

ration. We owe Alex Zwerdling a debt of ridden Puritan who was drawn, paradoxi-
gratitude for showing us that this is so. cally, to the aestheticism of the French
Symbolists and who poetically expressed
- Reviewed by Karen L. Levenback the relativism of modern science. The new
Eliot was pre-eminently the poet of
“Prufrock’ and The Waste Land, the
troubled prober of the self. Though no one
did so, a poem like Browning’s “Lost
T. S. Eliot Leader” (lamenting the conservatism of
(1888- 1965) the older Wordsworth), could have been
written about Eliot, whose conversion to
T. S. Eliot: A Life, by Peter Ackroyd, New the Anglican church signified to later
York: Simon and Schuster, 1984. 400 critics the abrupt end of a promising
p p . $24.95. career. The new Eliot became a latter-day
poBte maudit, an artist whose work is
DURINGTHE PAST TEN years the critical valuable because it derives from sickness
reaction against the mind and character of and despair.
T. S. Eliot has been gaining momentum It is this “new” Eliot who is generally ac-
and academic respectability, justifying cepted today, not only by the leading
itself as a more “objective” appreciation of critics but on a more popular level as well.
Eliot’s contribution to modern literature. Witness the recent stage play, Tom and
Such a reaction seemed almost bound to Viu, which portrayed Eliot’s tragic first
rise given the veneration he was accorded marriage in such a way as to suggest that
for so long. Eliot’s domination over his it was his passionless, inhibited insecurity
own and several succeeding generations that was largely responsible for the break-
was so powerful that the image of him as down of the marriage and his wife’s even-
both the representative poet of modern tual insanity. Ironically, the poets who,
dislocation and the supreme diagnostician during their lifetimes, felt unjustly eclipsed
of the wasteland continued to be held by Eliot-Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens,
even by those who had little sympathy for and William Carlos Williams-have sup-
his religious and philosophical convic- planted him in the contemporary critical
tions. This combination of alienation and a pantheon. Somehow Pound’s politics, at
rage for order appealed deeply to those once more naive and more fanatical than
who had experienced the social and Eliot’s, can easily be separated from his
psychic cataclysms accompanying the two poetry, whereas Eliot is routinely ana-
world wars. The lack of another magiste- lyzed in terms of the “authoritarian” per-
rial figure to rival Eliot and the numerous sonality that leftists have always ascribed
distinctions showered on him in his later to the conservative mind.
years (including the Order of Merit and the Peter Ackroyd, one of ELiot’s latest and
Nobel Prize) only confirmed his residence most fluent biographers, has no axes to
in an Olympian fastness beyond all reach. grind, but he subscribes to the neurotic,
Soon after the tributes to Eliot were pub- relativist image of Eliot’s inner psychic
lished in the months after his death, how- being. Like several other younger British
ever, critical attitudes toward him began writers who have produced successful
to shift. Gradually a new Eliot began to literary biographies (Humphrey Carpenter
emerge. In place of the cold, classical, and A. N. Wilson come immediately to
ironic Eliot, the poet who had expressed mind), Ackroyd, a poet and novelist, has
modern fragmented consciousness and little understanding of politics, philosophy,
had then shored up his ruins by uniting in history, or theology, but is widely read in
his own personality the religious and liter- literature and commands an extremely
ary traditions of England, the new Eliot readable style. His narrative is urbane and

172 Spring 1988

LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
confident, free from excessive detail, neat- Homer. Or, better yet, the blind Tiresias of
ly balancing fact with evaluation. The one The Waste Land, the androgynous seer
obvious gap in Ackroyds knowledge, who has “foresuffered all.” Eliot early felt
noted in nearly all the early reviews, is an the sterility of desire which promises but
acquaintance with American history and can never achieve complete fulfillment.
culture. At any rate, anyone wishing to To call Eliot a “Calvinist . . . or a Gnostic in
master the basic facts of Eliot’s life will Anglican clothing,” as Ackroyd does, is to
refer to this biography. perpetuate a profound misunderstanding.
On the more difficult aspects of Eliot’s Eliot’s mind was essentially Augustinian:
personal life, Ackroyd is more even- He does not reject the goodness of crea-
handed than many recent critics. This is tion (“Blown hair is sweet, brown hair
especially true with regard to Eliot’s first over the mouth blown”), but he knows
marriage to Vivien Haigh-Wood, but also that man’s restless heart can only find its
characterizes his treatment of Eliot’s al- fulfillment in God.
leged anti-Semitism, his relationship with The problem of Eliot-through-secular-
the crippled poet John Hayward, and his eyes is recurrent. To these eyes celibacy is
second and happy marriage late in life to inhibition, asceticism is masochism,
his secretary, Valerie Fletcher. For exam- penance is morbid guilt, religion is escape,
ple, the often-voiced opinion that the and the desire for authority and order is
“Game of Chess” section of The Waste insecurity. (Ackroyds comments on reli-
Land (‘‘Whatshall we do tomorrow? What gion, and Christianity in particular, sound
shall we ever do?”) is a literal transcription like the dismissive tones of a British consul
of scenes from Eliot’s first marriage is in Africa describing some local fetishist
demolished by Ackroyd, who notes the cult.) Thus we find Ackroyd saying, in all
sense of mutual dependence, a “collusion” seriousness, that the center of Eliot’s “faith
against the world, which existed between was the belief in, and fear of, Hell.” Eliot
Eliot and Vivien. And if Eliot is shown as indeed became drawn to religious belief
not being without fault in the breakdown through his increasing conviction that
of the marriage, Ackroyd makes it clear men were able to damn themselves (think
that Vivien’s problems were immense and of those petty nihilists, Prufrock and
probably irremediable. Gerontion, and the “Hollow Men”), but
When it comes to an assessment of this capacity is always seen as a deliberate
Eliot’s personality, Ackroyd adds only a closing off, a diminution of being. Eliot
few brush strokes to the portrait, already once rejected the notion that the poet
developed by Eliot’s detractors, of a re- works with a “beautiful world.” He said:
pressed, anemic poet. In this sense, Ack- “the advantage of the poet is not to have a
royd has written not a revelatory but a beautiful world with which to deal: it is to
thoroughly conventional biography. This be able to see beneath both beauty and
view might take as its motto the words of ugliness; to see the boredom, and the hor-
one of Eliot’s doctors: “Mr. Eliot, you have ror, and the glory.” A stark vision, yes; but
the thinnest blood I’ve ever tested.” Born no more so than that of Samuel Beckett,
with a congenital double hernia, and af- the existentialists, and other poets of nega-
fected by a low metabolism rate, Eliot in- tion. For Beckett, man can do nothing but
evitably was selfconscious and detached admit the absurdity of his existence by
in relation to his physical nature-with ob- naming it; for Eliot, the admission of limi-
vious implications for his sexual life. To tation opens the window of grace. That
the modern, Freud-riddled mind, with its grace comes not like a deus ex machina,
amoral model of animal sexuality, Eliot from out of nowhere, but is something
can only appear as a bloodless, insecure hard-won, even unwanted, like the birth-
man. It rarely occurs to this mind that in-death of the Magi.
such a “disability” as Eliot’s could give him By subtitling his book “A Life” Ackroyd
an advantage of vision, like the blind indicates his desire to stick close both to

Modern Age 173

LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
the outward events and to the inner work- perspective of literary criticism, Cleanth
ings of Eliot’s psyche, avoiding literary Brooks, among others, has shown the sift-
criticism and intellectual history. And yet ing of “identify in difference” which is the
for so intellectual a poet as Eliot nothing central process enacted in the poem.
short of a “critical biography” (which There is a sense, I think, in which Ack-
would run closer to a thousand pages and royd and other commentators have con-
be that much more difficult to read-and tributed a needed balance to the critical
write) seems adequate. Again and again evaluation of Eliot. Conservatives have
Ackroyd skips over, inaccurately summa- been guilty of promoting a facile belief
rizes, or cavalierly dismisses the great that Eliot is the objective chronicler of the
thinkers and ideas that influenced Eliot. decline of the West just as relativists have
Ackroyd treats Eliot’s influences as if they treated Eliot merely as a subject for psy-
were nothing more than the .mirror im- choanalysis. Both sides entirely miss the
ages of a particular, momentary, psycho- central quest (and I would add, an
logical need. If Eliot has a craving for achieved quest) of Eliot’s poetic career:
order, then he chooses Irving Babbitt and the transcending of the dichotomies be-
Charles Maurras as his mentors. At one tween tradition and the individual talent,
point Ackroyd scoffs at Ezra Pounds sug- personal and impersonal, classical and
gestion that Eliot and George Santayana romantic. That Eliot’s attempts to express
collaborate on a book, citing Santayana’s himself in critical prose are often confus-
low opinion of Eliot. If Ackroyd knew any- ing and contradictory is clear. But the
thing about Santayana, however, he same drive is successfully embodied in the
would realize that Pound, as usual, clearly poetry.
saw a common frame of mind. Eliot repeatedly spoke of the modern
This belittling of Eliot’s intellectual abili- poet’s dislocation: uprooted from place,
ty is symptomatic of recent criticism. Ack- living in a culture which spurns the past,
royd equates Eliot’s early interest in phi- locked in his own self-consciousness. He
losophy with a “call to order.” But far even gave the phenomenon a name: the
from being an exercise in categorization “dissociation of sensibility.” Yet Eliot
or an attempt to find comfort in order, knew that man could not restore some
Eliot’s grappling with the Idealism of F. H. prelapsarian form of consciousness. He
Bradley made him vividly aware, in an undoubtedly agreed with Jacques Mari-
almost existential sense, of the precarious- tain’s comment in The Frontiers of Poetry:
ness of a unified vision of reality. Unity of “art cannot return to ignorance of itself,
vision requires the ability to see the cor- cannot abandon the gains won by con-
relation of disparate phenomena. The sciousness. If it succeeds in finding a new
young Eliot developed the concept of the spiritual equilibrium, it will be, on the con-
“significant self,” which gains substance in trary . . . by still greater self-knowledge.”
time by participating in the process of dis- Eliot’s quest, and his achievement, was
tinguishing relationships, thereby finding directed toward the creation of the poetry
“concrete universals.” Though he was not of personal knowledge, a bridge between
a systematic thinker, and dropped his phil- subjective and objective worlds. I take the
osophical studies early on, Eliot was deep- phrase “personal knowledge” from the
ly aware of the anxiety brought on by work of a modern philosopher of science,
modern man’s fragmented perception. Michael Polanyi. It is the burden of
The Waste Land, then, is not likely to be a Polanyi’s seminal study to prove that
simple reflection of scientistic relativism, science does not operate by impersonal or
or the random babblings of a man under- “objective” actions on the mind; rather,
going a nervous breakdown, as Ackroyd according to Gerhart Niemeyer’s reading
and others would have it, but an expres- of Polanyi, “all knowledge involves an ele-
sion of a dislocated consciousness that is ment of intellectual passion, a tacit compo-
searching for unity of vision. From the nent of previous beliefs, as well as a per-

174 Spring 1988

LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED
sonal commitment.” Though this argu- common images that can speak directly
ment was originally related to modern to the reader. The prayer that he be not
science, it applies with equal force to the “separated” implies not only being
poetic sensibility. Since the Romantics, severed from God, but a desire to have a
and Wordsworth in particular, modern divided consciousness made whole. There
poetry has either been helped or hindered is nothing “inexplicable” about a poet
by self-consciousness. Eliot sought a syn- relating his experience of the transcen-
thesis in personal knowledge, a synthesis dent through the emotional suggestive-
that involved an awareness of the past in ness of family, and the immemorial image
the present, a commitment of faith, and an of water as symbol of the infinite. That so
ongoing process of self-understanding. His many critics have blinded themselves to
search was not without false steps, but it this reality is a loss which we can only
remains the most remarkable poetic jour- hope to be partial and temporary.
ney of our time. The Waste Land express- To say that Eliot is a poet of personal
es a consciousness searching the frag- knowledge is not to issue a license for in-
ments for a unified vision, but in Four finite biographical speculation. What is
Quartets that vision has become incar- needed, however, is a criticism that is not
nate. The poet integrates the tradition narrower than its subject. So long as Eliot
within himself, finds the universal in the is viewed from the perspective of secular
concrete and the personal experience, the psychologism we will be deprived of the
“timeless moment.” “History is now and healing power of his art.
England.”
The essence of “personal knowledge” - Reviewed by Gregory Wolfe
was already contained in Eliot’s Bradleyan
studies: the “significant self” bridging the
gap between, personal and impersonal.
Seen in this light, the endless debate over
whether Eliot was being “subjective” or
“objective” becomes largely meaningless. Reinhold Nie6uhr
Again, it cannot be denied that in his (1892-197 1)
public pronouncements Eliot often made
awkward and wooden efforts at participa- Reinhold Niebuhr: A Biography, by
tion in the meta-personal. An example of Richard Wightman Fox, New York:
this would be his declaration of alle- Pantheon Books, 1985. x + 340 pp.
giances as an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a $1 9.95.
royalist in politics, and a classicist in liter-
ature. Such statements inevitably distort IN CONVERSATIONS WITH MY teacher the late
reality by putting it into neat packages. Will Herberg there were occasions when
That is why we must keep returning to the he would recollect the times he had spent
poetry. Peter Ackroyd, normally a sensi- with Reinhold Niebuhr. He told the story
tive reader, can say of Ash Wednesday of how, when he himself was near conver-
that Eliot “has borrowed the authoritative sion to Christianity, Niebuhr persuaded
tones and cadences of religious texts in him to examine seriously his own Jewish
order to sustain images or sensations heritage. This Herberg did and became a
which are wholly personal and inexplica- Conservative Jew. Herberg, who was
ble.” He refers to the lines: “Sister, mother brought up in an atheistic Jewish home,
/ And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea, / was attracted to Marxism and joined the
Suffer me not to be separated / And let Communist party. Herberg discovered
my cry come unto Thee.” The childhood Niebuhr’s writings in the late 1930s when
memories of family, of the Mississippi his Marxist faith had begun to crumble
River, and of his love for the sea are in- under the impact of Stalinism. In Niebuhr’s
deed intensely personal, and yet they are Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932) he

Modern Age I75

LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG
ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED