One of best educational experiences I ever had was a class called “Yeats and Eliot” that I took as a college sophomore. I’ve been reading and rereading his work ever since. The name of this blog, “The first gate(s)” comes from the opening of Eliot’s long poem, “The Four Quartets,” which matches the scope and depth of the work of any poet who ventures into ineffable realms.
T.S. Eliot by Lady Ottoline Morrell, 1934. Public Domain
Eliot must have been quite a character. He scandalized the early 20th century literary establishment with images like this, from the opening of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:”
“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;”
At the same time he offended the avant garde because he worked in a bank and joined the Catholic church. Aware of such contradictions, he was never afraid to parody himself:
“How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!
With his features of clerical cut,
And his brow so grim
And his mouth so prim
And his conversation, so nicely
Restricted to What Precisely
And If and Perhaps and But.”
By all accounts, he was also a joker, who served whoopee cushions and exploding cigars to dinner guests. He and Groucho Marx were mutual fans.
***
“Marina” was one of the first Eliot poems I came to love, but I hadn’t read it for quite a while. Ironically, it was the political conventions that brought these lines from the poem to mind:
Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death
Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning
Death
Marina was #29 in Eliot’s series of ”Ariel Poems,” first published in September, 1930. It was based on the Jacobean play, Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Shakespeare is credited with the last acts of the play, the story of Pericles’ separation from, and reunion with, his daughter, Marina (most scholars believe the opening was composed by an inferior collaborator).
The play however, was simply a catalyst for poem that lives a life of its own, with haunting imagery that I think can speak to any of us, wherever we are.
By T.S. Eliot
Quis hic locus, quae regio, quae mundi plaga?
What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands
What water lapping the bow
And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog
What images return
O my daughter.
Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning
Death
Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning
Death
Those who sit in the sty of contentment, meaning
Death
Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning
Death
Are become insubstantial, reduced by a wind,
A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog
By this grace dissolved in place
What is this face, less clear and clearer
The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger—
Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye
Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet
Under sleep, where all the waters meet.
Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.
The rigging weak and the canvas rotten
Between one June and another September.
Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.
The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking.
This form, this face, this life
Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.
What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers
And woodthrush calling through the fog
My daughter.
I’ve tried and tried to relate to Eliot, but never found that connection. My husband loves his work. I wonder if men simply relate better to his work. Although my relationship with his work could be colored by the fact that the worst professor I ever encountered in my life was a huge fan.
I know poetry is deeply personal, but I’ve never heard the suggestion that it can split along gender lines for certain poets. Who knows – maybe…
there is no proper explanation of this poem ,if this poem is explained in detail it will be a great help
Google will turn up a lot of opinions this poem, which may or may not be useful in approaching the work. I enjoy expositions of the context, like Shakespeare’s Perseus as the source, but then I personally like to let the dream-like imagery lead it’s own life. Here is a recording of Eliot reading the poem:http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbpucr_t-s-eliot-marina_creation
Hercules Fuerentes, most say, Rashmi. Yet all poetry as Morgan said, is deeply personal. I read it as a brave but luckless, celebrated but accursed father’s love for his daughte.