1. Essays & Reflections: "Why Is April ‘the Cruelest Month’? T. S. Eliot’s Masterpiece of Pandemic Poetry" by Michael Austin
I’ve always considered Eliot’s work (and many others) in the light of WWI, WWI, and the inter-war years. But what about the Spanish Flu? Between 1918 and 1920, it killed as many as 100 million people, far more than those killed in WWI. Eliot’s poem "The Waste Land" was published in 1922, i.e., in the aftermath of the carnage left behind by Spanish Flu.
Also important to Eliot’s poem was the anthropological influence of Jessie Weston’s 1920 book, From Ritual to Romance, which traced the paths of cultural myths from paganism to Christianity. Wounded land is one of those myths. According to Austin, "The Waste Land"
is a poem that imagines what it would be like to be trapped in the wounded land – one incapable of growth, productivity, or renewal. The young Eliot saw this as a metaphor of the modern malaise …
So why is April the cruelest month in "The Waste Land"? Because, in the non-Wasteland, it is a time of fecundity and renewal. It is (in the latitudes that Eliot knew) when the snow melts, the flowers start to grow again, and people plant their crops and look forward to a harvest. … April is when we dare to hope.
Austin concludes: "Pandemics end. Rain falls again. Spring rains renew the earth every year. We do well to remember this, even as we gear up for another cruel April in the Waste Land."
2. Essays & Reflections: "Eliot’s ‘The Fire Sermon’: Of Memory & Salvation" by Nayeli Riano
In addition to the influence of the Spanish Flu, Eliot’s poem "The Waste Land" also bears the mark of St. Augustine (and the Buddha), specifically in terms of the role of memory. According to Riano,
A journey along The Waste Land is bleak and the ending to Eliot’s analysis of society is a harsh truth that we can only hope is not prognostic. Still there are places throughout the poem, namely in "The Fire Sermon," that reveal a remedy, if not a hope, for our ailing society. By using St. Augustine’s Confessions and Buddha’s Fire Sermon, Eliot is reminding us that the answers to our soul’s depravity are all around us, in our collective culture – the books we read, the places we pass and inhabit, the music we listen to – but that culture can only survive if we remember it and keep it alive in our tradition. Without a collective memory, all we have are fragments to "shore against" our ruins (line 340). Memory to Eliot, then, is the salvation that we need. As memory is what saves man from depravity and loneliness, so reading the texts of time helps to keep our memory (and therefore ourselves) afloat in a sea of unknowing. There is an effect that comes from reading that taps into our sensory experience, which permits it to echo in the chambers of our memory.
3. Essays & Reflections: The inaugural issue of The Criterion
- "Dullness" by George Saintsbury: "In life and literature the most abominable thing to find, the most fatal fault to attribute, seems to be Dullness. It can hardly, therefore, be entirely lost labour to consider a little what this Dullness is, or perhaps (to put the matter with a more philosophical exactitude) what people really mean when they use the word ‘dull.’"
- "Plan of the Novel, The Life of a Great Sinner" by F. M. Dostoevsky: This novel was never completed. See also Virginia Wolf’s translation, along with Dostoevsky’s Stavrogin’s Confession and several essays, including one by N. Brodsky on "The Unfulfilled Idea: Note on The Life of a Great Sinner."
- "The Story of Tristam and Isolt in Modern Poetry" by T. Sturge Moore
- "The Victim" by May Sinclair
- "Recent German Poetry" by Hermann Hesse
- "The ‘Ulysses’ of James Joyce" by Valery Larbaud
4. Books: Introduction to Charles Williams All Hallows’ Eve
by T. S. Eliot
Here’s how Eliot describes his friend Charles Williams:
He appeared completely at ease in surroundings with which he was not yet familiar, and which had intimidated many; and at the same time was modest and unassuming to the point of humility: that unconscious humility, one discovered later, was in him a natural quality, one he possessed to a degree which made one, in time, feel very humble oneself in his presence. He talked easily and volubly, yet never imposed his talk; for he appeared always to be at the same time preoccupied with the subject of conversation, and interested in and aware of, the personalities of those to whom he was talking. One retained the impression that he was pleased and grateful for the opportunity of meeting the company, and yet that it was he who had conferred a favor—more than a favor, a kind of benediction, by coming.
More:
There are some writers who are best known through their books, and who, in their personal relations, have little to give beyond what more commonplace, uncreative minds can give; there are others whose writings are only the shadow of what the men have given in direct intercourse. Some men are less than their works, some are more. Charles Williams cannot be placed in either class. To have known the man would have been enough; to know his books is enough; but no one who has known both the man and his works would have willingly foregone either experience. I can think of no writer who was more wholly the same man in his life and in his writings. What he had to say was beyond his resources, and probably beyond the resources of language, to say once for all through any one medium of expression. Hence, probably, the variety of forms in which he wrote: the play, the poem, the literary or philosophical essay, and the novel. Conversation was for him one more channel of communication.
According to Eliot, Williams "left behind him a considerable number of books which should endure, because there is nothing else that is like them or could take their place."
Read the full introduction here. And if you’re interested in reading one of those enduring books, Eighth Day Books keeps a considerable number of them in stock.
5. Poetry: The Waste Land Part III – The Fire Sermon by T. S. Eliot.
6. Bible:
Is. 58:1-11, Gen. 43:26-31; 45:1-16, Prov. 21:23-22:4.
Online here.
7. Liturgy: Feast day of St. Celestine, Pope of Rome
8. Word from the Fathers: Excerpt from T. S. Eliot’s essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent"
I’m not suggesting Eliot should be considered a Church Father. But this passage has hugely influenced me in my passion for and commitment to reading the Fathers over and over again. Consider this an apology (in the classical sense, i.e., a defense) for the
Daily Synaxis. As you read this excerpt, try substituting "Christian" for "poet" and when Eliot speaks of literature think Bible and Fathers and Liturgy.
Read the excerpt here. And get your hands on the full essay from
Eighth Day Books.
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