Disintegration and Chaos Amongst Us

“Disintegration And Chaos Amongst Us”

“The point of view which I am struggling to attack is perhaps related to the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the soul: for my meaning is, that the poet has, not a ‘personality’ to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways.”

These exact lines were quoted from Thomas Sterns Eliot’s (hereafter Eliot) essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” which was first published in Egoist, December 1920. This shows the kind of approach Elliot had towards poetry, an approach which most poets lacked; an approach with historical motifs; an approach which was shared by William Butler Yeats (hereafter Yeats) for he once stated “The mystical life is the centre of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write.”

Yeats and Eliot are two chief modernist poet of the English Language. Both were Nobel Laureates. Both were critics of Literature and Culture expressing similar disquietude with Western civilization. Both, prompted by the Russian revolution perhaps, or the violence and horror of the First World War, pictured a Europe that was ailing, that was literally falling apart, devoid of the ontological sense of rational purpose that fuelled post-Enlightenment Europe and America(1). All these similar experience makes their poetry more valuable to compare and to contrast since their thoughts were similar yet one called himself Classicist(Eliot) who wrote objectively and the other considered himself “the last Romantic” because of his subjective writing and his interest in mysticism and the spiritual. For better understanding of these two poets it is necessary to mention some facts and backgrounds on them which influenced them to incorporate similar (to some extent) historical motif in their poetry.

WB Yeats was born in 1865 in Dublin. His parents were John Butler Yeats, a portrait painter, and Susan Pollexfen. His family was upper class, Protestant and of Anglo-Irish descent. His ancestors were church rectors. His mother’s famil, the Pollexfens, were known for their eccentricities manifested by an interest in astrology and magic. He was very interested in super sensual experiences and visions which came to him “from the back of his mind”. Eventually, he became interested in Hinduism and the occult. During his life, he developed interests in theosophy, ancient civilizations, psychic power, spiritualism, magic, eastern religions and the supernatural which in due course led to the conception of “The Second Coming”(first published in November 1920). It is a two stanza poem in blank verse. The first stanza is about the ailing of the civilization, describing the world as a place of chaos and disaster. In the second stanza, the narrator talks about how the present chaos must signal the second coming(of Jesus Christ), because 20 centuries have passed since the death of Jesus Christ. Since Christ’s presence is still not felt, the narrator is afraid what grotesque creature will rule the next historical era for Yeats ends his poem by saying

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?". (The Second Coming, line:21-22)

Most critics associated the poem with various contemporary calamities, such as the Easter Rising of 1916, the Russian Revolution of 1917, the rise of fascism, and the political decay of Eastern Europe. A similar theme of the world being a place of chaos and disaster is shared by Eliot who believes that humans find it hard to communicate; they are separated by misunderstanding or selfishness. People betray each other. Sometimes they live in their own world. This theme is well portrayed in one of his famous work “The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock”(hereafter Prufrock), but before we analyze the poem, a synopsis of Eliot's background is necessary.

T.S Eliot was born into a privileged background in St. Louis, Missouri 1888. His father, who was president of a brick making company, and mother, who wrote poetry and was once a teacher and social volunteer, were determined to educate him well. As he grew up, he started to become aware of the contrasting lifestyles between the poorer St. Louis and the more elegant drawing room culture of its wealthy classes. This contrast instilled him to write poems like “Prufrock” where he distinguishes between the urban squalor and the drawing room manners. Before obtaining a British citizenship, he studied in Boston University where he was further able to learn the injustice done to humanity and the negative side of humanity. In 1917, with the encouragement of his friend and mentor, American poet Ezra Pound,