Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Reading: http://youtu.be/67WBMS8Sg14

Discussion: http://books.wwnorton.com/books/about...

And here it is, in its entirety. What are we to make of it?

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

It seems to be a cautionary tale, spoken directly to the reader, about the inevitability of death.

The whirlpool reminds me of Charybdis.

I thought of Palinurus from Virgil's Aeneid.

Because...
He suffered death by water.
He was the helmsman, he turned the wheel.
He looked windward... studying the sea.

"A thunderhead
Towered about them, bringing gloom and storm
And shuddering dusky water. Aeneas's helmsman,
Palinurus, called from his high stern deck..."

"now the wind blows hard
Out of the murky west abeam of us."


I thought, too, of Hesse's Beneath the Wheel:

From Wikipedia: "Beneath the Wheel (1906)is the story of Hans Giebenrath, a talented boy sent to a seminary in Maulbronn. His education is focused completely on increasing his knowledge, and neglects personal development. His close friendship with Hermann Heilner, a less academically assiduous and more liberal fellow student, is a source of comfort for Hans.[2]

Back home, he finds coping with his situation difficult, having lost most of his childhood to scholastic study, and thus having never formed lasting personal relationships with anyone in his village."

Because maybe Eliot felt that too much of his childhood, too, had been academically oriented... that he hadn't developed skills for personal relationships.

Or, maybe it's the wheel of reincarnation.

I rather like that, too. In the Aeneid, Aeneis told Palinurus to "Change course."

Maybe that's advice for all us who turn the wheel: Change course ... (so you can live a better life next time around). In that sense... I CAN see it as a cautionary tale.

I'm back to enjoying TWL again.

In the Introducion to "T. S. Eliot: An Introdcution" Northrop Frye,

"He [Eliot] was caught up in the widespread interest in Oriental philosophy at Harvard, and tells us that he was stopped from going further into it by a fear of losing his sense of participation in the Western tradition" (1).

Why is this part so short compared to the others?

Nemo wrote: "Why is this part so short compared to the others?"

Because he had nothing more to say?

To increase the importance of it? (Like one might put a single, short sentence in the midst of massive paragraphs to emphasize it.)

Mary wrote: "Nemo wrote: "Why is this part so short compared to the others?"

Because he had nothing more to say?

To increase the importance of it? (Like one might put a single, short sentence in the midst of..."

It would seem that Mary has it right.

I can't find my notes on this... I'll look around later... but I read that the Death by Water section was originally, like, 83 lines. Pound cut it way down. Eliot wrote him back that maybe he should leave Phlebas out entirely. No, Pound wrote back. Phlebas is key to the poem. Ties back to the fortune teller.

But that leaving all of the lines in diminished the importance. Hence.. just these few.


LOL!!! I found the source! The 2nd link in Laurel's first post here! :-) (I AM trying to check out many of the links, Laurel. :-)

Nemo wrote: "Why is this part so short compared to the others?"

Eliot used the same structure, five parts with the fourth much shorter, in the Four Quartets. Is this based on a musical form?

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.

Maybe Madame Sosostris is not the wisest woman in Europe; she has a cold, her cards are wicked, and something about her rings false. If that is the case, perhaps death by water is nothing to fear after all.

It sounds like Phlebas is at peace -- and peace is a rare commodity in this poem. Isn't there a way in which baptism is "death by water"? Dying to one life, to be reborn to another?

I thought of baptism, too, Thomas, signifying death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. There does not seem to be any resurrection here, though, nor in the first stanza of movement V. Will we have to wait for "Four Quartets" for hope of the Resurrection?

Adelle wrote: "Eliot wrote him back that maybe he should leave Phlebas out entirely. No, Pound wrote back."

I don't think I would be able to tell the difference if Eliot had left out Part IV entirely, but then the same can be said of many other lines in TWL. They are neither superfluous when present, nor missed when absent.

Don wrote: "Eliot used the same structure, five parts with the fourth much shorter, in the Four Quartets. Is this based on a musical form?"

If you can understand music, apparently you can get a lot out of the rhythm and construction of Eliot's poetry. He gave a lecture on 'The Music of Poetry' comparing how similar they are in terms of recurrent themes and how the transitions in poetry compare to the movements of symphonies. More complex sections are sliced inbetween refrains and repeated images, which is according to people who know a lot more than I do, similar to what Beethoven did.
I think I did read somewhere that he was influenced by jazz in the sense of mixing everything in together and seeing what happens!

Thomas wrote: "It sounds like Phlebas is at peace -- and peace is a rare commodity in this poem. Isn't there a way in which baptism is "death by water"? Dying to one life, to be reborn to another? "

I read this section as being that the only peace that Eliot presents in the modern world is death, when all the worldly, and unimportant, concerns leave the body. And that he wants people to think more about the fact that they're going to die so they let go of their own self importance and can be reborn afresh, with as you note, the symbolic importance of water washing the sins away.

@ 11 Laurel wrote: "I thought of baptism, too, Thomas, signifying death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. There does not seem to be any resurrection here, though, nor in the first stanza of movement V. Will we ha..."

But one could find such a message if one wanted to see such a message, I think. (Yes... of course... one can often see what one wants to see.)

So I did read that Eliot held that each section had to connect with what had come before.

There is the current.

A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers.

And we remember that Mr. Eugenides had currants in his pockets.

Notes from somewhere: I do enjoy reading something and then reading various takes on it. But if you don't enjoy it... don't open the spoiler. (view spoiler)[

“Eugenides means well-born, of good family…….

Eugenides, the well-born, is a merchant. The quester…is obsessed by a memory: ‘Those are pearls that were his eyes.’ ‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all he had, and bought it’ (Matt. 13: 45-6).

Eugenides, the merchant, is identified with one of Madame Sosostris’s cards: And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card, / Which is blank, is something he carries on his back, / Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find / The Hanged Man.

Eugenides trades in something big; something which the fortune-telling Madame says she is forbidden to see.
The merchant on Madame Sosostris’s card has one eye. Here Eliot plays with a conventional image far older than the Tarot. ‘Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes’, sings the bridegroom of the Song of Solomon and in the Gospel of Mathew we find ‘The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light’.

Eugenides is a Smyrna merchant. Smyrna is a town in Asia Minor where one of the seven churches of Revelation had its meeting place; it is also the Greek word for myrrh.

Myrrh is used in ancient times for embalming the dead, in the hope that they might rise complete in body in the next world. "

(hide spoiler)]

Also, I read, ", ‘Phoenician’, while evoking all the restless travelling of the great traders of the ancient world, suggests also the bird of re-birth, the Phoenix: the Greek word for Phoenix and Phoenician are identical."

So we "could" see the possibility of re-birth.

And also, a note from somewhere regarding "Gentile or Jew"... Not direct, but in this poem, what is?

‘Gentile or Jew’…recalls a note often struck in the Pauline epistles:

"For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:27-28)

And might not "whispers" bring to mind "Whispers of Immortality" (1918)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whisper...

Clari wrote: "Don wrote: "Eliot used the same structure, five parts with the fourth much shorter, in the Four Quartets. Is this based on a musical form?"

If you can understand music, apparently you can get a l..."

Very interesting, Clari. And yes, the Jazz idea works for me.

Adelle wrote: "@ 11 Laurel wrote: "I thought of baptism, too, Thomas, signifying death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. There does not seem to be any resurrection here, though, nor in the first stanza of mo..."

Amazing, Adelle. Amazing Adelle.

:-) I thought those little bits could be put together quite nicely. :-)

Clari wrote: "...he wants people to think more about the fact that they're going to die so they let go of their own self importance and can be reborn afresh, with as you note, the symbolic importance of water washing the sins away. ."

This seems to be the direction the poem is taking for me. To live in the Waste Land is to be half-dead, clinging to the wreck of selfish materialism. To die to all this is not a negative thing. In the Western tradition this kind of death frequently leads to a rebirth; in the Eastern tradition it is seen as liberation.

Laurel wrote: "I thought of baptism, too, Thomas, signifying death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. There does not seem to be any resurrection here, though, nor in the first stanza of movement V. Will we ha..."

Adelle illustrated quite nicely the possibility of rebirth in section IV. But, Laurel, I beg to differ that there is no resurrection in movement V.

"after the frosty silence in the gardens
after the agony in stony places"
It reminds me of section 1.

"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony rubbish?"
After rebirth how will new possibilities, indeed forced possibilities, of spring and potential regrowth arise?

Adelle wrote: "@ 11 Laurel wrote: "I thought of baptism, too, Thomas, signifying death, burial, and resurrection with Christ. There does not seem to be any resurrection here, though, nor in the first stanza of mo..."

Also, I read, ", ‘Phoenician’, while evoking all the restless traveling of the great traders of the ancient world, suggests also the bird of re-birth, the Phoenix: the Greek word for Phoenix and Phoenician are identical." I had the same thought when attempting Finnegan's Wake! "Phall if you but will, rise you must: and none so soon either shall the pharce for the nunce come to a setdown secular phoenish." haha. Not a finish at all, really.

Also, regarding Mr. Eugenides' currants. I hear them as a hope for change (like currents), but envision them as dried fruit. Dried up like the Waste Land?

Ashley wrote: "regarding Mr. Eugenides' currants. I hear them as a hope for change (like currents), but envision them as dried fruit. Dried up like the Waste Land?

Mmmm. Dried. Very nice observation. Mmmm.
Because I'm still looking for a positive image at this point... I'll think then of dried fruit as the kind that can last the journey, that won't quickly go bad.

Adelle wrote: "Ashley wrote: "regarding Mr. Eugenides' currants. I hear them as a hope for change (like currents), but envision them as dried fruit. Dried up like the Waste Land?

Mmmm. Dried. Very nice observa..."

The drying of the currants leads to the possibility of future prosper. I'm on board!

Thomas wrote: "To die to all this is not a negative thing. "

I'm not sure I can buy this, due to the last line:
"Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you."
Sounds so clearly cautionary to me...

I'd like to hear more about the musical structure! Five movements? Four with a bridge (Death by Water)?

Kathy wrote: "Sounds so clearly cautionary to me... ."

What does it caution against?

Thomas wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Sounds so clearly cautionary to me... ."

What does it caution against?"

Against arrogance and heedlessness because you, too, shall die?

Laurel wrote: "Thomas wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Sounds so clearly cautionary to me... ."

What does it caution against?"

Against arrogance and heedlessness because you, too, shall die?"

I think so, Laurel. I think Eliot here is presenting the opposite of carpe diem! He's saying be careful because death is close, whatever importance you think you chase in life, it's all nothing to nature, you're a walking corpse so forget worldly things and focus on the state of your soul.

Clari wrote: "Laurel wrote: "Thomas wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Sounds so clearly cautionary to me... ."

What does it caution against?"

Against arrogance and heedlessness because you, too, shall die?"

I think so, L..."

The Dog again.

Laurel wrote: "Thomas wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Sounds so clearly cautionary to me... ."

What does it caution against?"

Against arrogance and heedlessness because you, too, shall die?"

I think that's the surface meaning, but the ambiguities of this poem make me wary of a simple conclusion. I fully expect Phlebas to rise again in some way, like lilacs out of the dead land or the sprouting corpse. The wheel is one of Eliot's favorite symbols, and it's turning in this section as well.

Thomas wrote: "Kathy wrote: "Sounds so clearly cautionary to me... ."

What does it caution against?"

If it were something simple enough to sum up in a comment, why would he have written a great big poem to do it in? 0:)

Mary wrote: "If it were something simple enough to sum up in a comment, why would he have written a great big poem to do it in? 0:) "

Yeah, that's what worries me. My gut tells me this poem is more than a "momento mori."

Thomas wrote: "Mary wrote: "If it were something simple enough to sum up in a comment, why would he have written a great big poem to do it in? 0:) "

Yeah, that's what worries me. My gut tells me this poem is mor..."

Oh, only that one section is a memento mori.

I don't see any suggestion of resurrection myself until well into What the Thunder Said, and even then, I wouldn't call it resurrection, but maybe more a hint of hope when it begins to rain. Here, I see Phlebas being sucked down into a whirlpool. Will he rise again later? I suppose you can read What the Thunder Said in that way, but I see a parched, dry land, a woman playing music on her long black hair and bats crawling "head downward down a blackened wall" and voices echoing from underground cisterns. Datta suggests that our lives are the result of "the awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract," Dayadhvam hears the key turn "once and turn once only," as if we've been locked in, Damyata says "your heart *would have* responded gaily..." but even then, beating to "controlling hands," and anyway it's only in the conditional. The narrator is fishing and thinking about setting his things in order, presumably to die. The poem ends with shanti, "peace," which I think, contrary to resurrection, is the only sense of "redemption" we're going to get--the peace that comes with death. Eliot seems to me to be suggesting that it might have been better for us if we'd never been born, but oh well, at least we're going to die again and then we'll be at peace. Probably should have posted this in What the Thunder Said, but it's really in response to the conversation above.

Kathy wrote: "I don't see any suggestion of resurrection myself until well into What the Thunder Said, and even then, I wouldn't call it resurrection, but maybe more a hint of hope when it begins to rain. Here, ..."

Maybe I'm reading more into it than is there, but I see a hint of resurrection from the beginning of the poem, from "lilacs out of the dead land." And there is rain in that first stanza as well. I don't see a final redemption, or an end of any sort --neither death nor life is the end here -- but I do see a cycle of life and death, a wheel that keeps on turning. But this cycle is itself a sort of prison, and liberation seems a long way off.

Part of the problem with the Wasteland is that it draws the life out until resurrection seems a bother.

Thomas wrote: "I do see a cycle of life and death, a wheel that keeps on turning. But this cycle is itself a sort of prison, and liberation seems a long way off."

Agreed! Depressing...

Many of the comments I read here, in my head, I was saying YES, yes, yes! This little interlude certainly sets a mood. We all will face death, whether of our mortal bodies as our life passes before us "He passes the stages of age and youth"; or death of our nature to be reborn anew in the spirit as with baptism. Although the bones being picked (clean) make me think more of the shedding of our mortal bodies and the purification through that loss.

The Collection of poems Eliot published in 1920, included 'Dans Le Restaurant' which concludes:

Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,
Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cornouaille,
Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d’étain:
Un courant de sous-mer l’emporta très loin,
Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure.
Figurez-vous donc, c’était un sort pénible;
Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille.

which for those whose French is good as mine is nicely translated to:

Phlebas the Phoenician, drowned a fortnight since,
Forgot the cries of gulls and the Cornish sea-swell,
And the profits and the losses, and the cargo of tin;
A current under sea took him very far away,
Took him back through the stages of his former life.
You can imagine, it was a painful fate;
Even so, he was once a handsome man, and tall.

It's interesting how Eliot is reworking a previous poem to include here. In the pre 'Waste land' incarnation I think it sounds even more miserable for poor Phlebas!

Clari wrote: "which for those whose French is good as mine is nicely translated to:..."

Thank you, Clari. ;-)

Reading the translation prompted me to look again at the notes for that section in "A Student's Guide to... "

"In Philebas, Socrates comments on the condition of self-ignorance: 'people who think themselves taller and more handsome and physically finer...than they really are."

Clari wrote: "The Collection of poems Eliot published in 1920, included 'Dans Le Restaurant' which concludes:

Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,
Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cor..."

He takes fragments from everyone else; he may as well include himself!