Possibly. I detested Eliot in my young years but I read Little Gidding later after finding God again (or rather He found me) and I cried. It was so exquisitely true. To journey back to where we began and to recognize it for the first time. "Requiring nothing less than absolute simplicity" That spoke to my heart.
Unfortunately, if a truly great poet like Eliot decides to move beyond the traditional boundaries and styles of poetry, there is no end to the number of 'little scribblers' who think themselves equally capable of doing the same.
Yes. Modern poetry--i had to study it in college. I disliked it thoroughly but then I am probably a medievalist at heart. Modern poetry is so often hideous. For myself I am very fond of sonnets. Shakespeare, Donne, et al. To forge poetic meaning out of the restrictions of 14 lines and strict rhyming in iambic pentameter is to truly produce poetry. IMHO.
I am afraid I am no expert on poetry. I do, however remember trying to read TS Elliott's, 'The Waste land', when I was in the very depths of the Dark Night. Many commentators have described Elliott as a mystic , like Gerald Manley Hopkins. I suppose it may be so. However when I started to read it I had to give it up almost at once. It did not exactly cheer me up. Gerald Manly Hopkins on the other hand who enduring a truly harrowing Dark Night up until his death, plucks light from the Dark. Something I love. CS Lewis, JR Tolkein and TS Elliot used to meet to chat in the same Cambridge Pub. Imagine being in the company of three such great towering geniuses having a pint. Heaven. It was called , 'The Eagle and Child'. Who says God has no sense of humour?
I suspect that if CS Lewis been of Ulster Protestant stock he may well have converted and become a Catholic. Perhaps that is what Tolkein was hinting at? Ulster Protestants were and are inclined to view Catholics in the same light as the Klu Klux Klan regard blacks. Irish Catholics , I mean. Tolkein was a daily Communicant but he was and English intellectual Catholic and of a certain Class, something I suppose Lewis might have found much easier to put up with. But Tolkein was no fool. He knew what being a Protestant from Belfast implied.
I'm afraid my poetic sense is not good either. I have not read either Lewis or Tolkien. I did receive this earlier in the year, a clip from EWTN's film on Tolkien. It depicts the debate between the two which lead to Lewis's conversion to Christianity. I thought it was stunningly superb!
I think Lewis was very much an 'Anglo-Catholic, that type of Anglican Protestant that most veered in the direction of Catholicism. He used to go to 'confession' and was very respectful of the Eucharist and Our Lady, but I can't quite remember if he actually believed in the Real Presence. Given his background, as so well-perceived by Tolkien, it would have been extremely difficult to cross the Tiber, but he certainly looked on reasonably benevolently from the other side. His book 'Mere Christianity', which dealt with what was common to Catholicism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism and Methodism and which he defined as the fundamentals one needed to accept in order to be entitled to deem oneself Christian, showed that he was not hostile to Catholicism, in the intellectual sense at least. He probably would have had little difficulty with a Portuguese Catholic, for example, but an Irish one would have come with that bit of extra baggage.
It's the restrictions that 'force' the meaning to emerge. The limits which prevent the poet from saying something in a long-winded way compel him to come up with a shorter description which, paradoxically, can contain more meaning. Modern 'poetry' seems to me to be prose presented in lines which are quite arbitrary and could be rearranged without fundamental difference. Unsurprisingly, the word 'poet' is one very broadly sprinkled around nowadays, just like the term 'artist'. It's all too true, anyone could do it.
I would love to see his reaction to the Anglican Church as it is today. He would probably give him heart failure. Come to think of it when I look at the Catholic Church today I am not far off taking heart failure myself.
It’s my belief and I could be wrong, but I think maybe God put Lewis and Tolkien in charge of the fantasy adventure realms of Heaven. It starts by you entering an English pub where two gentlemen are discussing Christianity, one hands you a ring and the other a key to a wardrobe, and the adventure begins…
Excellent observation. Having struggled with the sonnet form I can attest to its power to concentrate meaning in few words. Its a wonderful tool for would be poets. It prevents that verbosity and excess that so often tempts modern poetry.
I had a lovely strange dream last night. I dreamt I was in the Lebanon, a country I have never visited and know little or nothing about. I was walking up a valley towards the moutains before me, I suppose it must have been the Bequaa Valley towards the mountains. There was a fierce looking gentleman with a large moustache walking ahead of me guiding me as we ascended with a strange white head dress on his head. All round us were beautiful Lebanon Cedars, the ground was strewn with their needles all green and brown. I felt I had been in this place before as we went up the mountains and knew it well. We cam to a parting in the path and the gentleman signalled me to take the path to the right, but I took the path to the left. So we parted. The path narrowed to a rocks sticking out of a sheer granite cliff. But Lebanon, the mountains are gorgeous and so are the trees. I have no idea what the dream meant, but praying for the Lebanon.
Just yesterday evening, I learned of Saint Rafqa (1832 - 1914) a Lebanese Maronite nun who was canonised in 2001. I hadn't known of her before but I think that along with Saint Charbel, she is the second Maronite Saint. She is the patron saint of lost parents and of the sick.
