The play opens with a cocktail party-the first of two-arranged by Lavinia but hosted by her husband, Edward Chamberlayne. Eliot did so in the years between 19 when he labored to restore poetic drama, the most popular of which was The Cocktail Party, a comedy which develops dramatically into a philosophically darker spiritual trial. After The Waste Land, Eliot’s task was increasingly to enshrine Christian martyrdom and to “urge the mind to aftersight and foresight” as he wrote in “Little Gidding” in 1942.
Bradley, a British neo-idealist who rejected the utilitarian and empiricist trends in the generation prior to Eliot’s own. What he was about was a lot about a living “God” it was about atonement, confession, prayer, and penance, supported by the doctrine that the atoning person can come to redemption ransomed by Christ’s death.Įliot had earlier established a “theistic” position informed by philosophy, wide-reading in the classics, and his dissertation interest in F.H. In one of his manifesto letters to William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound opines “wot a lot of dead cod about a dead god.” Whether “Old Possum” Eliot directed a response to Pound is unknown, but one can imagine a side-long pickerel grin and his intent to fare forward shoring up fragments to cure our cultural soul with a living God’s love, serenity, and quiet joy. His most popular drama was “The Cocktail Party,” a comedy which develops dramatically into a philosophically darker spiritual trial and wrestles with the theme of atonement. Eliot’s task was to enshrine Christian martyrdom and to restore poetic drama.
0 kommentar(er)
