T. S. Eliot’s Poems of Satire Written in the 1910s: Transition in the Narrative Structure

Abstract

We tend to think Eliot’s satirical poems were written along with his interest in Gautier and followed the dramatic monologues. However, Eliot’s experimentation with satire, his use of satirical tone and understatement on narrative stance, had started much earlier. In “Preludes” and other shorter poems written before 1915 he had already portrayed the so-called omniscient “I” as a distanced narrator, started to zoom out his narrative angles, and brought satirical strains to the poem by suddenly subjecting the narrator to an irony. In the quatrain poems Eliot further experimented and extended narrative scope further. As the narrative scope turns more comprehensive, the major tools to keep satirical strains are the personal pronouns: the first and the second persons are drastically reduced, and “they” as the collective mass dominates, telescoped under the satirical eyes. After the quatrain poems, Eliot returns to the earlier “I,” resuming the old effort to bridge “I” with the collective “they.” Just as the foundation of his satire was the partial sympathy Prufrock’s “I” has reached, so the foundation of new sympathy is the “I” narrator’s and “their” limitedness in perspective. Eliot’s satirical poems in the 1910s are transitional in restructuring the narrative stance, which prepares for the new fusion.