Metaphysical Motives in Eliot’s Early Poetry

Abstract

The apparent discrepancy between the revolutionary features of T. S. Eliot’s early poems and the conservatism of his later ones has drawn much attention. Eliot’s influence and popularity heavily relied upon his modernistic experiments and criticism against the literary conventions he inherited from his predecessors. His changed posture in the later 1920’s appeared to be a betrayal against the causes on which his reputation was based. However, even if his earlier attitudes are noticeably different in many aspects from his later Christian causes, his later devotion to Christianity is foreshadowed by a significant number of motives found in his early poems from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” to The Waste Land. Eliot’s early speakers fail in communication and relations with other fellow characters because their interest lies with metaphysical questions unlike others around him. They show great interest in the issue of death and are unexceptionably full of discontent with naturalistic perspectives on the matter as a complete extinction of one’s existence. Eliot also adopts surrealistic techniques, suggesting his commonality with psychological understandings then. His mythical method is also an encouragement to view the world in a religious hierarchical system, with the Cause posed at the topmost of the chain of existence. Basically he sees the modern world as fragmented and disorderly because it has lost the meaning-giving value system of metaphysical nature. His disapproval of the dissociated sensibility may also be intended to restore religious sensibilities in opposition to the reason-oriented Enlightenment and emotion-centered Romanticism. This article is intended to trace those motives in Eliot’s early poetry which would ultimately lead to his later Christian world-views.