| "That was a way of putting it—not very satisfactory: | ||||
| A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion, | ||||
| Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle | ||||
| With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter." ... | ||||
| "Trying to use words, and every attempt | ||||
| Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure | ||||
| Because one has only learnt to get the better of words | ||||
| For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which | ||||
| One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture | ||||
| Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate | ||||
| With shabby equipment always deteriorating | ||||
| In the general mess of imprecision of feeling, | ||||
| Undisciplined squads of emotion." | ||||
--T.S. Eliot, "East Coker"
(This is how I feel when writing. Also: We've been reading the Four Quartets in my classes these last couple of weeks, which has been delightful, at least for me. The kids think that Eliot is deeply depressing.)
2 comments:
Eliot was a big hit with some of my friends and I when we were fourteen or so specifically *because* he was depressing. He was so serious! So grown-up! But in fairness we were reading his earlier work, not hacking through Four Quartets.
Ha--I think I'm too sanguine--even actually depressing things I read as not depressing. (Although, yes, I think his pre-Christian work is way more depressing than his post-Christian.) I suppose the Four Quartets *are* at least partially about the war...
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