Thank You for listening
Summary
The Past and The Present
- "Whisper of Immortality" is a representation of the loss of connection the present writers have between thought and feeling
- The difference in the physical and the metaphysical side of things and how it is more interest that people see beyond the physical rather than being confined to the physical
- Eliot's view as a poet and how he has seen the world through is eyes and that it is slowly changing for the worse
- Webster and Donne wrote in a metaphysical manner, which will be "immortal"
- Metaphysical
- Webster & Donne
- Past
Metaphor
"Couched Brazilian Jaguar" is the term used to describe Grishkin who is the intimidating figure that presents the physical aspect of the present.
- Grishkin is associated to being a "Brazilian jaguar" that is ready to tempt writers away from metaphysics
- She is a representation of the physical pleasures that writers in the present look towards when they write
- Grishkin herself is provocative, fleshy and sexual; a temptation to men mostly
- This reliance on reality and the physical side of things draws them away from writing essentially good literature
Serefina Astafieva was a Russian ballerina that supposedly inspired the character of Grishkin in the poem
Structure
Allusion
- The poem has 8 stanzas
- 4 lines per stanza
- Assonance at the end of each alternate sentence
- Split into two different sections
Top Half
- The top half is a representation of the past and metaphysical
- Webster and Donne looked towards the metaphysical and are "proper writers"
Bottom Half
- The bottom half is a representation of the present and the physical
- Grishkin is the physical temptation and draws writers away from the metaphysical
WEBSTER was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.
Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense;
To seize and clutch and penetrate,
Expert beyond experience,
He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.
· · · · · · · ·
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.
The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;
The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.
And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.
John Webster
- Famous Renaissance dramatist, know for his tragedies
- Allusion: a reference to a person, object or event that further emphasizes the meaning of the text; also shows a relation to something in the world that people know about
- Both Webster and Donne have been alluded to in Eliot's poem, as they are seen as representatives of the Metaphysical world that is slowly being lost in the present day
- Show the relation of how they wrote in comparison to works of writers in the present; they provided a connection in their works where as the connection is fading away as poets don't write like they did
- Eliot wrote and essay called "The Metaphysical Poets" which analyzes the work of these two
- Mentioned them as being "Disassociated with sensibility"
John Donne
- English poet, played a key role in Metaphysical Poetry
The Analysis
Whispers of Immortality
- A personal opinion of Eliot as he discovers that poetry nowadays has been lacking a connection to the metaphysical side of things and writers now only rely on the physical
- Thought and feeling are extremely important aspects in writing and that they are slowly fading away in works through time
- Webster and Donne are a representation of the past and metaphysics; that their works were truly remarkable and had that connection between their thoughts and feelings
- Where as Grishkin is a representation of the present and physical; present day writers rely on physical pleasures that draw them away for the metaphysics and thus, lose that connection between thought and feeling
Metaphysics
- Is a subsection in philosophy that deals with ideas beyond the physical
- It refers to ideas that can't be physically held such as time, mortality, the arts and experiences of the past
- There was an era of Metaphysical Poets and John Donne was one of the key figures in them as he dealt with the abstract ideas that don't have a direct answer as they are beyond this physical state
WEBSTER was much possessed by death
And saw the skull beneath the skin;
And breastless creatures under ground
Leaned backward with a lipless grin.
Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs
Tightening its lusts and luxuries.
Donne, I suppose, was such another
Who found no substitute for sense;
To seize and clutch and penetrate,
Expert beyond experience,
He knew the anguish of the marrow
The ague of the skeleton;
No contact possible to flesh
Allayed the fever of the bone.
· · · · · · · ·
Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye
Is underlined for emphasis;
Uncorseted, her friendly bust
Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.
The couched Brazilian jaguar
Compels the scampering marmoset
With subtle effluence of cat;
Grishkin has a maisonette;
The sleek Brazilian jaguar
Does not in its arboreal gloom
Distil so rank a feline smell
As Grishkin in a drawing-room.
And even the Abstract Entities
Circumambulate her charm;
But our lot crawls between dry ribs
To keep our metaphysics warm.
T.S Eliot
- Well known modernist poet
- Deals with the ideas of a disillusioned world
- Looked at the reality of things
- Usually writes in a fragmented and collage manner
- Highly influenced by past poets, dramatists, playwrights and other poems
The title of the Poem
- "Whispers of Immortality" is a sort of simplified version of Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality"
- Provides connotations with the idea of mortality and how it will be carried on into the future