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Transcript

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

Whispers of Immortality - Poem Analysis

Written by T.S. Eliot

  • Physical
  • Grishkin
  • Present
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