The Four Quartets- Little Gidding and Dante

So I found it especially hard to do a presentation on Little Gidding because as Dr. Sexson said, there is just so much there that it is almost hard to first nail down a singular meaning and second to try to fit everything in to a 45 minute presentation. So here are some things that i know i left out of my section and that i think deserve further exploration. I feel it is also important to point out that the section i had to present on was difficult, really difficult, so jam packed with imagery and meaning and allusion that it would seem almost impossible to fully understand and flush out. Eliot himself even remarked on this part of the poem as one of the hardest things he had ever written saying once that "This section of a poem-not the length of one canto of the Divine Comedy- cost me far more time and trouble and vexation than any passage of the same length that I have ever written."

Dante in Little Gidding Part II:
The meeting of the ghost in this part is very similar to Dante's meeting with Ser Brunetto. In book 15 of the Inferno, Dante and his guide Virgil come upon Dante's former master who was a politician and writer but is now among the sodomites. What seems important to me here is that in this meeting in the Inferno, the questions of immortality and death are brought up as Dante learns from Ser Brunetto that immortality can be found in ones literature which can last forever. This is an interesting moment in time in the poem as it is right after an air raid ( "After the dark dove with the flickering tongue/ Had passed below the horizon of his homing") and the fire that would be raining down upon Eliot in England is mirrored by the fire that is falling on the sodomites in Dante's Inferno. This image also brings to mind the fire that rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis, but that is for a different blog post all together. Upon seeing his former master Dante says "Siete voi qui, Ser Brunetto" or "Are you here, Ser Bruneto?" This is one of the lines that Eliot echoes in Little Gidding with the line " What! are you here?" Further Eliot makes use of Dante's description of Ser Brunettos in his use of the line "brown baked features" which is taken from Dante's exact same description of "lo cotto aspetto." This again happens in the lines " I fixed upon the down turned face" which comes directly from Dante's "Ficcai...la sua facia." It becomes clear that the influence of Dante in this part of the poem is overwhelming yet i still stick to my original conclusion that while Dante's work certainly played a large role in the section he also does not entirely make up the character of the ghost that Eliot encounters. Instead this "familiar compound ghost" in my understanding is, as Helen Gardener put it "both one and many" and is both "intimate and unidentifiable."

Gretta Conroy and Nora Barnacle

I just came across an interesting correlation between the character of Gretta Conroy and Joyce's wife, Nora Barnacle (shown in the picture above). Both women were from Galway, both women lived with their grandmothers, both studied in a convent, and more importantly both knew a Michael Furey character. Like Gretta, Nora knew a boy as a young girl in Galway who died from illness named Michael, only in Nora's case Michael's last name was Feeney instead of Furey. The similarities between the two women are pretty astounding! Not sure that this means anything to the text itself but I thought it was pretty neat.

Looking for Diamonds in "The Dead"

So after scouring through the "The Dead" trying to find "ooh" and "aah" moments, or as Dr.Sexson has coined them, diamonds, I have come across a few different points of interest. I am not sure these count as diamonds though so instead I will deem them to be a less precious stone like a garnet as i am still "mining" for diamonds.

First off Gabriel's name seemed like an interesting choice to me, because even with my severe lack of biblical knowledge I knew that the name had at least something to do with religion. So with a little research I came to learn that Gabriel was an archangel in the Bible who plays a few different roles. He is said to be the one to announce the end of time or the last judgement with the blowing of a horn and he is also present during both the passion and Resurrection of Jesus, it is Gabriel that announces Christ's Resurrection to the women outside his tomb, called the "Myrrh-bearing women." One of these women is Christ's mother Mary, who is often given the symbol of the lily, further, depictions of Gabriel often show him holding a lily. Interestingly enough Lily is the name of the young housekeeper in the story. I am still trying to work out what this means for the two individual characters but it does seem that in a larger sense both characters are linked to the story of the Resurrection, possibly alluding to a Resurrection or rebirth in the story (last page anyone?) but again this is all conjecture, so do with it what you may.

Dubliners: The Dead

I saw this song by Thomas Moore called "Oh, Ye Dead!" the poem is set to traditional Irish music and was published as part of Moore's "Irish Melodies" between 1808 and 1834. Apparently Joyce was often heard humming these tunes (according to the Internet, so this could be just a rumor) so it would make sense that this song was an influence of Joyce's story The Dead, it certainly seems to share many similarities.

Oh, ye Dead! oh, ye Dead! whom we know by the light you give
From your cold gleaming eyes, though you move like men who live.
Why leave you thus your graves,
In far off fields and waves,
Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed,
To haunt this spot where all
Those eyes that wept your fall,
And the hearts that wail'd you, like your own, lie dead?

It is true, it is true, we are shadows cold and wan;
And the fair and the brave whom we lov'd on earth are gone,
But still thus even in death
So sweet the living breath
Of the fields and the flow'rs in our youth we wander9d o9er
That ere, condemn'd, we go
To freeze mid Hecla's snow,
We would taste it awhile, and think we live once more!



I also figured I would add a photo of Dublin from about two years ago just to get us in the mood!