And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
-- T. S. Eliot, the Wasteland
It is hot today, and will be hotter tomorrow, by all reports. It's the kind of heat that settles on you like a thick blanket weighted with shot. It pushes you down into your seat where you remain until sunset at least, when things go from unbearable to merely oppressive. The quote above often pops into my head on days like this.
I like Eliot a lot, especially The Hollow Men, enough so that I took the time to memorize it at 16. This despite the fact that I don't understand a word of it.
Oh, I can understand the footnotes and commentary textbooks supply. Since they largely agree, I have to accept they're largely correct interpretations, too, but damned if I can follow the path from poem to consensus interpretation as a compelling argument. The images are too heavily symbolic to carry meaning so explicitly. Maybe they are about 20th century angst caused by a loss of religious faith. Or not. Once, when I confessed to my English-teacher Aunt Linda that I loved Eliot but hadn't the vaguest clue of what he was saying, she replied, "Oh, Eliot usually didn't have a clue what he was saying." Maybe, maybe not, but it was a good answer. If we did, we'll never know it for certain.
So really, his value is all a question of the turns of phrase he uses. Are they pleasing to the ear? Do they evoke intriguing images? Do they seem pregnant with meaning, even if the meaning is obscure? Appreciation of the poem becomes even more personal and subjective than for other poems. Personally, I like "I will show you fear in a handful of dust" and "this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms," but if you don't, well, what can I say to change your mind? This indefensibility Is it good? Is it art?
Before you answer too quickly, I also like many pretentious, drug-induced Woodstock-era lyrics: Jefferson Starship, the Moody Blues, even Neil Young - if only they could do something about his voice! I've puzzled over their lyrics, and am drawn to a portion of it for the same reasons that I like Eliot,. Yet most of the acid lyrics, while indisputably art, is also bad art.
What's the difference? Nothing I can communicate well, which makes my position tenuous indeed. Eliot just feels better. Heavier, in the Latin sense of gravitas. The images relate closely to one another, and suggest more meaning than does acid rock flinging out images chosen for their own sake. I feel, at some non-verbal level, confident that Eliot has the power to appeal much more strongly to many more people, and to carry its sense of (unfathomable) meaning more reliably. Just a guess, but one I trust.
Which brings me to a principle I hold very firmly: there is a difference between what we like and what is good. I like James Bond and Hostess Ho-Hos and H. Beam Piper, but neither in ways that make the experiences rich and valuable, nor in ways I could expect others to share. They are crap. By contrast, it's hard to imagine someone not reacting on some level to the fourth movement Beethoven's 9th. That's art. Good art.