T.S.Eliot reflecting on John Donne
著者（英） Katsuhiro Engetsu journal or
publication title
Core
number 11
page range 61‑80
year 1982‑03‑20
URL http://doi.org/10.14988/pa.2017.0000016404
61
T . S . E l i o t R e f l e c t i n g o n J o h n Donne
K a t s u h i r o Engetsu
I
Since the opening of the twentieth century， John Donne has enjoyed an amazing revival which could not be imagined in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Thinking of his dramatic reappearance on the modern stage of the critical mind， we must not forget one scholar and one poet‑critic as its exponents: Herbert J. C. Grierson and T. S. Eliot.1 Grierson's great edition of Donne's poetry published in 1912 was sub‑ stantial enough to prepare for the fruition of succeeding works on Donne's poetry. It offered readers of Donne's poetry the textual secu‑ rity which Coleridge had not， to his regret， been able to hold.2 It also gave the readers commentaries， the value of which W. B. Yeats con‑ 五rmsby saying in his letter to Grierson，Your notes tell me exactly what 1 want to know." 3 Grierson's contribution to Donne's revival，
however， was not only that edition. His pub1ication of an anthology， llJetaphysical Lyrics and Poems 01 the Seventeenth Century， consolidated the revi ving interest in the seventeenth century metaphysical poets， whose central五gureis， of course， Donne. It was in response to the anthology that Eliot wrote an ess旦y，The1¥在etaphysicalPoets." 1n the review he a伍rmsthat the anthology is in itself a pi巴ce of criticism，
and a provocation of criticism.川
62 T. S. Eliot Re丑ectingon J ohn Donne
Eliot's criticism was another provocation of criticism，" which may have been more influential than the work of Grierson. Substantial as Grierson's achievement was， it may be supposed that the interest in Donne's poetry provoked by it could not have launched a confluent movement in both creative and critical minds in those times without the support of Eliot. In fact， F. R. Leavis， one of the most stimulating critics in the twentieth century， bears testimony to Eliot's influence upon his generation in terms of Donne's poetry; for example， when he dis‑ cusses William Empson's poetry， he points out Donne's influence on Empson and says， . . • his debt to Donne is at the same time a debt to Mr. Eliot.ηGeorge Williamson， the author of The Donne Tradition， a伍rmsin the memorable collection of papers on Donne， A Garland for John Donne (1931): Most of the cont色mporarypoets who have been influenced by Donne have been influenced by those aspects of him which T. S. Eliot has made accessible to our time." 6 The signincance of Eliot's criticism on Donne was， thus， admitted beyond question by his contemporaries.
Among Eliot's reflections on the metaphysical poets， the best‑known is the term， dissociation of sensibility." 7 By making use of the term， he idealizes Donne's poetry in contrast with that of Tennyson and Brown‑
ing which he considers to have been aggravated by the influence of Milton and Dryden. He pronounces that in Donne there is a direct sensuous apprehension of thought， or a recreation of thought into feel‑ ing，" 8 which cannot be found in Tennyson and Browning; he affirms that the defect of Tennyson and Browning is the dissociation of sen‑ sibility" from which modern minds su妊'erstill. He lifts Donne up as the archetype of the creative mind which must be restored in order
T. S. Eliot Reflecting on John Donne 63 that modern minds may recover the sense of unity and living wholeness of human experience. The bri11iant sensibility of Donne in contrast to the sterile state of modern minds， which Eliot draws our attention to in the review， is what George Williamson calls the aspect of Donne
which T. S. Eliot has made accessible to our time."
But as early as 1931 Eliot repudiated his own view of thinking upon Donne as the archetype of the creative mind. 1n A Garland for John Donne， the very book in which George Wi11iamson is admiring the ill u‑ minating nature of Eliot's former remarks on Donne， Eliot coldheartedly recants: 1n Donne， there is a manifest fissure between thought and sensibility， a chasm which in his poetry he bridged in his own way， which was not the way of medieval poetry." 9 Eliot had already de‑ tached himself personally from the burgeoning interest in Donne， leav‑ ing behind his public successors.
It was in 1921 that Eliot wrote a series of stimulating essays on sev‑ enteenth century poetry，The Metaphysical Poets，" Andrew Marvell，"
and "John Dryden"; the previous year he had published Gerontion"
and other poems， which was followed by the publication of The Waste Land in 1922.By 1931 his enthusiastic predilection for Donne had cooled; the previous year he had completed Ash‑Wednesday. 1t is ob‑ vious that something， apart from the literary movement， had changed in his mind over those ten years. During the period there was a cru‑ cial transformation in his poetical work. If his criticism is， as he him‑
self admits，a by‑product of his creative activity，" 10 it is not imperti‑ nent for us to explore， in thechange of his attitude towards Donne， some clues to the conflict behind the transformation in his creative ac‑ tivity of the 1920s. The aim of the present paper is to elucidate this
64 T. S. Eliot Reflecting on John Donne
conflict and how the development reflected on Eliot's view of Donne.
II
According to Eliot's own comment， his acquaintance with Donne's poetry occurred in Professor Briggs's inviting class at Harvard in 1906;
when he arrived in London in 1916， Donne had already been a sort of social vogue of the intelligentsia there，1l The foundation for the later enthusiastic revival of Donne， which he was to advocate， had， as Joseph Duncan rightly points out，12 already been laid for the youthful Eliot. It is easily imagined th旦 thesensitive young man was soon involved in the prevalent trend to feel a strong a伍nityfor Donne.
There are some analogies between the circumstances in which Donne was placed and that in which Eliot and his generation lived. Both ages were ages of transition where men could not easily fInd what was to be relied upon as a standard. In each period the old syst色m of values， which had been thought to hold true in any case， began to betray its weakness and no new substitute for it could be built up into a defInite form out of lavish information; men must have felt that they were in transition， but could not fully und邑rstandwhat to do with it.
It is easy for us to fInd in Donne's poetry his embarrassment at the accelerated transition. His confrontation with the confusion in his time is characterized， for example， in his Satyre III." The state of re国i1 gious issues had become more and more comp1icated since the Refor‑ mation and had turned out to be almost irreparable by the end of the sixteenth century; to the young poet who was brought up in a Catholic family and， at the same time， lived under the reign of the Anglican Church， the problem of truth so disorganized must have appeared to
T. S. Eliot R巴ilectingon John Donne 65 be more crucial than to ordinary men. He did not know which to stand for; all he could do was to detach himself from all sides of the conflict in order to arri ve at truth:
To adore， or scorne an image， or protest，
お1ayall be bad; doubt wisely; in strange way To stand inquiring right， is not to stray;
To sleepe， or runne wrong， is. On a huge hill， Cragged， and steep， Truth stands， and hee that will Reach her， about must， and about must goe; 13
here his resolution in embarrassment to explore truth is clearly mani司 fested. Lucidity towards his own individual feelings to look after truth underlies his work though he sometimes appears to stand in strange way.
We五ndelaborate introductions of analytical scrutiny， of logical struc‑ ture into poetry， even in his amorous poems. The charact己ristic may be de五nedas anti‑Petrarchism. And yet the de五nitiondoes not explain what made it possible and necessary for him to revolt with such intensity against the old conventions. What impelled him to stand against these conventions was partly his resolute attitude towards truth and his aver‑ sion to uncritical ways. He oft巴n devoted himself to disclose the di‑ vergence between things‑as田they‑are" and things‑as‑they‑can‑be‑con‑ ceived" 14‑the divergence which became conspicuous in the accelerated transition but which men were likely to ignore:
Love's not so pure， and abstract， as they use To s丘y，which have no Mistresse but their Muse， But as all else， being elem日ntedtoo，
Love sometim己swould contemplate， sometimes dO.15
66 T. S. Eliot Reflecting on John Donne
Petrarchan idealization of love is put in sharp contr呂stto the real state of love and is made to reveal its incapacity to explain human experi‑ ence. The poet substantiated love by the insistence that it was sub‑
lunary， and recovered the sense of palpability in the amorous poem.
He had an inclination to exploit all experiences， however real or liter‑ ary， secular or religiolls they were. Although materials in his poetry appear at fIrst glance to be heterogenious， arduous elaboration to fabri酢 cate a new and preternatural perspecti ve based on his own sensibility is one of the perennial components of his poetry.
The matter lies not in the extraordinary elaboration itself， but in the reason he exerted it in order to put his materials into a concentrated form. The quality of his poetry is not in the matter but in the manner俸 His materials were neither always new nor extravagant; he made use of the legacies of antiquity as if testing their validity. In order to. achieve construction of poetic unity， he required a kind of violence to organize his erudite knowledge and deep emotions. For instance， one of his well‑known conceits， the compass image in ~'A Valediction;
forbidding mourning，" is not of pure invention but is accompanied by many current contexts‑emblematic， astronomical， and alchemica].t6 He made an agile and cogent analogy between the parting lovers and a compass drawing a circle as a symbol of constancy and of resurrection. The poetic unity is constructed on the subtlest balance based upon his exploration of a correspondence between heterogenious ideas. The same explanation can be applied for the second stanza of A Valediction;
of weeping，" the rapid association of thought" of which Eliot admires ln The Metaphysical Poets." 17 Donne's recondite elaboration to or‑ ganize his materials in detecting elusive correspondences among them
T. S. Eliot Reflecting on John Donne 67 ls str百 l UOUSand sometimes even violent.
1n the age of Donne， as we have seen in his Satyre II1，" religious views had been disorganized. There was another clea vage between re‑ ligion and science， that is， between values and facts. Thus truth ap‑ peared to be twofold.18 Though Donne was not a systematic thinker at all， we fInd in his work a large infusion of the new science and an
，experimental attitude towards facts. The poetic power in his libertine love poems is due much to his flexible and realistic observation of hu‑
man experience. But， on the other hand， it is also true that not only his devotional but secular poems bear testimony to his constant attach‑ ment to the quest for religious or supernatural truth; The Extasie，"
for example， probably repres邑ntsmore than seduction. To neither as‑ pect of twofold truth could he be commited at the expense of the other. It was the disorganized truth in his mind th丘turged him to reconstruct into a poetic unity intransigent ingredients of experience recol1ected in
士herealistic attitude and to consequently mobilize his tour de force. Eliot's early work testi五回 tohis ardent insistence upon the autonomy {)f poetry which seems to be parallel to Donne's flexible attitude in his poetry. It would be indispensable for the two young poets， who lived in ages of transition， to step aside from the confounded state into a moratorium of moral judgment so that they might establish their own points of view. Eliot， in "The Perfect Critic，" puts an emphasis upon the importance of "the disinterested exercise of intelligence " 19 for both creative and critical sensibility. The statement in his early work shows us clearly that he stood against successors of Romanticism and against， as a result， Romanticism itself， which he felt no longer functioned as a creative and critical activity. Romanticism is to Eliot what Petrarchism
68 T. S. Eliot Reflecting on }ohn Donne
is to Donne. When Donne started to compose his verse， the old con‑ vention had already reached its maturity and could provide the poet no poetic possibilities but that of reiteration of innocuous expressions. His career as poet had to begin with the task of struggling with his burdensome heritage in order to contrive a manner and style which would be五tterfor his true feelings. His task was not to abandon the tradition in which he had been involved， but to render it truly vicari‑ ous and， by emancipating it from all prejudices， to recover sharpness in expression of things‑as‑they‑are." Th巴 task Eliot as poet had to embark on was the same as that of Donne. What Eliot had succeeded' to were the legacies of Romanticism. 1ts outburst of personal emotionsデ
however， could serve for him no more creative possibilities except such eccentricity as to seek for new human emotions to express." 20 Hi s. stress on the disinterested exercise of intelligence " should b己consid‑ ered to be made by the poet， who was well aware of the fascinating danger induced by his predecessors， lest he should fall into the eccen佐 tricity which would have kept him away from clarity of expression.
If the territory of emotions had already been exhausted by his pred‑
ecessors， the question of what direction was open for a poet to go fur‑ ther must ha ve been fundamental for him. His answer was as follows:
The business of the poet is not to五nd new emotions， but to use the ordinary ones and， in working them up into poetry， to express feelings which are not in actual邑motionsat all. And emotions which he was never experienced wil1 serve his turn as well as those familiar to him.21
For him materials of the poem were a secondary problem; primary was the manner. His creative activity was directed to make use of the or‑
T. S. Eliot Refiecting on John Donne 69 dinary emotions， that is， the territory already explored by the preceι ing generation， and to reconstruct them into a poetic unity beyond his personal limitations. He did not necessarily repudiate the legacies of his immediate predecessors， but intended to accept them， however frag‑ mentary and chaotic they were， so as to transmute them into a form fitter for the real state of his generation. His struggle was with the di缶culty of the task. And he found in Donne's poetry a pattern to transform disparate materials into a unity:
Tennyson and Browning旦repoets， and they think; but they do not feel their thought as immediately as the odour of a rose. A thought to Donne was an experience; it modi五ed his sensi‑ bility. When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its workラ
it is constantly amalgamating disparate experience ; the ordinary man's experience is chaotic， irregular， fragmentary. The latte1'
falls in love， 01' 1'eads Spinoza， and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other， 01' with the noise of the type‑ w1'iter 01' the smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these expe1'i邑ncesare always forming n邑w wholes.22
The well‑known statement quoted above shows how Eliot believed Donne to be an archetype of the poet's mind. Depending upon his a自nity with Donne， he justified his own direction to recove1' the sense of real‑ ity as a whole; otherwise the p1'edicament in which he was involved would have led him to eccent1'icity. 1t seems possible for us to 1'ead a 1'eflection of his emba1'1'assment and conflict into Gerontion' s bitte1'
thoughts on histo1'Y. The poet had been seeking a unity behind the pe1'turbation with which he was dealing. And， as long as his interest was restricted to the literary tradition， Donne could be the pattern of
70 T. S. Eliot Reflecting on John Donne poetic sensibility in Eliot's mind.
Eliot's e妊'ortto bring fragmentary materials together reached its peak in The Waste Land. In the poem the subjects， forms， and styles ap‑ pear at the first reading to be completely unrelated in any sense; the words in the last part， These fragments 1 have shored against my ruins / Why then Ile五tyou，" 23 seem to indicate an attitude to accept the chaotic state of affairs as it is. We cannot perceive anyatt己mptat positive organization， though a mythical point of view， taking on the mask of Tiresias， is suggested by the poet as underlying all the descrip‑ tion covering every phase of life from numb desperation to devotional prayer. The attitude of the poet in the poem cannot be said to be wholly negative or positive; it remains， as the ambiguous words in the last part quoted above indicate， in a suspended belief. The poet leaves unanswered the question which tempts the speaker to a partial salva‑ tion: Shall 1 at least set my land in order?" 24 It is conceivable that the poet should not have known the de五niteanswer then. All we can perceive in reading the poem is the poet's attitude directed to ac司 cept fragments of r巴alitybehind which a unity might lie; the attitude anticipates the development of the poet in his later work.
Eliot， however， believed The Waste Laηd to represent a possible unity behind the description of the shuffied materials， which is obvious from his note on Tiresias: Tiresias， although a mere spectator and not indeed a character '，is yet the most important personage in the poem， uniting all the rest." 25 What the poet intended to achieve in composing The Waste Land， though the process of its composition was really complicated， was recovery of an order in the apparant lack of coherence.
T. S. Eliot Refl巴ctingon John Donn巴 71 The attitude of the poet towards the possibility of an order as seen in The Waste Land is refiected in his review of a selection of Donne's poetry in 1923
，
just after the publication of The 1跨W干11匂αsteLαηd; he calls our attention to the importance of the latent attempt at organization in Donnl江ne'、
spoetry:grui訂ty. The range of his feeling was great， but no more remarkable than its unity." 26 1t is natural that we should recognize at the s乱me tim己overtonesof his justification of his own poem， The Waste Land， in the review.
1n 1924 Eliot published a small book entitled Homage to Dryden which consisted of "John Dryden，" The Metaphysical PO巴ts，"and Andrew Marvell." Bernard Bergonzi somewhat ironically says， "This unpre町 tentious booklet was to continue， and perhaps complete， the revolution in critical taste that Eliot had begun with The Sacred Wood." 27 The publication of the book is， to be sure， a landmark in considering his critical career. The critical lucidity in the essays， on the one hand， inspired the readers， who were going to m乱ketheir appearances on the critical stage later， and took them back to The Sacred Wood the infiu‑ ence of which was to make his criticism institutionalized. On the other hand， the publication of the booklet became the last testimony of his enthusiastic attitude towards Donne's poetry and of his stimulating state‑ ments on the poetic tradition. His attitude towards Donne before and after the publication of The Hollow Men in 1925 appears to be com町 pletely transformed. Lyndal Gordon， in her study of Eliot's early bio‑ graphical detai1s， notes the change of the poet in that period:
By 1925 it was clear to Eliot that he must make some delib回
72 T. S. Eliot R邑丑ectingon John Donne
erate change. That year his many anxieties came to a head‑
another near‑fatal illness for Vivienne in the winter of 1924‑5， the Criteri・Onin danger， and his new collected edition of poems which s巴emedto him merely an ejection of things he wanted to get out of the way. His anxieties came at him from different areas of his life， but together they urged him to a new reso‑ lution， at the end of 1925， to close this unhappy period in his life and begin anew.28
The focus of Gordon's r巴markis upon the poet's conversion in June 1927. His conversion was not at all so dramatic as， for instanc，色that of Donne which Izaak Walton describεS.29 In fact Eliot hated dramatic public conversions then; what he thought much of in his faith was patience and humility.30 The completion of The Hollow j1;[en may have meant to him the completion of his old life stuffed with anxieties and beginning of his new life based on belief.
His attitude in his work after that period appeared to be transformed in accordance with the change of his inner life; his work had lost the direct stimulus seen in his earlier poems although of course it preserved vital lucidity still. And in his criticism， Donne suffered the greatest degradation. We miss in his criticism in the latter half of 1920s the poet‑critic who advocated the autotelic nature of poetry and who ad‑ mired Donne as the pattern of the poet's mind; instead we meet with a grave man of letters who is seeking possibilities of reconciliation of literature with belief which could re‑int色grateevery activity in the com‑
munity， censuring Donne for the flaw of his s巴nsibility. The down‑
grading of Donne is found in a passage from his Clark Lectur・巴 in 1926， discussing Donne's Extasie" :
T. S. Eliot Refl巴ctingon John Donne
the conception of the ecstacy of union between two souls is not only philosophically crude but emotionally limiting. The ex‑ pression of love as contemplation of the beloved object is not only more aristotelian， it is also more platonic， for it is the contemplation of absolute beauty and goodness partially reveal‑ ed through a limited though delightful human object . . . Donne， the modern man， is imprisoned in the .embrace of his own feel司
ings. There is little suggestion of adoration， of worship.31
73
1t is almost unbelievable that the remark quoted above is made by the same man who said， admiring the metaphysicaI poets，A philosophical theory which has entered into poetry is established， for its truth or falsity in one sense ceases to matter， and its truth in another sense is proved." 32 By then the contents of poems had become the primary problem in his mind. The point in his stricture upon The Extasie " must be that the poem is lacking in suggestion of adoration， of worship，" remaining earthly in spite of the contemplation of the absolute object partially revealed: that the poem shows little evidence of the poet's direction to ful五11the partial revelation of th巴 absolute. Eliot may be right in pointing out the Platonic elements of the poem， but the poem has a further movement towards the advancement of the human soul by the fulfil1ment of human love. The Extasie" moves from the introduc‑ tion of the lovers' ecstatic state (11. 1‑28) to the revelation of perfect love (11. 29‑48) and ends with the justi五cationof their return to bodies (11. 49‑76). What Eliot disapproves is probably th巴 conclusionof the poem. 1n the last part of the poem， the idea of perfection is anchored in the physical world and harmonized with the lovers' mutual love on th巴 earth. He perceives the lack of adoration， of worship" in the
74 T. S. Eliot Reflecting on John Donne
poem which he may once have admired for a direct apprehension of thought or a recreation of thought into fee1ing."
The Re1igion of Love" that we find a1so in this quasi‑re1igious 10ve poem， in part， p1ays the ro1e of a riva1 or a parody of the rea1 re1i‑ gion." 33 Donne's ratiocinative e1aboration to connect the idea of per‑ fection with mutua1 human 10ve was due much to the motivation that he might， detaching himself from any re1igious and socia1 position， es‑ tab1ish a disinterested standard of va1ues and truths whi1e the rea1 world ()ffered him no assistance to recover the sense of order; whether he really had had that kind of experience does not matter at a11. When E1iot advocates the mythica1 method，" 34 his praise for it is to be as田 cribed partly to the same reason. In the first half of the 1920s， Donne's attitude of commitment to no estab1ished standard must have seemed to E1iot to have an a伍nity with him and to be， therefore， favorab1e. But in the second half of 1920s， when he had a1ready begun to commit himself to a standard outside himself in the rea1 world， the attitude in Donne's poetry must have seemed to him to show a 1ack of definite he1ief which wou1d prevent men from an expansion of their reality rather than to be a conception which wou1d he1p to organize every kind ()f human experience. In the remark of 1926 on Donne quoted above， E1iot is ready to answ巴rthe question which he 1eft unanswered in the last part of The Waste Land: Shall 1 at 1east set my 1and in order? "
He has repudiated the partia1 sa1vation without adoration " and wor司 ship." His transformed opinion of the re1ation between the thought and the belief in Donne's poetry is more clearly represented in Shal王e‑ perare and the Stoicism of Seneca (1927) " :
T. S. Eliot Reflecting on John Donne
In making some very commonplace investigations of the thought" of Donne， 1 found it quite impossible to come to the conclusion that Donne believed anything. It seemed as if， at that time， the world was filled with broken fragments of systems， and that a man like Donne merely picked up， like a magpie， various shining fragments of ideas as they struck his eyes， and stuck them about here and there in his verse.35
75
He could no longer be satisfied with， or believed in， the autonomy of poetry apart from other elements in a community. By this time he found himself unable to think of his creative and critical activity without taking into account also the cultural background behind the literary tradition.
In 1928， he no longer hesitated to embark on the broader territory: On the other hand， poetry as certainly has something to do with morals， and with religion， and even with politics perhaps， though we cannot say what. . .. And in these questions， and others which we cannot avoid， we appear already to be leav‑ ing the domain of criticism of po巴try." So we cannot stop at any point.36
The words，So we cannot stop at any point，" are so dashing that we can easily imagine his ardent spirit for the exploration of the culture in which he has involved. 羽Thathe chose to stand for was the idea of a Christian society. And it is no accident that in the poet's work Dante supersedes Donne as the pattern of the poet's mind:
In English poetry words have a kind of opacity which is part of their beauty. 1 do not mean that the beauty of English poetry is what is called mere "verbal beauty." It is rather
76 T. S. Eliot R巴flectingon John Donne
that words have associations， and the groups of words in asso‑ ciation have associations， which is a kind of local self‑conscious‑ ness， because they are the growth of a particular civilization. The culture of Dante was not of one European country but of Europe.37
When he discussed the limited nature of "associations" of words in English poetry， it is quite conceivable that he should have had Donne's poetry in his mind. Though 1 do not know whether Eliot's remark is fair to English poetry and to Dante， it can be said that he was eagerly seeking a scheme which might cover and organize a much wider do‑ main than that in which he had remained. In Ash‑Wednesday， we no longer find the tormented voice of Gerontion nor the insecure utterance seen in the last part of The 1平TasteLand but the voice of the poet which is trying to merge into the orthodox Anglo‑Catholic scheme.
I I I
Vife have seen the conflict and the development of Eliot in the light of his remarks on Donne's poetry. We have investigated the a伍nity between the mind of Donne and that of Eliot， making references to their works. Next we have looked at Eliot's departure from Donne and have found it almost parallel to the change of his inner life. And finally we have surveyed what he was looking for in relation to his predilection for Donne.
We are likely to think that Eliot's early praise for Donne is incom‑
patible with his later aversion. As a matter of fact， in Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca，" Eliot， as we have seen， censures Donne for his restlessly ostentatious temperament of reaching for knowledge;
T. S. Eliot Reflecting on John Donne 77 Donne himself admitted his own nature and called it the worst voluptu‑ ousness" which was an Hydroptique， immoderate desire of humane learn咽 ing and languages."38 But Eliot had the same propensity for knowledge;
no one but a man of immoderate desire" can compose such a poem as The Waste Land， written in six languages and full of ambiguous references. He must hav巴knownhis mentality akin to Donne's; the recollection in the fifth section of East Coker" bears testimony to his struggle with words which he had endlessly repeated. Both his affection for Donne in the former half of 1920s and his turning against Donne in the latter half may have arisen from the same root， that is to say， his acknowl句 edgement of their a伍nityin mentality. The change of his attitude to‑ wards Donne is not a mere fickleness. iVhen he disparaged Donne's addictive intellectualism， he probably had a harrowing experienc己call‑ ing for the sacri五ceof his own gain; his extraordinarily vehement tone in the remark attacking Donne suggests his personal conflict. A casual part of his discussion of Coleridge's Dejection: An Ode" in 1932 sounds like his own bitter reminiscences:
Coleridge was one of those unhappy persons‑Donne， I suspect，
was such another‑of whom one might say， that if they had not been poets， they might have made something of their lives， might even have had a career. . . .39
He may have had himself reflected on the two poets in his mind. They， too， were distracted by their intelligence and self‑consciousness， looking for the moment of belief to which they could wholly devote themselves. The conflict in Eliot did not end with the repudiation of Donne and with his choice of Anglo‑Catholicism in the contemporary world. In
78 T. S. Eliot Reflecting on John Donne
the 1930s， the political issues became more and more complicated， and he was， as he had anticipated in his "Preface to The 1928 Edition"
of The Sacred Wood， to become involved in the political conflicts as advocate of the Christian society.
NOTES
1 Joseph E. Duncan， in his deliberate and exhaustive disquisition on the history of the influence of rnetaphysical poetry in English and Arnerican lit‑ erature since the early nineteenth century， rernonstrates against the over‑ ernphasis upon the significance of Grierson and Eliot. He regards Grierson's edition of Donne' s poetry as the natural result of the rising interest in Donne's work during the later decades of the nineteenth century， seeds of which can be traced to the early nineteenth century. He rnaintains that Eliot's essays in the early 1920s are the re五ned restaternent of the current interest. See Joseph E. Duncan， The Revival 0/ Metゆh:ysicalPoetry (Min司 neapolis: University of Minnesota Press， 1959). Though he rnay be right in a sense， 1 follow the general assurnption that Grierson and Eliot are of distinguished irnportance because 1 think that crystallization of current in‑ terest has its own value.
2 Julian Lovelock 巴d(.)，Donηe: Songs and Sonets (Casebook Series"; London: Macrnillan， 1973)， p. 49.
3 Ibid.， p. 99.
4 T. S. Eliot， The Metaphysical Poets，" Selected Essαys (3rd ed.; London:
Faber and Faber， 1951)， p. 281.
5 F. R. Leavis， New Bearings in English Poetry: A Stud:y 0/ the Contem‑ porary Situation (New ed.; London: Chatto and Windus， 1950)， p. 198. 6 George Williarnson， Donne and the Poetry of Today，" A Garla冗d /or
John Donne， ed. Theodore Spencer (Gloucester， Mass.: Peter Srnith， cl931)， p.155.
7 The Metaphysical Poets，" Selected Essays， p. 288. 8 Ibid.， p. 286.
9 T. S. Eliot， Donne in Our Tirne，" A Garland /or John Donne， p. 8. 10 T. S. Eliot， To Criticize the Critic，" To Criticize the Critic: And Other
T. S. Eliot Reflecting on JOhll Donnε Writings (Londoll: Faber alld Faber， 1965)， p. 13.
11 Donlle ill Our Tirne，" A Garland lor John Donne， pp. 3‑4. 12 Joseph E. DUllcan， op. cit.
7S
13 John Donlle，Satyre III，" 11. 76‑81. All the references to John Donne's poetry in the present paper are to Herbert ]. C. Grierson (edふ ThePoerns
01 John Donne， 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press， 1912)
14 Basilも"1illey，The Seventeenth‑Century Background: Studies in the Thought
01 the Age iη Relation to Poetry and Religion (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul， cl934)， p. 25.
15 Loves Growth，" 11. 11‑14.
16 See Joseph Lederer， Juhn Donne and the Ernblernatic Practice，" RES多
XXII (1946)， 182‑200， and John Freccero，Donne's Valediction: Forbidding Mourning，''' ELH， XXX (1963)， 335‑376.
17 The Metaphysical Poets，" Selected Essays， p. 282. 18 Basil Willey， op. cit.， pp. 29‑35.
19 T. S. Eliot，The Perfect Critic，" The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticisrn (London: Methuen， 1920)， p. 12.
20 Tradition and the Individual Talent，" Selected Essays， p. 21. 21 Ibid.， p. 21.
22 The Metaphysical Poets，" ibid.， p. 287.
23 T. S. Eliot， The Waste Land， 11. 430‑431. All the references to T. S。
Eliot's poetry in the present paper are to Collected Poerns: 1909‑1962 (Lon‑
don: Faber and Faber， 1963). 24 Ibid.， 1. 425.
25 Collected Poerns: 1909‑1962， p. 82. John D. Margolis inforrns us of an interesting fact: As early as 1927 Eliot was objecting to 1. A. Richard's assertion that he ;had achieved in The l‑Vaste Land a cornplete separation between poetry and belief. Even the doubt and uncertainty so evident in that poern was， Eliot held，rnerely a variety of belief.''' CJohn D. Margolis， T. S. Eliot' s Intellectual Developrnent [Chicago: The University of Chicago Press， 1972J， p. 168.)
26 T. S. Eliot， John Donne，" Nations and Athenaeurn， XXXIII (1923)， 332， quoted in Fei司PaiLu， T. S. Eliot: The Dialectical Structure 01 His Theory
01 Poetry (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press， 1966)， p. 87.
80 T. S. Eliot R巴flectingon John Donne
27 Bernard Bergonzi， T. S. Eliot (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan， 1978)， p. 87. 28 Lyndal Gordon， T. S. Eliot's Early Years (Oxford: Oxford University
Press， 1977)， p. 127.
29 Izaak Walton， The Lives 0/ゐhnDo間 e，Sir Henry Wotton， Richard Ho‑
oker， George Herbert， and Robert Sanderson (The World's Classics "; Lon目 don: Oxford University Press， 1927)， pp. 45‑50.
30 Lyndal Gordon， op. cit.， pp. 130・ー131.
31 Quoted in A. D. Moody， Thomas Stearns Eliot， Poet (Cambridge: Cam‑
bridge University Press， 1979)， p. 272.
32 The Metaphysical Poets，" Selected Essays， pp. 288‑289.
33 C. S. Lewis， The Allegory 0/ Love: A S旨udyin Medieval Tradition (Ox‑
ford: Oxford University Press， 1936)， p. 18.
34 T. S. Eliot， Ulysses '，Order， and Myth，" Selected Prose 0/ T. S. Eliot， ed. Frank Kermode (London: Faber and Faber， 1975)， p. 178.
35 Shakespeare and the Stoicism of Seneca，" Selected Essays， pp. 138‑139. 36 Preface to The 1928 Edition，" The Sacred Wood， p. x.
37 Dante，" Selected Essays， pp. 239‑240.
38 John Hayward (edふ JohnDonne Dean 0/ St. Paul' s: ComlりletePoetry and Selected Prose (London: Nonesuch Press， 1929)， p. 456.
39 T. S. Eliot， The Use 0/ Poetry and the Use 0/ Criticism: Studies in the Rela喝 tion 0/ Criticism to Poetry in England (London: Faber and Faber， 1933)， p. 68.
