Eliot's Religious Connection( Blog question #7)

Gaston Mclemore
Dr. Jordan
T.S Eliot Religious Influence
Thomas Sterns Eliot, author of The Waste Land, has been called the most influential poet of the twentieth century. A pioneer of the modernist movement, T.S Eliot is known for fragmented, elusive poetics, and became, in his own words, a “classicists in literature, royalists in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion (Brooks, Cleanth 1948).” Eliot’s Waste Land, shows the obscure work of dark despair, yet a clear portrayal of evolvement in poetics, and literature leaning towards the modernist movement (F. R. Leavis).


Anglicanism is a tradition within the Christianity compromising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worships or church structures. It is basically an adaption of many faiths such as Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. This circle of religious beliefs make sense in context with the many societal themes in The Waste Land, such as lack of faith, lack of communication, fear of both life and death, corruption of life-water symbol, and a corruption of sex. As such, it is open to a multitude of interpretations and no two critics agree completely on its meaning. It is clear that he unequivocally believed that the very existence of the Western Civilization was threatened. The Waste Land had poignantly described the decay of civilization, and events that captured Eliot for religious and political reasons. The peace agreement between Hitler and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 confirmed Eliot’s worst fears of the weakness of the West. “Our national life seemed fraudulently,” he remarked after Munich Pact (F. R Leavis). With these dramatic events taking shape Eliot visualized a destabilization of the West or a decent into authoritarianism. Eliot had an epiphany and felt it necessary to have “a vigorous rediscovery of what it means to live Christianly. He believed that unless England and America recovered a form of Christian society, they would fall into the paganism of Russia and Germany (F.R. Leavis).

In a 1932 essay “Christianity and Communism” Eliot argued that the only Christian scheme made a place for the values “which I maintain or perish, the belief, for instance, in holy living, and holy dying, in sanctity, chastity, humility, and austerity (Christiancentury.org). This statement is of significance because Eliot portrays two kinds of people in the modern waste land. These are seen in the crowd that flows over London Bridge (62-65). He states, “I had not thought death had undone so many.” This is a reference to Dante description of the people in limbo. They were the dead who were neither bad nor good, just secularized. This is one category of people in the waste land. The other is given by another reference to Dante: “Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled.” This is descriptive of people in the first level of hell, those who were born before Christ. They have no knowledge of salvation and cannot be saved (According to Dante).

The reference shows that there are also people in the twentieth century that have no faith. Eliot illustrates the lack of faith at several points. In lines 301-302, one of the Thames daughters states, “I can connect/ Nothing with nothing” Since she has no faith there no connections or meaning in her life (Wheelwright 97). There are several references in the poem “the hooded hordes walking in a ring.” Madame Sosostris sees them and the protagonist meets them as he journeys to the Perilous Chapel. The Hooded hordes are hooded because they cannot see the hooded figure, the “third that always walks beside you,” who represents Christ (Brooks 26). They are walking in a ring with no sense of purpose or direction because they have no faith.

Eliot surely did his part to redeem the time and help preserve the faith. He did this mainly through his poetry, which brilliantly displays the moral disparity of our time and recounts his own pilgrimage of faith.

Works Cited

T. S. Eliot and the Life of English Literature Author(s): F. R. Leavis Source: The Massachusetts Review, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Winter, 1969), pp. 9-34 Published by: The Massachusettes Review, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25087797

Brooks, Cleanth. "The Waste Land: An Analysis." T.S. Eliot. ed. B. Rajan. New York: Funk and Wagnall's, 1948.

Wheelwright, Phillip. "Eliot's Philosophical Themes." T.S. Eliot,.ed. B. Rajan. New York: Funk and Wagnall's, 1948.

Philip Yancey, http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1076, www.christiancentury.org

Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry, The Waste Land 474-485