Most of us understand, appreciate and
enjoy some poems though not all kinds of poems. When we are taught poetry, we
learn it as if it is yet another page in the physics text book. The teacher knows
the answer and we don’t.
We learn poetry by analyzing it before
we enjoy it. But to write a critical appreciation one needs to enjoy and
appreciate a poem. When we do so we should be open and not compare. We should
deal with poems the way we (should) deal with kids. Each one is great in its own way.
Poets are great because of their
honesty. A dishonest poet is in no way great even if he agrees with great
people and their thoughts. So, when we discuss a poem we only have to look at
how well the poet has brought it all out on paper and conveyed to us even though he is
far away and long ago from us.
T S Eliot's great work is The
Waste Land. It changed overnight the way poets wrote poems or discussed
about the old ones. Echoes of this wonderful work of art can be heard in The Preludes
too. One may disagree with Eliot’s view of life and literature. He was a great
scholar and spoke several languages including Latin and Greek. Later in his life
he changed his sect of religion from Protestantism to Catholicism. We may wonder
how such a great poet could insist on changing from one sect of a religion to
another and that too officially and ceremoniously. We may even wonder how a
great person could have several spoiled and spoiling relationships. But we
have to remind ourselves that we are judging the poetry of a poet and not the
propaganda of a citizen.
During the time when Eliot was writing
his main poems, the First World War was on the anvil. The quick gun leaders of
Industrialization had gone in for legal looting. Religion no more held sway.
People didn’t know what to look forward to or where to go to find peace of
mind. They all waited.
We do like some poems because the
thoughts expressed agree with our own. But at times we like them even though we
dislike what they tell us. The reason is their beauty. Sometimes this beauty is
the result of the images in the poem. When we say beauty of the images we don’t
mean that they are all pretty to look at. We mean that they are effective in
reaching out to our mind, without bothering our brain much. In fact, poems taste
better when they go around our brains and enter our mind directly.
So when we read Eliot, we should not see
his images or lines as codified statements. Poets don’t do that.
If you need a method, imagine that you
have failed in an exam which was very crucial to you. You want to see some
people who are as hopeless as you are. Now read the poem. Without thinking about
the images, see them in your mind. You will find the poem highly communicative.
The poem talks about everything
disgusting. Before Eliot’s time the poets were disgusted with what they saw around
them and wrote about things which were far away and long ago. People took it up
and they too began to feel disgusted of what was around them. However, this is
like running away from reality. Eliot is only expressing how the squalor,
depression, loneliness and other feelings of desolation have worked their way
into people too. Those are seen in people’s manners and ways of life as well as in their thoughts and thoughtlessness.
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