Dear Nikolay, 1. What Eliot thought was not his responsibility was what the reader made of his poems. His responsibility was to make the poem, and he took that responsibility about as seriously as anyone could. 2. "The Rock" was commissioned, as a book of words for a pageant play to raise funds for building new churches in London suburbs. (Only the choruses went into his Collected Poems.) There wouldn't have been much money in it for him, and there's every reason to suppose he had other reasons for writing it--reasons to do with his being a poet and a Christian. 3. You would have to be simply crass to suppose "Ash-Wednesday" any sort of joke if you had actually read it. 4. Eliot did say of "The Waste Land" (in a private letter or conversation?), "To me it was only the relief of a personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life". Note that "to me". He also wrote (in a published essay) that what alone constitutes life for a poet was to "transmute his personal and private agonies...into something universal and impersonal" ("Shakespeare & the Stoicism of Seneca"). 5. "Murder in the Cathedral" deals with the assassination of Thomas a Becket in 1170. It was written in 1935. Best read it and then decide how far it is "medieval", how far "modern". 6. "everything a failure": wherever this might come from it certainly was not Eliot's view of his own work. See his late essay "To Criticize the Critic". 7. "Because one has only learnt to get the better of words / For the thing one no longer has to say" ("East Coker" V)--to be read, of course, in its full context. 8. That is perhaps not what he meant, in "Prufrock". Perhaps you should write in your review only what you can verify? Half-memories can be so garbled! David Moody ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nikolay Nikiforov" <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 7:40 AM Subject: Eliot > I'm writing review of the Russian translation of Eliot, &there are > some quotations I miss. > As far as I remember Eliot refused to take any responsibility for > any of his poems. > 'Rocks' was 'stuff written for > money', Ash-Wednesday -- 'some joke', 'Waste Land' --'private struggle', > 'Murder in the Cathedral' -- 'some medieval drama' and everything a > failure, a failure, a failure... > because one no longer has to say... > That is not what I meant... > > What porridge had John Keats? > > Well, forget the problems TSE had with his porridge (a hard problems), > but won't someone send me (privately) exact quotations? It seems > Eliot's list wouldn't be best place for this question. >