The Infinitely Suffering Thing: ———T. S. Eliot’s “Preludes”

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Abstract： this article explicates how Eliot’s subjects in his “Preludes” struggle between the loss of language in the modern reality and the impossibility to attain the idealistic state of love and meaning. The subject in these short poems， in the Poet’s modernistic depiction， turns out to be the failed version of the Renaissance man or the one that loses spirituality in the eyes of the Romantics， thus envisaging the doomed state of modern humanity at the turn of the twentieth century.

Key Words： symbolic；discourse；Renaissance；Romantics， history

Readers of Eliot will inevitably witness the disability of the Word within the word in “Preludes” and “Rhapsody.” Through history and space and every detail of human experience， displayed here are the masquerades of doomed souls who swarm through Boston， Paris， or London “like wading through time” （Gordon 26）. In the sense of discourse， J. C. C. Mays remarks that it is the impotency of symbolic language insufficient for the situation and that the signifier is never adequate for the signified （112）. So， in these poems， desire has lost its object and has been flowing on the surface of time and space， just to adopt a psychoanalytic view of language. Like the other Prufrockian poems， they stretch the soul of the subject in “the thousand sordid images” （CPP 23） in the present tense， permeating repetitive successions of scenes and things， smells and sounds， light and shadows. The impersonal view and voice produced from the vantage point of “ancient women” （Ditto） remind readers of the classical absentee （later personified in Tiresias or Gerontion） and expose Time and eternity in a language in pursuit of an understanding of things in general （Moody， “Four Quartets” 148）. The cut-in of pronouns and consciousness lays bare individual fancies and memories as particles of the nameless hordes of lost souls ready to be devoured by the depths of Dantean hell.

The first “Prelude” is written around 1909-10， which collects “withered leaves” and “burnt-out ends” （22） of time and space. They are dampened by the winter shower over passageways， vacant lots， broken blinds and chimney-pots， street， cab-horse and other fragmentary witnesses， in the hellish center of which“you” （22-3） stands alone， like Dante among damned souls：

The winter evening settles down

With smell of steaks in passageways.

Six o'clock.

The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

And now a gusty shower wraps

The grimy scraps

Of withered leaves about your feet

And newspapers from vacant lots；

The showers beat

On broken blinds and chimney-pots，

And at the corner of the street

A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps. （22）

The present tense of grammar and plural form of nouns set up consciousness as a past-in-present entry in imagistic lines of concrete expression. Eliot also puts in effect a tone of impatience in the steaming and stamping of the fretting horse at the intersection of day and night. The intensity of confrontation of past in terms of “smoky days” and present represented in the multiple display of the urban landscape is barely balanced at the edge of the day， at the verge of the year and at the very border of sanity. Eliot thus designs an impossible time here， as he will adopt substantially in The Waste Land， to create the inevitable sense of the approach of darkness to the consciousness. The suddenness of the lighting of lamps betrays the unbearable weight of waiting as if for a judgment， or for the lost soul to fall headlong into the tortured crowding of the inferno real. However， the “lonely” cab-horse implies a lonely subject in the expectation of the close of the day and of the beginning of a night life. It serves a sense of preparation for the oncoming rendezvous， which reveals a questor for an “uncertain” journey. The linking words of “and then” also indicate a readiness that merges later on in the invitation of “Prufrock” （13）. Thus， the small poem creates a paradox of negation-in-confirmation， or vice versa. In the face of devouring doom and horror， the poet directs the supposed subject towards an act， despite repeated signs of belatedness.

The second “Prelude” is overflowed with the simulacra of monotonous experiences pointing to a sense of community， from which consciousness of the “one” emerges：

The morning comes to consciousness

Of faint stale smells of beer

From the sawdust-trampled street

With all its muddy feet that press

To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades

That time resumes，

One thinks of all the hands

That are raising dingy shades

In a thousand furnished rooms. （22）

Anonymous muddy feet in the poem prove to be the devalued version of human existence in the effect that they appear only as illusory entries. They combine into a miscellany of smells of beer， coffee-stands and the sawdust street etc.， which betray the meaningless trivialities of a routine life. The second stanza also depicts an apparition-like existence of humanity in the image of physical fragments and non-concrete property of “dingy shades/ In a thousand furnished rooms.” This scene can also be comparable to the case of Augustine on the journey to Carthage， who saw around him “masquerades” of sinful souls “that time resumes” （Ditto）， who “sang all around me in my ears a caldron of unholy loves” （The Confessions of St. Augustine III， I）. The almost hidden Word in the consciousness of the “one” arches over the sordid repetitions of human trivia through time and place in the plural use of “a thousand furnished rooms” （22）. It bares the fallen state of humanity in the moment where the poetic speaker is barely balanced between night and day. However， the apparent dancing image in the last lines seems， at the same time， to confer a confirmation on the moment of life， which helps defy the pessimistic view that the dormant mind holds at the start. Dingy and damned as it is in reality， human life can nonetheless manage out dance and rhythm. So this early poem that Eliot created in his Harvard years is already competent in its portrait of the conflict between consciousness and reality and leaves room for hope despite repeated negations from history and the moment.

The “Prelude III” focuses on the stale tale of a damned soul personified in the image of a fallen feminine in bared body and soul， waiting in the violet hours， who， as Manganaro summates， seems “unable to perceive anything beyond the realm of the fleshly” （30）. It is supposed to be written in Paris in the following year， but seems to be an insomniac representation of the persona that thematically echoes the “one” in the second prelude：

You tossed a blanket from the bed，

You lay upon your back， and waited；

You dozed， and watched the night revealing

The thousand sordid images

Of which your soul was constituted；

They flickered against the ceiling. （23）

The“thousand furnished rooms” （22） that keep hovering over the mind also find their way into the “thousand sordid images / of which your soul was constituted” （23）. On the one hand， the definite article implies a familiarity that permeates the mind， leaving no room for transcendence. On the other， the word “waited” （22） presupposes an act in contradiction to the sordid scene. But on the whole， the poem is created in the past tense， which gives an effect of belatedness that negates the act of mind. Bereft of dreams in the wakeful nights， the soul is dried up between night and day. In the following lines， continues the gnawing relation between the outside power of the mind that predicts doom and the unquenched hope that resounds in the throat of sparrows， which is certainly a symbol of life， music and hope. Though they are not like Shelley’s skylark that charms ears with its “sound of vernal owners /on the twinkling grass” （“To a Sky-Lark” 305）， nor Keats’ nightingale whose “beak full of the warm south” （“Ode to a Nightingale” 189）， nor one of Wordsworth’s “little hedge-row birds” （“Old Man Travelling” 105） because Eliot has transplanted the romantic image into the “dingy” presence of urban gutters， still we can read out the romantic hope from the doom-laden lines of “sordid” signs：

And when all the world came back

And the light crept up between the shutters，

And you heard the sparrows in the gutters，

You had such a vision of the street

As the street hardly understands； （23）

The pastoral images of dawn and sparrows in contrast with urban signs of shutters and gutters condense life and hope with lonely and dreary landscape. Eliot renders the scene in the way that “the day brings relief from the night， and the night brings relief from the day” （Jay 196）. The following lines are significant in various ways. First， they place in the center of the stage the low life in the city， which is in sharp contrast to the Beatric image of the weeping woman， or Prufrock’s ladies that talk of Michelangelo in the background of the speaker’s consciousness. We have here the sullen life of a feminine subject：

Sitting along the bed's edge， where

You curled the papers from your hair，

Or clasped the yellow soles of feet

In the palms of both soiled hands. （23）

Secondly， they enhance the jarring sense of reality. Like the prostitutes on Eliot’s neighborhood in St. Louis， Paris and London and not unlike the typist girls that work in the same bank with Eliot， the feminine persona serves a horrific sign of the modern world. Thirdly， they substantiate the psychic dialogue between the spiritual strivings for hope and meaning and the low-registered realism for earthbound representation of the modern situation. Thus the poem betrays the condensed conflicts in the mental space in the face of existential dilemma， depicted between night and day and between action and inaction.

The fourth “Prelude” goes on to portray an extreme moment between the day and night and locates consciousness in the position of the other in the intense confrontation to the sounds and images of the world. It repeats and reemphasizes the precarious situation of the subject whose mind is “trampled by insistent feet” and “short square fingers” （23）. Thus， thematically it reflects the smells of steaks and beer， the steaming and stamping impatience of the cab-horse， the sound of muddy feet and the hands either “raising dingy shades” （22） or “clasp[ing] the yellow soles of feet” （23） in the other three preludes. The word “impatient” appears again in the first stanza， baring the fangs of horror that the meaningless life is ready to consume humanity at any moment.

Eliot says in 1914 that “it’s interesting to cut yourself to pieces once in a while， and wait to see if the fragments will sprout”（LE 59）. So the second stanza of the last “Prelude” seems to be a crystallization of the poetic fragments he has collected over years， given the fact that the four “Preludes” are finished between 1909 and 1912 and in places that cover both Harvard and Paris， let alone the final publication has to wait until 1915 in London. The poetic effect is rather a paradox： with the poet’s presence in the poem， the fourth “Prelude” loses part of its imagistic intensity in the structure. However， if we take the “I” for the other persona than “He，” the poem is reinforced by the conflict between the impersonal voice of history articulated from the first-person perspective in the present tense and the individual subject who joins his fellow humans in a hope-against-hope existence. The syntax of the line “assured of certain certainties” implies the complexity of the psychic situation in that the word “certainties” （23） seems to expose humanity to a predetermined fate， but then the adjective “certain” helps limit its omnipotent property. As a result， the word “assured” seems to embrace both the absolute power of time and the temporary power of individuality. Such an insight helps approach the final “notion of some infinitely gentle/Infinitely suffering thing” in a better light. It accounts for the intense horror that the modern subject experiences at the unbearable moment between life and the impatiently oncoming doom. And also it confirms the tragic heroism of modern man. Trivial and impotent as he is， he proves to be stubbornly alive through his act of mind and body. Thus the last stanza reassures the horror of inevitable doom and equally important， tinges humanity with resolution and tragedy：

Wipe your hand across your mouth， and laugh；

The worlds revolve like ancient women

Gathering fuel in vacant lots. （Ditto）

In this sense， the four “Preludes” collect doomed souls and experiences through time and space and condense them in the moment of individual consciousness. In this way， eliot delineates a situation in which the modern subject is constantly faced with horror at a panoramic picture of the endless tortured processions of dead souls through history， which “revolve like ancient women/ Gathering fuel in vacant lots.” Put in another way， the modern subject in Eliot’s enterprise turns out to be the failed version of Renaissance man or the one that loses spirituality in the eyes of the Romantics.

Works Cited：

1.Augustine， St. The Confessions of St. Augustine. New York： Airmont Publishing Company， Inc.， 1969.

2.Eliot， T. S. The Complete Poems and Plays. London： Faber and Faber Ltd.， 1969.

3.Gordon，Lyndall. T. S. Eliot： An Imperfect Life. New York： W. W. Norton， 1998.

4.Jay， Gregory S. T S. Eliot and the Poetics of Literary History. Baton Rouge： Louisiana State University Press， 1983.

5.Keats， John. Poems. London： J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd.， 1974.

6.Mays， J. C. C. “Early poems： from ‘Prufrock’ to ‘Gerontion.’” The Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot. Ed. A. David Moody. Cambridge： Cambridge University Press， 1994.108-121.

7.Moody， A. David， “Four Quartets： music， word， meaning and value.” The Cambridge Companion to T. S. Eliot. Ed. David A. Moody. Cambridge： Cambridge University Press， 1994.142-57.

8.Musgrove， S. “Eliot and Tennyson.” T. S. Eliot： A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Hugh Kenner. Englewood cliffs， N. J： Prentice-Hall， Inc.， 1962.73-85.

9.Shelly， Percy Bysshe. Shelly’s Poetry and Prose. Ed. Reiman， Donald H. W. W. Norton & Company， 1977.

10.Southam， B.C. A. Guide to the Selected Poems of T. S. Eliot. New York： Harvest/HBJ Book， 1968.

11.Wordsworth， William. Selected Poems. London： Penguin Books， 1996.

作者简介：韩金鹏，男，北京大学英语系讲师，文学博士，主要从事美国现代诗歌，心理分析，现代欧洲哲学的研究。