- Hello, I'm Victor Strandberg and we're here for another session in the study of the poems of T.S. Eliot. We are now well into The Wasteland, having looked at part one,
the burial of the dead in our last session. As we move from section
one of The Wasteland to section two, a Game of Chess, we are moving at the same time between these two major dimensions of any substantial religious tradition. That is to say from metaphysics to ethics. Those two dimensions
or religious experience indicate exactly why this is a wasteland. In part one, the Burial of the Dead, the problem was the metaphysical question of how to cope with the burial of the dead without a miss of rebirths. As we moved now to parts two and three, a Game of Chess and the Fire Sermon, we move to that other dimension
of religious thinking, ethical conduct, how people
relate to each other, how they treat each other. Without any spiritual dimension to life, men treat each other like animals. That is one of the
causes of the wasteland. Eliot in parts two and three of his poem, A Game of Chest and the Fire Sermon, particularly bears down
on the relationship between the sexes. This is where the question
of ethical conduct becomes more crucial and
where it is most deplorable in Eliot's view and we might
guess in his experience. A Game of Chess takes up the relationship between married couples
and the Fire Sermon takes up the relationships
between unmarried couples. That's the essential subject matter of these two sections of the poem. We're going to move on
now with A Game of Chess, part two, which is the study
of two married couples. The first couple is of the upper class. We can discern that they are well to do, but they have a very bad marriage and indeed it suspiciously resembles in its details, T.S. Eliot's
marriage to Vivian, his wife. The other couple we'll
see is a low class couple, but both marriages are
in dreadful condition. We start off with some
imitation Shakespeare. This is magnificent blank verse in the Shakespearian
style and it's obviously done in imitation of Antony and Cleopatra. There is a rich proval
passage in that great love story from Antiquity that Shakespeare took up to make a play. A brutal passage describing Cleopatra in her barge on the Nile River, the chair she sat in
like a burnished throne and so forth, the opulence, the luxury, the majesty of Queen
Cleopatra coming to join her lover Antony. Well, we'll have something like that, at least superficially as
we begin A Game of Chess. The chair she sat in
like a burnished throne, straight from Shakespeare,
glowed on the marble. And we see a golden cupiton peeping out. We see the glitter of jewels sat in cases, vials of ivory and colored
glass, synthetic perfumes, prolonged candle flames,
a coffered ceiling. Obviously, a well to do couple. Now certainly Eliot and his wife were both from well to do families. Above the antique mantel was displayed as though a window gave
upon a silvan scene, the change of Philamel
by the barbarous king so rudely forced. We need to linger over
this detail in particular. We've already seen how
T.S. Eliot had a rather brutal attitude towards
his social inferiors. Greeks, Poles, Irishmen
like Sweeney and Jews, several of whom owned
brothels in Eliot's poetry. And we have to acknowledge
this is a dark side of T.S. Eliot. I think we also have to acknowledge that at the same time,
T.S. Eliot displayed an unusual empathy with
a predicament of women and as we go on in
these couple of sections about the relationships between the sexes, we can think back to
Pufroc, who indeed had a very difficult time with that scene of confronting his future
as a lonely old man, but try being a woman in
this naturalistic society. Try being someone like
the Portrait of a Lady. That is a woman in that poem who actually did try to break out of the loneliness and was brutally rejected
by the young man, with an epigraph by Christopher Marlowe. Thou has committed fornication, but that was in another
country and besides the wench is dead as the woman at the end of that poem,
Portrait of a Lady, dead psychologically or spiritually. The young man feels with
some reason I killed her. Now, the brutal
exploitation of women by men continues in many of
Eliot's shorter poems, particularly those quatrains written in a mock epic style. And I think Eliot summed up this issue of men brutally maltreating women in their naturalistic
desire, in their lack of any spiritual element
to their ethical code. He summed it up in this myth or legend of the Nightingale, which comes
into several of his poems. You may remember we looked at Sweeney Among the Nightingales. The legend of the
nightingale as told by Avid in his metamorphoses and
other writers of antiquity is that this young woman,
Philomela was raped by King Terrius. To keep her from telling
anyone, he cut out her tongue and cut off her hand so she
could not write anything. So there you have an ultimate degree of isolation of loneliness
or being literally unable to communicate. The change of Philomela,
then, the barbarous king so rudely forced, Philomela turned into a
nightingale by the gods in their pity for her and so she sings this sad music through
the night in the form of the nightingale's song. The bird then, the nightingale
filled all the desert, that's the wasteland with invilable voice and still she cried and
still the world pursues, jug, jug, the nightingale song I suppose to dirty ears and other
withered stumps of time. The withered stumps perhaps suggesting the arms of the Philomela
with the hands cut off. That is a picture that
looks down on this couple as we go on in A Game of Chess. Under the fire lights, under the brush, the woman's hair spread
out in fiery points, glowed into words, then
would be savagely still. It's kind of an interesting
adjective, savagely, or an adverb I should say. Savagely still, a paradox, but I think we can understand that
stillness can be savage when a marriage goes bad. The woman now is speaking to her husband and this looks very much like Vivian Eliot speaking to T.S. Eliot
early in their marriage. In fact, we understand that a visitor to their apartment reported a conversation very much like what we get in these lines. The woman then on the verge
of a nervous breakdown. My nerves are bad tonight, yes, bad. Stay with me. Speak to me. Why do you never speak? What are you thinking of, what thinking? I never know what you are thinking. There's a reason the husband does not say what he's thinking
and it is the intrusion of the burial of the dead
into the relationship. He does not say what he's thinking, but he tells us, the
read, what he is thinking. I think we are in rat's
alley where the dead men lost their bones. Well, if you are brooding
of the burial of the dead, perhaps it is better
not to speak your mind at that point. Obviously, in any case he cannot satisfy the needs of this woman, his wife, by speaking in this vein. She goes on in this highly
nervous agitated state. What is that noise? Again, he doesn't say anything, but he lets us know it's
the wind under the door. What is that noise now? What is the wind doing? At this point, another version
of the burial of the dead. What is the wind doing? His answer in his mind,
nothing, again, nothing. You know nothing, do you see nothing, do you remember nothing? I remember those pearls
that were his eyes. Now this word nothing is very important in modern literature
as a stand-in for God, a vacancy where God used to be. One might compare it to Ernest
Hemingway's famous story, A Clean Well-Lighted Place, in which there is an
old man who is isolated, totally because he is deaf. He literally cannot
communicate, sitting in a bar drinking and thoughts
go through the observer of this old man in his loneliness. The thoughts center upon the word nothing, which here is rendered in
Spanish in Hemingway's story, our nada, which art in
nada, nada be thy name, our nothing, which is in nothing, nothing be thy name, the
Lord's prayer amended to 20th century reality. Hemingway goes on now
with a Catholic prayer. Hail nothing full of nothing,
nothing is with thee, taking the place of God,
an atheistic culture, in which there is no
myth of rebirth and there is no reason for men to follow a code of ethical conduct in their relationships with each other, even within
the state of marriage. I remember those of pearls
which were his eyes. At least that myth of
rebirth was available to Shakespeare, even that
now, is no longer tenable. Having mentioned Shakespeare, we go on with the degradation of
Shakespeare in modern culture, the mention and citation from a song from the Zeigfeld Follies
in the early 20th century. Oh, oh, oh, oh, that Shakespearean rag. Now T.S. Eliot actually
liked modern popular culture. He loved the music hall in England. He particularly admired a
singer named Murray Lloyd. Even so, there is a sense
of diminishment as usual to past superior to the present. If Shakespeare and that beautiful play, that part of the play,
The Tempest about the resurrection, the rebirth of the drowned man under the sea, those of
pearls that were his eyes. If even that's no longer available, then Shakespeare cannot mean for us what he meant for his
audience 400 years ago. We go on quoting the song. Oh, oh, oh, that Shakespearean rag, it's so elegant, so intelligent and we end this session with the upper class couple in their estrangement with a woman making a turn of the wheel of time, a meaningless routine in the
opulence that she lives with. What shall I do now, what shall I do. I shall rush out as I
am and walk the streets with my hair done so. What shall we do tomorrow? What shall we ever do? The answer apparently is, a
routine, a circle of time, to no effect, to no advantage. The hot water at 10. If it rains, a closed
car at four and we shall play a game of chess,
only passing the time meaninglessly, pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock on the door, waiting for something to happen, a little bit like Geronchen perhaps, a life in which nothing happens. Now the reference to a game of chess, we shall play a game of
chess, T.S. Eliot tells us that it refers to a
play by Thomas Middleton. Eliot had taught these
writers contemporaries of Shakespeare in a night school class a few years earlier. He knew them well, writers
like Beaumont and Fletcher, John Webster, John Middleton
or Thomas Middleton I should say. And he took up fragments
from their writings to insert in this poem and elsewhere, meaningful fragments in his rendering. The game of chess then
does occur has motifs in their very bad
relation between the sexes in that player, Women Beware
Women by Thomas Middleton in Shakespeare's time. I want to linger on the title. Women Beware Women. That is an imperative verb and it tells us that women's greatest
adversary is not men, it's other women. That's what will happen and what goes on in the rest of this section
two of The Wasteland, A Game of Chess. With the two parties to a
marriage, are sort of like chess players, trying to get the advantage of the other party. Perhaps he wants to capture
the queen exploitatively, she wants to capture the king I suppose. There are ways in which
that motif could play into Eliot's purpose. We go on then with the low class couple as we go to the end of
this part A Game of Chess. And we know they're low
class because of the way Eliot's language presents these people. Eliot claimed that poetry has a revolution every hundred years or so that features a return to common speech. This is one of the few
times in Eliot's work where we really do get
common speech and it's almost in the form of a play. We can see here and elsewhere
how T.S. Eliot would eventually evolve into
an actual playwright. The scene is in a London pub or bar and it involves three women. Two of the women are sitting and talking in the pub. They're talking about a third woman who is having problems in her marriage. So let's pick up what the poem says. When Lil's husband got
demobed, that is demobilized from the British Army after World War I, when Lil's husband got demobed I said, I didn't mince words,
I said to her myself, at this point another voice breaks in from the background in capital letters, hurry up please, it's time. This will be the barkeeper
who wants to close up this place for the night. He would not actually
say that in a London pub. He would take out his watch and say please gentlemen, it's time. But I think T.S. Eliot
wants to emphasize here and throughout his poetry
this issue of the turning wheel of time, the driving
force that thrusts nature through endless future time
and it's effects on us. What to make of time would
be one of his great themes, particularly as he concludes
and climaxes the issues in Four Quartets. Even St. Augustine, perhaps the greatest Christian theologian,
declared I thirst to know the meaning of time. He couldn't figure it out either. No scientist has ever figured it out, so hurry up please it's
time, you might say rings a bell that continues to show up onto the end of Eliot's poetic career. We need to ignore that
voice of the barkeeper, hurry up, please it's
time and continue to focus on what's going on on the foreground. The two women talking
about a third woman named Lil, whose husband is
coming home from the Army. And this is what the speaker
says about her predicament. I didn't mince my words,
I said to her myself, now Albert's coming back,
make yourself a bit smart. He'll want to know what
you've done with that money he gave you to
get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there. You have them all out Lil, he said. I swear I can't bear to look at you. And no more can't I, I said. And think of poor Albert, he's
been in the Army four years and he wants a good time. Now let's start there for a moment. The teeth. The British are notorious
for their bad teeth. The dentistry of that
time up until the 1920s was nothing to rave about. We might mention as a
sideline that T.S. Eliot suffered terribly from bad teeth. When he was a boy, his teeth
were a little bit crooked and the dentistry at the time effected a cure for that problem
with the dentist taking a pliers and twisting the teeth. back into a more regular shape. This, of course, did not help much with Eliot's later
problems with his teeth. By the time he was a mature man, Eliot had only three of
his own natural teeth in his head. He could sympathize I
think with this woman, but also it is a sign
of her abject poverty. A people in this class
simply don't have enough money to see a dentist,
to care for their teeth. So she's still a young woman. We're told she's 31 years old, but already her teeth are so bad
that it makes a problem in the marriage. Her problem then, her
predicament is a woman is that she has to be both a mother and a desirable mistress to her husband. Those two roles are incompatible. She's already had five children. The last time she was
pregnant, the childbirth almost killed her and so instead of using the money to get some teeth, we are told she got an abortion, which evidently made her
medical problems even worse. We pick it up there where we left off. Albert will want to know what you've done with the money he gave you
to get yourself some teeth. I was there, you had them all out Lil and get a nice set he said. I swear I can't bear to look at you. That is a terrible thing
for a man to say to a woman. But it is naturalistically
a sound thing to say. A woman's mere physical
appearance is the basis of the marriage. Even Eliot gave a clue
to that back on Geronchen when he said concerning
the marriage in that poem, which appears to be Eliot's marriage, he said I lost beauty in terror. It seems that beauty was a
big element in his marriage and if that is a basis,
maybe the important basis, it is a very vulnerable
marriage, as is the case here. If she is no longer sexually attractive, then it is a vulnerable
marriage and that's what the rest of this passage is
about as we proceed with it. He's been in the Army four
years and he wants a good time and if you don't give it to him, there's others will I said. That, of course, is a
threat to which Lil answers, according to the speaker
recollecting the scene. If you don't give him a good time, there's others will I said. Oh, is there she said. Something of that I said. Then, I'll know who to thank she said and give me a straight look. If you don't like it, you
can get on with it, I said. Others can pick and choose if you can't. We're back with the
Darwinian sexual selection, back with Pufroc in Portrait of a Lady where there is no ethical guideline for the relationship between the sexes. There is only this naturalistic desire to govern the relationship
between the sexes and once that desire is gone,
the relationship is gone or so it seems. So the speaker continues now talking to her friend in the pub
about this third woman Lil and her marriage. If Albert makes off, it
won't be for lack of telling she told Lil. You are to be ashamed I said, to look so antique and her only 31. I can't help it she said
pulling a long face. It's them pills I took to bring it off. She's had five already and
nearly died of young chores. The chemist said it would be all right, but I've never been the same. You are a proper fool I said. If Albert won't leave you alone, there it is I said. What you get married for
if you don't want children. There it is again, the
predicament of the female in this naturalist environment. Her only role is to produce
children, offspring. And of course to make herself
desirable to her spouse and now she, of course,
is failing in both counts. She can't have anymore
children and she definitely with her rotting teeth cannot be desirable to her spouse. So, the speaker concludes
recalling when her romance with Albert, the husband, got started. That Sunday Albert was home on a furlough. They had a hot gammon, which is a ham and they asked me into dinner
to get the beauty of it hot. That's all we need to
know when she and Albert sort of struck up, a
fancy with each other. We don't need to be told how their romance developed or how their
potential romance developed if it is at this point
still merely potential. We can pretty well guess what the future of it will be and it's a
brutal effect on the wife Lil. We conclude then with
the pub actually closing, people saying goodnight to each other. Goodnight Bill, goodnight
Lou, goodnight Mae, goodnight, ta, ta, goodnight quoting the voices as Eliot so often did of other people. We conclude with a different voice, going back to Shakespeare,
the voice of another victim of brutal male maltreatment. This would be Ophelia,
Hamlet's sweetheart. For no reason at all
with no evidence at all, he calls her a whore. Get thee to a nunnery he tells her, a nunnery being slang for a whorehouse. Hamlet, of course, is
brutal to other women, too, but particularly his mother. In effect, he calls her
a whore, for getting married too early after the
death of Hamlet's father. We won't go into those
details now in Hamlet. What we can see is the effect
of this male brutality, this emotional brutality on Ophelia. She sings her goodnight song in that play and then she undergoes death by water. She might have committed suicide. Ophelia is denied a
burial in sacred ground because the church thinks
she did commit suicide, those there is evidence it could have been an accident as she
tried to make herself a crown from the twigs of a tree, she leaned over the bank and fell in and floated away and drowned. What matters here then
is her goodnight song. Goodnight ladies, goodnight sweet ladies, goodnight, goodnight. We conclude then part two A Game of Chess with this terribly melancholy,
deplorable condition of the relation between
the sexes within the realm of two married couples. In our next session,
part three, we'll take up on married couples
where the relationship between the sexes is even worse, an utter failure of
ethical conduct that has brought about a great deal of suffering in the wasteland.
