Non Duality and Retreat to Tradition in the Modernist English Poetry A study of T S Eliots selected poems

Abstract

This study explores a retreat to the past and tradition in the poetry of T. S. Eliot; a thing that is paradoxically highlighted, by this modernist poet, throughout most of his poetry. The main facet of this retreat to tradition is the poet s non-dual attitude to the world around, which is characterized by dualities in each and every dimension of human existence. The dualities (opposites) are represented as non-dualities through the frequent paradoxical utterances in Eliot s poetry including Four Quartets andThe Waste Land that are to be under investigation of this study. The researcher has chosen these two poems only for investigation considering the limitation of the requirement. newlineAnother element of Eliot s return to tradition is the intensive use of mystical philosophy and doctrines that a reader of his poetry feels while reading his poems. Thus, reading Eliot entails meditation and contemplation as if one reads mystical texts where an interfusion of the twoness occurs. In sum, this study highlights all these aspects of retreat to tradition, adding to its significance in our contemporary world of dualities, chaos and anarchy. This study investigates thoroughly real-life dualities as non-dualities in Eliot s poems, juxtaposed through the language of paradox. Like a mystic, Eliot has got the Eye of the Spirit that enables him to have opposites and dichotomies at many rates interwoven and intermingled within the zodiac of oneness. newlineIn this thesis it is argued that there is an interfusion of the twoness throughout the Four Quartets. The boundaries between many pairs of twos in Eliot s (four) poems (of the Four Quartets) are penetrated, however impenetrable they may be. The study presents each poem as a place poem where the outer space is interiorized, as the exterior and the interior have become one and the same in Eliot s eye of the Spirit. Furthermore, a debate newlineXIII newlineAL-Ahdal M. newlinebetween traditionalism and modernity through The Waste Landis highlighted to portray Eliot s urge for turning towards the Eastern cultures