had asserted the difference between present and past as being the conscious present is an “that awareness of the past in a way and to an extent that the past’s awareness of itself cannot show” (SE 16), the lines from suggest that the present’s awareness of itself, if Little Gidding it is at all to justify the adjective must involve accounting for the past’s “conscious,” component contribution to what it finds itself to be: the way, that is, in which future” “time has been in time past” (PTSE 179). And yet, balanced against the diachronic 1 “contained panorama of futility that lifetime’s effort” seems to amount to in is the Little Gidding, “your eternal synchronicity presented at the end of Burnt Norton: now, here, now, always – Ridiculous the waste sad time Stretching before and (PTSE 184) 1 This contrast brings me nearer to the paradoxes that are present in my with its different potential meanings of and This “de-utterance” “re-utterance.” paradoxical challenge, as embodied in Eliot’s has been described in an Eliot-themed oeuvre, issue of body of work excels at exploring boundaries and Religion and Literature: “His sketching out uncharted territory without declaring such spaces fixed, at asking questions without final answers. He demands that we look and that we keep coming back to look again as if for the first time.” It is that tension-yet-interconnection, between the act of repetition and doing something for the first time, which I want to focus on. The attempt to find reconciliation between what has already happened and doing something for the first time was the major concern of and the Individual Talent,” where Eliot asserted that real “Tradition originality involved connection with, rather than abrupt discontinuity from, the monumental past. Nevertheless, repetition is in several aspects a demonstrably bad thing, as he saw the matter. Most obviously, it violated the (old) Modernist injunction to It New” and was “Make evidently something he avoided, by both precept and example.
had asserted the difference between present and past as being “that the conscious present is an awareness of the past in a way and to an extent that the past’s awareness of itself cannot show” (SE 16), the lines from Little Gidding suggest that the present’s awareness of itself, if it is at all to justify the adjective “conscious,” must involve accounting for the past’s component contribution to what it finds itself to be: the way, that is, in which “time future” has been “contained in time past” (PTSE 1 179). And yet, balanced against the diachronic panorama of futility that “your lifetime’s effort” seems to amount to in Little Gidding, is the eternal synchronicity presented at the end of Burnt Norton: now, here, now, always – Ridiculous the waste sad time Stretching before and (PTSE 1 184) This contrast brings me nearer to the paradoxes that are present in my with its different potential meanings of “de-utterance” and “re-utterance.” This paradoxical challenge, as embodied in Eliot’s oeuvre, has been described in an Eliot-themed issue of Religion and Literature: “His body of work excels at exploring boundaries and sketching out uncharted territory without declaring such spaces fixed, at asking questions without final answers. He demands that we look and that we keep coming back to look again as if for the first time.” It is that tension-yet-interconnection, between the act of repetition and doing something for the first time, which I want to focus on. The attempt to find reconciliation between what has already happened and doing something for the first time was the major concern of “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” where Eliot asserted that real originality involved connection with, rather than abrupt discontinuity from, the monumental past. Nevertheless, repetition is in several aspects a demonstrably bad thing, as he saw the matter. Most obviously, it violated the (old) Modernist injunction to “Make It New” and was evidently something he avoided, by both precept and example.
Re_cantationreworked.docx