also a recurrence that is different in kind, which might be better understood as “echo.” begins, I dare say, with a savage beating a drum in a jungle” (UPUC 155), Eliot “Poetry notes, and his intriguing relation to that has been explored by Robert Crawford. But “savage” the more nutritive relationship is that with whole of the literature of Europe from Homer “the and within it the whole of the literature of his own country,” as and the Individual “Tradition Talent” put it, whereby a writer’s sense” involves awareness only of the “historical “not pastness of the past, but of its presence” (SE 14). Albeit that sad ghost of Coleridge” “the haunts the very end of there are ghostly The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, recurrences that are a source of strength: are born with the dead:/ See, they return, and “We bring us with them” (PTSE 208). Not only does this echo, as has been noticed, Pound’s 1 early poem Return” (which evokes the vanished classical gods), it reprises and alters its “The own earlier lines: History may be servitude, History may be freedom. See, now they vanish, The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them, To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern. (PTSE 206) 1 Although one way to understand the figure of echo, via Ovid, would be as a type of inauthenticity, in Eliot’s theory and practice as in his allusions to the writing of others and – also to his own writing it tends to function, rather, as survival or renewal, an act of – which involves communication/ Of the dead” (PTSE 202). “the 1 The mention of however, necessitates further distinctions. Mary Trevelyan “allusion,” recorded Eliot’s protest that are so afraid of repetition they don’t seem to realise it “People – is the essence of poetry;” allusion is a species of repetition; but just as there is good and bad repetition, there are different categories of allusion, whose practise was likewise essential to Eliot’s poetry. In a letter of 1949, he speculated:
also a recurrence that is different in kind, which might be better understood as “echo.” “Poetry begins, I dare say, with a savage beating a drum in a jungle” (UPUC 155), Eliot notes, and his intriguing relation to that “savage” has been explored by Robert Crawford. But the more nutritive relationship is that with “the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country,” as “Tradition and the Individual Talent” put it, whereby a writer’s “historical sense” involves awareness “not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence” (SE 14). Albeit that “the sad ghost of Coleridge” haunts the very end of The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, there are ghostly recurrences that are a source of strength: “We are born with the dead:/ See, they return, and bring us with them” (PTSE 1 208). Not only does this echo, as has been noticed, Pound’s early poem “The Return” (which evokes the vanished classical gods), it reprises and alters its own earlier lines: History may be servitude, History may be freedom. See, now they vanish, The faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them, To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern. (PTSE 1 206) Although one way to understand the figure of echo, via Ovid, would be as a type of inauthenticity, in Eliot’s theory and practice – as in his allusions to the writing of others and also to his own writing – it tends to function, rather, as survival or renewal, an act of which involves “the communication/ Of the dead” (PTSE 1 202). The mention of “allusion,” however, necessitates further distinctions. Mary Trevelyan recorded Eliot’s protest that “People are so afraid of repetition – they don’t seem to realise it is the essence of poetry;” allusion is a species of repetition; but just as there is good and bad repetition, there are different categories of allusion, whose practise was likewise essential to Eliot’s poetry. In a letter of 1949, he speculated:
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