An Ethical And Political Reading Of Diseased Bodies In T.S.Eliot's Poems

Thomas Stearns Eliot(1888-1986),as one of the most significant modernist poets,his poetry and poetics lightened up the literary circles in the twentieth century,though many disputes and criticism were accompanied.The more the reader knows about his allusions and his range of cultural reference,the more rewarding are his poems,essays and plays.The topic about ethics,more precisely,about family values,action of abortion and adultery is of great importance to Eliot Scholarship.Besides,political power is another aspect to depict Eliot's thinking on individuals and the whole society.Moreover,as the connection of ethical principle and political thoughts of the poet,diseased body can be a new angle to investigate Eliot's meditation on personal and social salvation.Therefore,the thesis tries to read ethical and political thinking of diseased bodies in Eliot's poems.The Introduction part shows the study of T.S.Eliot has been comprehensive,which is divided into four categories.The first one is the study on his poetry.The second one is about poetics of him and the third part is from perspectives of religion and political thoughts.The last one is the study about his personal life and how his life affects his work.In all,the previous studies have left an abundant treasure for this study to a great extent.In the first chapter,the poems reveal the implications of T.S.Eliot's ethical thoughts.In order to describe diseased bodies in Eliot's works,the chapter consists of two sections: the failed chase of family values,T.S.Eliot's body and marriage.In the first section,it explores characters in the poems,especially in The Waste Land,either get older or get divorced.The bodies were diseased or broken because of their immoral sexual relationship with others.The second section analyses the body of Eliot and her first wife,Vivien.With birth defect,Eliot has a different body and his wife also has abnormal physical and psychological condition.The failure of earthly gender relations and family value for Eliot deeply impact on his works.The implication of political thoughts of Eliot is to be investigated in the second chapter.From the both aspects of civilians and nobilities,the images of those diseased bodies imply that Eliot considers much to the influence of political power.Gender inequity is discussed in the chapter.The last chapter reveals the relationship between Eliot's religious conversion and salvation of the diseased body.The change of Eliot's marriage is of huge significance to his personal life and works.From The Waste land,“Gerontion” to “Ash Wednesday”,it can discover that Eliot has been persistently chasing for his ethical principles and political thinking.Moreover,Eliot attempts to seek for salvation to those disfigured characters in The Waste Land.Fire and water are seen as two religious images,which provide the way of healing diseased bodies.The thesis comes to a conclusion that religious faith is one way to heal diseased bodies.After long-term exploration of ethical and political principles with the perspective of diseased bodies,Eliot gives his answer to his own body and marital life and to individuals at his time.