The purpose of this study is to examine the deconstructive themes and methods which inform T. S. Eliot's prose and poetry, and to demonstrate that, long before Jacques Derrida intervened in the area of literary analysis, Eliot had already developed the principles now 'enshrined' as deconstruction For more than a decade western literary criticism has been the site of philosophical and methodological crisis: on one side of the conflict, the 'traditionalists' and/or New Critics who cling to critical methods and assumptions rooted in orderly metaphysical systems; on the other side, the 'renegade' deconstructionists whose claims for the irrational structure of language mirror what quantum physicists have discovered about the physical world, i.e., that the order of the universe breaks down at the sub-atomic level Without exception, New Critics and their near relations have assumed T. S. Eliot as one of their own. Recent analyses of Eliot's prose and poetry, however, suggest that such confidence may be misplaced. A new generation of analysts, loosely formed under the rubric, 'post-structuralism,' has applied Derrida's critical methods to Eliot's work with varying degrees of efficiency, co-opting the twentieth century's most celebrated poet for their own cause This study seeks to remedy what up to now has been largely a partial and fragmentary approach to deconstructing Eliot's prose and poetry. After a brief introduction, the initial chapter is devoted to an in depth analysis of Derrida's major texts. Once this groundwork is laid, chapter two begins the analysis of Eliot by revisiting his dissertation on F. H. Bradley with particular attention to those theoretical pronouncements that anticipate the direction of Derrida's thought. Chapter three then forges a link between Derrida, the dissertation, and Eliot's essays on literature and culture. Chapters four and five extend the analysis into the troubled landscape of Eliot's most celebrated poems: 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,' 'Gerontion,' The Waste Land, 'Ash Wednesday,' and Four Quartets. The study 'concludes' with several comments on Eliot's two best plays, Murder in the Cathedral and The Family Reunion, and with a brief assessment of deconstruction's present and future In sum, The Fire and the Rose suggests that Eliot's ambivalent quest for the absolute culminates not in any metaphysical assertion, but in his acceptance of the indeterminate world. It further suggests that the 'father' of deconstruction, Derrida, is simultaneously the 'son' born of Eliot's struggle. In a typically Derridaean conflation of identities, and like Tereus of The Waste Land, the father devours the son / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_23197 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Contributors | Austin, William James (Author), Bollier, E. P (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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