Magnetic Field of Christian Literature: Reading T.S. Eliot's Ash-Wednesday

NOTANI Keiji

T.S. Eliot, a leading figure of Modernist literature as the poet of The Waste Land (1922) was baptized in 1927 and became a believer of the Anglo-Catholic wing within the Church of England. His conversion to Christianity carried the risk of relegating him to the status of a minor religious poet by his own standards, and his extramarital relationship with Emily Hale, which was deepening at the time, created a situation where it became the catalyst (the source of sin) for him to stray from the path of faith. His conversion did not simply lead to salvation; rather, it became a trial. This paper interprets Ash-Wednesday (1930) with the aid of Christian theology, arguing that it was precisely Eliot’s spiritual conflict—seemingly torn between the love of God and human love—that served as the “magnetic field” generating his poetry.

Journal of the Faculty of Letters

Bukkyo University

第110号

09189416

24364770