[lit-ideas] Re: Panic Attack Rant
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 16 May 2006 15:17:16 +0100 (BST)
> The fourth, _Little Gidding_, and it goes:
>
> 'History is now and England'
>
> And Eliot clearly means something different, if not the opposite, of
> what the original poster wrote.
Means something different? What does it mean? You do not say. I'm not sure it
means anything. Is it even grammatical? I've been marked down for things of
greater clarity.
Has Poor Tom perhaps left out a few crucial words - perhaps he means 'History
is now over' [shades of Fukayama] or 'is now on the ordinary-level syllabus
in Ireland and England'? Or perhaps someone mistranscribed Eliot's New
England accent from the dictaphone tapes he sent his publisher - he was
saying 'His tree is now in England'?
Maybe he is still toying with the 'all time is eternally present' idea
introduced in the first qt., We Burnt Graham Norton ('And Norton said/As the
flames licked him dead/'Turn me over/Turn me over/I'm done on this side').
Perhaps. But then still what does it mean?
Does it mean: 'History is now and history is England?'
History may be happening now (in a sense) or being made now; but can it _be_
now? Can it? Maybe. But it surely cannot be _England_? This is a category
mistake, like saying 'Physics is past and Germany' or 'Computer science is
future and Silicon Valley'. Sounds good but means jack.
No, no, no. I'm afraid the argument that Old Tom meant something different,
nay opposite, depends on making clear the meaning of what he said. And this
your post fails to do.
> 'We shall not cease from exploration
> And the end of all our exploring
> Will be to arrive where we started
> And know the place for the first time.'
Nice lines. '2001' is based on this. But, as my teachers were overfond of
asking me, what is the relevance? Plus it's a no-hoper in commonsense terms
-when I return to a place I've been before I have knowledge of it for a
second time, even if my mind has been erased with a big mental rubber and I
am unaware of my first visit.
Donal
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