摘 要

托马斯·斯特恩斯·艾略特（1888-1965）是二十世纪最有名的诗人和评论家之一。艾略特的写作生涯能被清晰分为两个时期：其一是诗人1927年改变信仰为英国国教前，其二是改变信仰后。众所周知的是诗人作品常常充满从《圣经》，基督教神话传说，甚至东方宗教等中提取应用的意象。通过与艾略特对于宗教和信仰的个人见解结合，我们能清楚总结出一种宗教感觉贯通着诗人的整个创作人生。

本篇论文旨在尝试通过对比艾略特两段时期的差异阐释诗人创作生涯实际上连贯的、逐渐发展的宗教感觉。本文首先介绍诗人的生活经历以及两段时期各自的代表作品和西方和我国对艾略特的研究；其次，本文会总结宗教感觉理论的定义和发展过程，而散文和诗作中显示出的诗人关于宗教的个人理解也会加以详细分析；接着分别分析诗人转变信仰前后的诗作与剧作，并希望以此展现作品中来自《圣经》、其他基督教作品以及东方宗教作品的意象和句子引用，而对后期作品着重分析其中较前期更间接、更精妙的意象和句子应用。同时通过诗人对工业化的批判和对治愈现代所遭受的各种苦难的解药的渴望解读艾略特逐渐演变着的对待宗教的态度。最后总结提炼写作中的各项研究发现以及本文的学术重要性。

关键词：T.S. 艾略特；宗教感觉；信仰转变；《荒原》；《四个四重奏》

Abstract

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 - 1965) is one of the most eminent poets and critics in the twentieth century. Eliot’s writing career can be clearly divided into two periods: the period before his conversion to Anglicanism in 1927 and the post-conversion period. It’s widely acknowledged that his works are usually full of images from texts such as the Bible, Christian mythological legends and even oriental religions. Combined with Eliot’s personal view of religion and faith, there can be easily summarized to be a religious sense stretching over his creative life.

This thesis aims to study religious sense displayed within T. S. Eliot’s works of both writing periods, and tries to compare the differences in order to elucidate the actual continuity and gradual development of religious sense throughout his writing career. This thesis will first introduce the poet’s life experience and his respective works of two periods, along with Western and domestic studies of Eliot too. Then the definition and development of the theory of religious sense will be given, and the poet’s personal views regarding religion from his essays and poems will be expounded thoroughly. The following part primarily concerns with the analysis of Eliot’s poems and plays before and after his conversion in order to expose their usages of religious images and quotations from the Bible, other Christian works and oriental religious works, and his later works utilize quotations in a more indirect and delicate way. Meanwhile the poet’s attitudes in terms of religion will be interpreted via his criticism against industrialization and craving for remedies of modern afflictions. The thesis will also summarize the main findings and academic significance of the thesis.

Key Words: T. S. Eliot; Religious sense; Conversion; The Waste Land; Four Quartets

Contents

1 Introduction.................................................................................................................1

2 Religious Sense...........................................................................................................3

2.1 The definition and development of religious sense..........................................3

2.2 Eliot’s views regarding religion and faith........................................................4

2.3 Foreign and domestic studies on T. S. Eliot.....................................................5

3 Pursuit of Salvation in Pre-conversion........................................................................8

3.1 Religious images and quotations......................................................................8

3.1.1 Images and quotations from the Bible...................................................8

3.1.2 Images and quotations from mythologies and legends.......................10

3.2 Religious attitude concerning poet’s experience............................................12

3.2.1 Complicated feelings in terms of religion...........................................12

3.2.2 Possible salvation................................................................................13

4 Acquirement of Salvation in Post-conversion...........................................................15

4.1 Religious images and quotations....................................................................15

4.1.1 Indirect and delicate usages.................................................................16

4.1.2 Eastern religious influence..................................................................17

4.2 Religious attitude concerning poet’s experience............................................20

4.2.1 Criticism against individualism...........................................................20

4.2.2 Remedies for modern afflictions.........................................................21

5 Conclusion.................................................................................................................23

References....................................................................................................................24

Acknowledgments........................................................................................................27

Flowering of Religious Sense: Before and After T. S. Eliot’s Conversion

1 Introduction

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 - 1965) is a poet, critic and playwright, and also a pioneer of modernism and a representative of post-symbolism.

Eliot was born in a prominent Boston Brahmin family in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States. He took Unitarianism as his belief following his grandfather, William Greenleaf Eliot, and grew fond of reading. He studied philosophy and literature at Harvard College from 1906 to 1909, taking courses from those renowned professors such as Irving Babbitt, Charles Lanman, James Woods, Henri Bergson and George Santayaha, from whose instructions he came across and developed systematic knowledge of social ideals, religions and arts that was going to affect his entire creation career hereafter (Qiao, 2012: 46-47). In 1927, after 13 years of living in London and witnessing the failure of bringing order and salvation to modern society by Unitarian belief, Eliot converted to Anglicanism and became a British citizen. Eliot claimed himself as “a classicist in literature, a royalist in politics, an Anglo-Catholic in religion.” (Eliot, 1929: 73)

With 1927 being a dividing line of his creation career, the poet had brought to readers various works ranging from poems to critical essays and to plays that were mostly written in his later writing period. In this thesis, his most popular and constantly analyzed poems, including: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Eliot, 2002: 3 - 7), The Waste Land (Eliot, 2002: 38 - 56) and Four Quartets (Eliot, 1968), along with certain plays and critical essays by Eliot, for example: The Cocktail Party (Eliot, 1978) and Christianity and Culture: The idea of a Christian society and notes towards the definition of culture (Eliot, 1960) will be dissected and analyzed in order to expose a religious sense embedded within Eliot’s works respectively from his two creation periods.

Under the influence of Eliot’s non-personality theory, previous western studies

mainly focus on expounding Eliot’s poems to interpret the obscure allusions and crumbled spatio-temporal structure for readers. Then along with the uproar of novel disciplines and researching methods like structuralism, semiotics and psychological analysis, the trend during 1970s and 80s had taken life experience into consideration and Eliot’s poetic theories had also been elucidated, including the most famous ones: non-personality, objective correlative and mythical method. Eliot’s stance as one of the greatest poets of the 20^th century had gradually grown to be stable during this period. When it comes to 20^th century, studies on Eliot have experienced a multifaceted change, works on themes, religious and philosophical values, interdisciplinary comparisons and even readers’ reviews of Eliot’s creations have undergone an incremental tendency.

Domestic research on Eliot had mainly gone through two climaxes. The first was during the 20s and 30s, Eliot’s representative works were all introduced into China. Translations of both his poems and essays had exerted a sweeping impact upon Chinese field of poetry, especially after several visits by leaders of New Criticism to our universities. It was not long before a group of Eliot experts had founded a “Pound --- Eliot Society” consisting of scholars like Zhao Luorui, Qiu Xiaolong and Yuan Kejia, etc. However further studies of Eliot had experienced a standoff due to certain historical causes. The second climax came as the result of Chinese Economic Reform and Open-Up, academic studies have retrieved their original course and more translations of Eliot’s poems, literary criticisms and biographies have been rendered one after another, critics have set off to study Eliot in terms of differentiating periods during this period as well. After the turning of 20^th century, studies on Eliot had witnessed continuous progress manifested by the publications of monographs and academic papers. These progresses and triumphs have put domestic study on Eliot in the same league as international study by degrees.