(Hardy/Eliot) Religion

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  • Created by: NHow02
  • Created on: 14-03-19 09:40
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  • Religion
    • Animula
      • 'curl up the small soul in the window seat behind the Encyclopedia'
        • 'Encyclopedia' is a modernist image, suggests education
        • 'window' suggests enlightenment but is never opened
          • Watches others but does not act (ignorance was bliss)
        • Sibilance emphasises he is letting life slip away
        • 'behind' creates a recessive/ backward effect
        • Continuous theme of lack of movement (Prufrock)
          • Poem follows a structure: in this section the 'soul withdraws from the world'
        • Hadrian died having lived a full life. Now Eliot fears for his soul
          • Dante’s/ Eliot's soul is compared to a seeker of God who is deflected by daily trifles and follies.
    • Places
      • 'the stammering chimes'
        • Metaphor for his faltering religious beliefs
        • 'chimes' can signify death and birth (often joyous)
        • 'bedtime hour' has connotations of death
        • 'night, morn and noon' suggests continuity - acknowledges importance of religion to her
    • In A Waiting Room
      • 'the table bore a Testament...if suchwise bent'
        • 'if' sounds skeptical, alludes to his atheism
        • Personified + plosive - 'bore/ bent' suggests religion is a burden
        • Disrespectful verbs 'scrawled' + 'scoffingly' - religion is a hoax (can't stop train)
        • 'thronging' highlights the corruption of the Church
        • 'day of doom'
          • 'd' alliteration falls heavily at the end of the sentence
          • Alludes to judgement day (no afterlife)
    • Journey of the Magi
      • 'a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness'
        • 'mill' alludes to making of bread + Christ and therefore salvation
          • Eliot was Baptised into the 'anglo-catholic' church in 1927
        • Flowing water suggests change + purification
        • 'beating' is personified (generating energy/life)
        • 'Darkness' suggests sin
        • 'We returned to our places'
          • Echoes post-war disillusioned society
          • 'Death, our Death'
            • ('our') - idea that Christ died for humanity
            • Metaphor for death of old ways - reincarnation
          • Dares not 'disturb the universe'
  • 'The Fire Sermon' references the Buddhist ritual of ridding oneself of worldly pleasures

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