South Atlantic Modern Language Association

Memory and Desire in Eliot's "Preludes"

Author(s): Marion Montgomery
Source: South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 38, No. 2 (May, 1973), pp. 61-65
Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3197764 .
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 MEMORY AND DESIRE IN ELIOT'S "PRELUDES"

MARION MONTGOMERY
Universityof Georgia

Not the intensemoment

Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetimeburningin everymoment.
East Coker
The problem of reconcilingconsciousnessand its objects is
complicated by those aspects of consciousnessannounced in the
opening lines of the public Waste Land: memory and desire.
Memoryis unverifiable.Eliot's old teacher BertrandRussell puts
the problem: one cannot distinguishmemoryimages from pure
imagination,i.e., willed illusion. How can one place any reasoned
confidencein that "feelingof pastness" which suggeststhat there
is a difference between the presentmomentof awarenessand past
momentsof awareness? To suggestthat a complete world created
one momentbeforethe present,containingall memoryand knowl-
edge, is beyond proof may be "uninteresting"to Russell, beyond
posing the problem as insoluble, though his Autobiographysug-
gests his confidencein the pastnessof the past and its real exis-
tence. But it cannot be so to Eliot. Eliot is attractedto Russell
initially,and learns much fromhim at the outset,but he cannot
stand on the same ground, as he rapidly discovers. He cannot,
because his desireis such as to disallow a focusupon the instrument
of the mind, the logical structuresthe mind makes,as Russell can
comfortablydo. Eliot must come to termswith the maker of such
instruments, the mind itself. The "Preludes" is the firstsignificant
dramatizationof this strugglewhich is to rise to a climax in the
finalsection of The Waste Land, at a point where we may bring
Tiresias into conjunctionwith the "key" which releasesEliot from
the necessityof that literarydevice of point of view and froman
entrapmentin the Bradleyan dilemma of thought's relation to
object.
If memoryis difficult desire seems inexplicable.
of verification,
Hence the vague restlessnessin that carefullycontrolledsequence
of the "Preludes," a sequence of poems composed over a period of
fouryears,in America and France, coming to only fifty-four lines.
In the firstsectioneveningis a collectivefor the images of its thir-
teen lines,which in theirmovement,metrics,and rhymesuggesta
compressedShakespeareansonnet. The timeis present,and if there
is a past for memoryto reflectupon, it is indistinguishablefrom
the present. Indeed time present,time past, and time futureare

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62 Eliot

emptilyincluded in the singular"six o'clock," a versewhich effec-

tivelyrestsa time interval approximatingthat of the tetrameter
versewhich is the basic measure of Section I. Empty timelessness
(the condition opposite that of the still point we shall come to)
is suspended in the descriptiveextensionof the third line, which
completesthe firstquatrain: "The burnt-outends of smokydays."
There is an illusion of action in the next eight lines, random and
inconsequential,with a suggestionof conclusion in the last line,
set off by space from the preceding ones, yet yoked by couplet
rhyme(stamps-lamps). But there is hardly conclusion in "And
then the lightingof the lamps"; the light available is at best one
of the senses,the establishedtone emphasizingthe futilityof such
lightto dispel the settlingdarkness.The darknessis hardlyremark-
able enough to warrant metaphorical tags such as Shakespeare
conjuresfromsimilarimages: death's second self,forinstance.The
isolation of this "entity,"this awareness,fromthe "out there" is
signalledin the adjectivesthatattachto attemptsto name the outer
world, and we may reflecthow far removed the gustyshower of
"Preludes" is from the hint of rain in the final section of The
Waste Land. Nor is there much of a suggestionof judgment in
the adjectives attached to nouns in the "Preludes" as there is in
the descriptionof the Thames in The WasteLand. We have rather
a despondentacknowledgmentof isolation: witheredleaves; vacant
lots; brokenblinds and chimneypots; even the cab-horseis, hope-
fully,lonely. To simplyname the objects of that other world is
a species of patheticfallacy,requiringno metaphoror personifica-
tion.
One need only compare analogous phrases from another
the
"romantic"poem to see the oppressivenessof the closed world
mind of "Preludes" contends with. In the first
paragraph of Words-
worth's"Tintern Abbey,"a reflectiveawarenessis opening upon a
largerworld with increasingconfidence,through"steep and lofty
cliffs,"fromunder its own "dark sycamore." In the midst of a
"deep secluded" wood thereis notice,even if uncertain,of a larger
life of the mind which the mind alone must take credit for in
Eliot's poem. Wordsworth,in his poem, is recordinga coming
to himselfin a dark wood, that darknesslying in the mind. One
sees him acceptingmetaphor as more than device, througha co-
incidence too particularlyappropriateto be coincidence. At high
noon, at midyear,midwaya riveron its way to the sea, he reflects
him;
upon his own point midwaylife, as Dante has done before
and he certifiesmetaphor as more valid than a quaint device of
words, being persuaded by the correspondencesbetween the mo-

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 South AtlanticBulletin 63
ment in his mind, and the moment of nature's world that his
senses certifyto him.
Wordsworthcomes to a new consciousness,but in Eliot's poem
only morningcomes to consciousness,morningitselfa weak collec-
tive like evening. The morningcollects,throughimages, an addi-
tional assertionof separationof each of Bradley's "closed circles,"
the small world of each consciousnesswhich is peculiar and private
and so capable of being registeredonly as masquerades such as
will be more fullydisplayedby Prufrock.Indeed morning,evening
name a mask forthe entityor awarenessof Eliot's poem. Nor will
Keats's negative capability serve as a key to unlock the private
world upon the Other. To assert that "your soul" is constituted
of a "thousand sordid images" flickeringagainst the ceiling only
certifies"my soul," the realization of which calls up the sardonic
tone at the end of Eliot's poem. To hear the "sparrows in the
gutters"is not to enter that world of the you, futilelyaddressedin
the thirdsectionof the poem. How forlornthe prospectof shout-
ing with Achilles in the trenches.Neither the street(another col-
lective substitutefor the closed world of the poem's awareness,as
evening and morning have been) nor the you share a common
"vision." At best the you is a metaphoricalprojection of the self
upon that object clasping yellowsoles of feetin soiled hands-and
we are prepared throughthis sectionfor the firstline of Prufrock
by thisrealization. Neitherstreetnor you sharesa vision with the
speakingvoice; neitherWordsworth'sNature nor his Dorothy can
signifycommunitylargerthan the self in Eliot's poem. The speak-
ing voice then can only enunciate additional images which float
hollowlyin its own locked world. The mind as a mansion for all
lovelyforms,the memoryas a dwelling place for all sweet sounds
and harmonies,has become a ghostlyhorrorhouse throughwhich
awarenessdrags its sad weight.
And yet that is not quite all. There is a desirewhich will not
be stilled. There are eyes that seem assured of certain certainties,
even if theywill not or cannot reflectthemclearlyto reveal vision
such as Dorothy'seyes do to Wordsworthon the banks of the Wye
or Beatrice's to Dante on the shoresof Lethe.1 The conscienceof
this blackened street,and the consciousnessthat inhabits the "Pre-
ludes," is impatientto assume the world. There is a momentary
movementas if the key is about to be turned in the lock. Then
fear-haunteddesire succumbsto fear. The certaintyof illusion is
the only certainty,where desire is but fancy. The poem concludes
that, through fancy,the desire only "curls" around images and
"clings" to them. The joyful declaration of a Wordsworththat
somethingis deeply interfusedin nature, residentof settingsuns,

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64 Eliot
round oceans, and the mind of man throughthe formsthat inhabit
his mind-the confidencethat thereis a largerand more inclusive
existencethan individual awareness-is not to be trusted. Words-
worthcan hear the "still,sad music of humanity,"with its powers
to chasten and subdue the consciousness,because of his sense of
a presencewhichhe acceptsas valid perception;desireis to Words-
wortha valid spring in the opening of the door of the separate
self. But in the "Preludes," there is only
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitelysufferingthing.
That thingseemsat best the awarenessin its own locked world,in
which the poem is suspended. Lacking the daring risk of a sur-
render to illusion, it must recover its poise, laugh sardonically,
wiping a hand across the mouth. The your of the line thirdfrom
last is most private,hardly turned out toward the reader as we
shall findthatword doing in "Gerontion." It declaresthoseworlds,
whichDonne and Shakespearefoundcunninglycontrivedof angelic
sprite and earth, to be merelyrevolving,each on its axis, each a
peculiar aud privateworld incapable of constellation.
If that were all that one might conclude, if the "argument"
implied by the "Preludes" were one subscribed to completelyby
Eliot, the poem mustneed be his last. Afterthis,silence,as in Rim-
baud, whom Eliot finds fascinatingtill he comes to that larger
silence and stillnesssuch as might be representedby St. Thomas
Aquinas's closing his book and writingno more. What Eliot can-
not escape,and what therefore keeps desirealive as it did in Words-
worth, is the haunting presenceof what Husserly calls "Original
Intuition." That tht poem exists at all is an evidence of that
intuitionand a contradictionof the poem's fears. It is the same
intuitionthat will not let a Coleridge rest in the pure mechanics
of mind out of David Hartley,or Wordsworthfind peace in the
solipsismof Bishop Berkeley. For, as the "Preludes" attemptsto
dramatize,consciousnessis of something;it cannot exist without
some self-evidentsomethingof which it cannot be concluded the
firstcause; nor can it conclude that the coming to rest of that
somethingin the consciousness,the settlingof dregsin sterilewater,
is the final cause. Self-awarenesscannot exist unless it is at least
aware of itself,a point resurrectedby Husserly and dwelt upon
subsequentlyby Bradley and Whitehead. (The point is as ancient
as Augustine,in whom Eliot is to rest considerableconfidenceon
this question.) The feelingin the "Preludes" is a somethingsepa-
rate fromthe awarenessof them,a separation which a Whitman
the
pursues backward throughthe multiplicityof Chinese boxes,
"I's" of his poems. It is a feelingseeking a restbetween conscious-

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 South AtlanticBulletin 65
ness and the somethingcontained by consciousness.We as readers
know that entity-that consciousness-throughthe images floating
in it, the "forms"Wordsworthcelebrates; and to the extent that
we do, we break the walls of our own closed world, moved by
pathos. By the act of the poem itself,Eliot keeps that possibility
open, even as he concentratesupon the likelihood of illusion. In
doing so, he pinpoints the central intellectual problem of his
poetry,with an intensitywhich indicates it a very pressing,per-
sonal one.

NOTE
1. Eliot, late in life, recalls his firstencounter with Dante at the time of the
"Preludes":
There was one poet ... who impressedme profoundlywhen I was
twenty-two. . . one poet who remains the comfortand amazement
of my age. . . . In my youth, I think that Dante's astonishing
economyand directnessof language-his arrow that goes unerringly
to the centreof the target-provided for me a wholesome corrective
to the extravagances of the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline
authors in whom I also delighted.
"To Criticize the Critic" (1961)

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