The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I
Page 110
Milton Swarts Jewish Jazz Drummer
Sweeney
Pereira
The Tenant Downstairs
Mrs. Porter
[new page]
Doris and Dusty in a furnished flat. Conversation about Pereira, who telephones to say that he wishes to come to see them, but is put off. Cutting the cards. Wauchope is heard outside. Enter Wauchope, Horsfall, Klipstein and Krumpacker. Enter Swarts and Snow with banjos. Expecting Sweeney and Mrs. Porter. Sweeney enters. Preparations for supper. All take their places round the table as follows:
Snow and Swarts in dinner jackets, Horsfall and Wauchope in lounge suits and motoring gabardines, Klipstein and Krumpacker in evening dress. Sweeney in brown jacket, green trousers, canary waistcoat and brown bowler which he keeps on throughout the evening. On either side of Sweeney, on the table, is a chafing dish, with materials—eggs, milk, toast, beer, cheese, etc.—for making welsh rarebit and scrambled eggs. Bottles of various wines and spirits on the table, brought by the various guests. As they take their places the quartette (K., K., H. and W.) burst into a convivial chorus. Badinage between Sweeney and Doris, leading up to conversation of Fragment II. At the end of this a KNOCK. Mrs. Porter is expected. It turns out
Preparations for supper. All take their places round the table as follows: staging would presumably require the actors to be arranged so as to be seen by the audience, as in Leonardo’s Last Supper, where the disciples use only one long side of the table. (For Leonardo’s fresco, see Lune de Miel 13, “la Cène, et un restaurant pas cher”.) The characters are paired, and because they do not surround the table, Snow (White) and Swarts (Black) are at extremes.
chafing dish: OED: “A vessel to hold burning charcoal or other fuel · · · a portable grate.”
[Poem I 113–27 · Textual History II 449–52]
to be THE FIRST INTRUDER. This is a Boy Scout, a Postman, or anything you like, soliciting contributions. He is quickly expelled. No sooner has he gone than there is another KNOCK. Mrs. Porter is expected. This turns out to be THE SECOND INTRUDER—Pereira. He has been suspicious and decided to come and see for himself. He addresses the girls with exaggerated sarcastic politeness, is baited by the others, and psychoanalysed by Klipstein and Krumpacker. He finally intimates his intention of evicting the two girls—the flat is his and he has lent it to them. Sweeney here takes the matter up. He points out that Pereira took the flat for his own occupation, and that he has in effect sub-let it, and draws Pereira’s attention to Section 6 of the Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions Act 1923 (13 & 14 Geo.5). What is that to do with Sweeney. Sweeney reveals himself as the Superior Landlord. Pereira withdraws routed. Presently there is another KNOCK. Is it Pereira again or Mrs. Porter? It is the Tenant Downstairs, a small insignificant man in spectacles, a mackintosh over pink striped pyjamas, red slippers and a walking stick. He has come to complain of the noise. Noise denied—no one been there all day, they only just came in. Sweeney tells him that any complaints must be referred to the owner of the flat—Mr. Pereira. He retires. [Chorus.] Sweeney starts cooking. Chorus.
End of Part I.
INTERLUDE. As the chorus ends a Viennese walz is heard beginning very softly. The actors assume fixed positions, and the stage becomes dimmer and the scene melts away. The music becomes louder. A bright sky blue drop scene descends, and two dancers (male and female) drift across in a ballet, in period-costumes. Ballet lasts only about 3 minutes. After they have left the stage a diseuse (hidden) recites a passage of poetry which will be in complete contrast to the verse of the play. The whole scene is completely in contrast in setting and mood to the play itself, but melts into it at beginning and end. The scene rises on
[Interlude deleted in top copy]
THE FIRST INTRUDER · · · THE SECOND INTRUDER: see TSE’s letter of 6 Nov 1932 in headnote, 8. VOLUME PUBLICATION: “expulsion of three Intruders”.
Postman · · · soliciting contributions · · · suspicious: OED “solicit” 2a: “To entreat or petition”. 4d: “Of women: To accost and importune (men) for immoral purposes” (quoting “Means could easily be adopted to prevent soldiers being solicited by women”, 1869). Since postmen do not ordinarily solicit contributions, presumably blackmail or a protection racket.
Section 6 of the Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions Act 1923: clause (3) provides that “Where the interest of the tenant of a dwelling-house · · · is determined, either as the result of an order or judgment for possession or ejectment, or for any other reason, any sub-tenant to whom the premises or any part thereof have been lawfully sub-let shall · · · be deemed to become the tenant of the landlord on the same terms”. To A. E. James, 9 Apr 1927: “The Rent due from the Sub-Tenant has just been paid by the Agent, by cheque in favour of the Executors.”
(13 & 14 Geo.5): the 13th and 14th years of the reign of George V, which began in 1910.
diseuse: OED: “A female artiste who specializes in monologue”, from 1896.
[Poems I 113–27 · Textual History II 449–52]
Part II.
The party has been going on for some time, many empty bottles, remains of food on plates. The end of the Interlude music overlaps the gramophone of the party. The men are sitting about stolidly, while Doris and Dusty are walzing together like two automatic dolls. [Top copy has a marginal arrow-link from “walzing” sentence to mention of ballet in previous paragraph, with “Query—too near together?”] As the record ends and the girls return to their seats, a strong soprano voice is heard outside
“Casey Jones was a fireman’s name;
In the red-light district he won his fame”
It is Mrs. Porter. Presently she is heard again on the stairs, as Snow holds the door open—
“And the neighbours knew by the shrieks and groans
That the man at the throttle was Casey Jones”.
Mrs. Porter enters. She is very tall, very thin, very old, as you see from her face, but immensely vigorous, good figure, and carries herself like a young woman. Very fashionably and expensively dressed. She is greeted with great enthusiasm. She takes her seat at the head of the table beside Sweeney. Here there is a CONTEST of some length between Sweeney and Mrs. Porter, each supporting a different point of view. They are evidently antipathetic and hostile, but drawn together simply because each is the only person [1st reading: person’s] on the other’s plane of vitality. There is no logical victory at the end, and indeed no end, but Sweeney speaks less and less, more and more briefly and sullenly, and goes on drinking, so that you are given the impression that he is having the worst of it and is getting into an ugly mood. As they continue the others become a bit uncomfortable, someone puts on the gramaphone and the two girls dance again, but this time becoming more and more frightened and hysterical. Suddenly Sweeney pulls something out of his pocket, gives a dull roar, the girls shriek, and Mrs. Porter falls on the floor. She is carried out for dead into the next room. Sweeney sits drinking, the only one who is quite collected. At the height of the confusion there is a KNOCK—it is the Tenant returned to complain again. Contrast between the confusion of the party this time and the cheeky reception given him the first time. All talk at once, apologise, promise, anything to get rid of him. He becomes more confident, threatens them boldly, and goes away. Silence. Sweeney goes on drinking. Suddenly a voice is heard from the next room
“Said Casey Jones before he died:
There’s two more women I wish I’d tried—”
the gramophone · · · walzing together like two automatic dolls · · · puts on the gramaphone: “with automatic hand, | And puts a record on the gramophone”, The Waste Land [III] 255–56, and note to 255 for “gramaphone”.
Casey Jones: railway driver killed in an accident. Engine wiper Wallace Saunders is said to have made up The Ballad of Casey Jones in 1900. Versions vary, but the lyrics of Billy Murray’s Blue Amberol cylinder of 1910 have: “The switchman knew by the engine’s moan | That the man at the throttle was Casey Jones. | | Casey Jones said just
before he died, | There’s two more roads that I’d like to ride.”
[Poem I 113–27 · Textual History II 449–52]
RESURRECTION of Mrs. Porter who returns as lively as ever. The only person who is not amazed and who receives this quite calmly is Sweeney, and you know that he knew everything in advance, as did she, and that the two are accepting the roles given them by fate. She ascends to her former place beside Sweeney, stichomythia between the two, all stand and raise wineglasses, and a sort of hymenaeal hymn is sung. All form two by two in procession singing. Drop scene: the procession still singing is seen descending the stairs of the building. This scene gives time for the backscene to be changed. As they drift away singing more faintly the scene is raised and as the familiar KNOCK is heard—
The Tenant is discovered in bed. Eight A.M. The knock is the knock of his servant. He raises himself dully, still half asleep, and looks dazedly about him. It has been his DREAM. [This last paragraph deleted in top copy]
Curtain.
stichomythia: “The next stage also was reached with the help of a hint from Seneca. Several scholars, Butler in particular, have called attention to a trick of Seneca of repeating one word of a phrase in the next phrase, especially in stichomythia, where the sentence of one speaker is caught up and twisted by the next”, Seneca in Elizabethan Translation (1927).
a sort of hymenaeal hymn: OED “Hymen” 1. “The God of marriage”. 3. “A wedding-hymn, hymeneal song. rare.” TSE: “(Io Hymen, Hymenæe)”, Ode (“Tired. | Subterrene”) 13 and note.
the familiar KNOCK · · · The Tenant is discovered in bed · · · The knock is the knock · · · half asleep · · · It has been his DREAM: De Quincey, On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth: “From my boyish days I had always felt a great perplexity on one point in Macbeth. It was this: the knocking at the gate, which succeeds to the murder of Duncan, produced to my feelings an effect for which I never could account · · · At length, in 1812, Mr. Williams made his début on the stage of Ratcliffe Highway, and executed those unparalleled murders which have procured for him such a brilliant and undying reputation · · · Now it will be remembered that in the first of these murders (that of the Marrs) the same incident (of a knocking at the door soon after the work of extermination was complete) did actually occur, which the genius of Shakespeare has invented · · · we must be made sensible that the world of ordinary life is suddenly arrested—laid asleep—tranced · · · Hence it is that, when the deed is done, when the work of darkness is perfect, then the world of darkness passes away like a pageantry in the clouds: the knocking at the gate is heard; and it makes known audibly that the reaction has commenced: the human has made its reflux upon the fiendish; the pulses of life are beginning to beat again; and the re-establishment of the goings-on of the world in which we live, first makes us profoundly sensible of the awful parenthesis that had suspended them.” For TSE on this essay, see note to Fragment of an Agon 161–73.
[Poems I 113–27 · Textual History II 449–52]
7. DELAYS AND CRITERION PUBLICATION OF THE TWO FRAGMENTS
Henry Eliot to their mother, Charlotte, 6 Apr 1926: “Tom says he is writing a play of modern life, in which some of the characters of his poems appear again.” The previous month had seen publication of Charlotte Eliot’s Savonarola. TSE’s Introduction had declared (xi): “The next form of drama will have to be a verse drama but in new verse forms. Perhaps the conditions of modern life (think how large a part is now played in our sensory life by the internal combustion engine!) have altered our perception of rhythms. At any rate, the recognised forms of speech-verse are not as efficient as they should be; probably a new form will be devised out of colloquial speech.”
To Mrs. Hugh Fraser Stewart, 9 June 1926: “The only difficulty about my play is the tense. It is true that I am going to write it, it is partly true that I have partly written it and it is wholly untrue to say that it is written. Were the whole play in existence, I should have had no hesitation; it would be the A.D.C. [the Amateur Dramatic Club, Cambridge] who would hesitate. But two or three unfinished scenes are of no use to anybody.”
In Criterion Oct 1926, Fragment of a Prologue ended: “(To be continued.)” In Criterion Jan 1927, the title Fragment of an Agon is followed by “[From Wanna Go Home, Baby?]” Untraced as a specific title, the spelling of “Wanna Go Home, Baby?” suggests American song lyrics of the era.
8. VOLUME PUBLICATION
After receiving an approach for publication of a limited edition of the two Fragments in Guy Chapman’s “King’s Printers” series, TSE wrote to David Higham, 28 Nov 1929: “I will confirm what I said to you on the telephone about Guy Chapman’s offer. It is certainly tempting, but I had already considered (for my own firm) and dismissed the possibility of publishing the two ‘Fragments’ by themselves. I have not yet given up the hope of finishing the play of Sweeney Agonistes; if I do, it means considerably revising these fragments; and if I finish the play, I have, as I said, definite notions about the form of publication. I think that you will be able to put my reasons to Chapmans in such a way that they will not suppose that I object to them; for indeed I am pleased and flattered by the offer.”
Volume publication of Sweeney Agonistes was proposed again—by Faber—while TSE was in America in 1932. Frank Morley, who was compiling the Criterion in the editor’s absence, sent a telegram:
PUBLISHING TWO JOYCE TALES AS XMAS HALFCROWN BOOK WANT SAME TIME PRICE PUBLISH FRAGMENTS PROLOGUE AGON TOGETHER CABLE PERMISSION TITLE STOP NOT TIME SEND PROOFS WOULD COLLATE CRITERION TEXT MORLEY
and followed with a letter on 8 Nov: “it occurred to us that it would be very helpful to rake in some badly needed cash by producing the Two Fragments of Sweeney Agonistes as a 2/6 item simultaneously with the two Shem and Shaun tales.” Meanwhile TSE had replied with a telegram of his own, 2 Nov:
PERMISSION MUST BE GIVEN I S UPPOSE STOP TITLE SWEENEY AGONISTES FRAGMENTS OF AN ARISTOPHANIC MELODRAMA DONT MAKE IT ARTY ELIOT.
On 6 Nov, TSE wrote confirming his permission, adding:
[Poem I 113–27 · Textual History II 449–52]
I don’t know what you mean by collating texts as there is only one text, that in The Criterion, however, collate it if you can and emend it if you will. I should have liked a short preface something like this:
The author has decided to reprint these two fragments, originally published in two numbers of The Criterion, only because such a long time has elapsed since the work was designed, that he has become reconciled to the probability that it will never be completed. Had the drama ever been continued, he is sure that the first fragment, which he recognises to be inferior, would have been much altered or even superseded. He reprints it only because it may help to give some notion of the original scheme, which was based upon the account of Aristophanic drama by F. M. Cornford in his Origins of Attic Comedy. At the close of the second scene, after the expulsion of three Intruders (two ticket-sellers and the tenant of the flat below) Mrs. Porter was to have appeared.
No preface appeared in the book. The sheets were printed on 16 Nov (Faber archive), using the typeface Bodoni, and TSE acknowledged receipt of finished copies in a letter to Morley from Eliot House at Harvard dated “St. Stephen Proto-martyr 1932”: “Sweeney Agonistes is nicely printed, I like the type; please send SIX more copies and debit my account. I hope I draw some royalties.”
9. AFTER PUBLICATION
In 1933: “I once designed and drafted a couple of scenes of a verse play. My intention was to have one character whose sensibility and intelligence should be on the plane of the most sensitive and intelligent members of the audience; his speeches should be addressed to them as much as to the other personages in the play—or rather, should be addressed to the latter, who were to be material, literal-minded and visionless, with the consciousness of being overheard by the former. There was to be an understanding between this protagonist and a small number of the audience, while the rest of the audience would share the responses of the other ch
aracters in the play. Perhaps this is all too deliberate, but one must experiment as one can”, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism 153–54. Although TSE’s readers could not know it when they read this, the protagonist in his mind may have been not Sweeney but the disturbed Tenant who appears in The Superior Landlord and who, in the first drafting, dreams the whole thing, with whom TSE would have sympathised. For TSE’s sensitivity to noise, see note to Morning at the Window title, 1, 3. In an unpublished memoir, T. S. Eliot (Texas), Osbert Sitwell records that the flat below the Eliots’ at 18 Crawford Mansions (where they lived 1916–20), was occupied by two “actresses” who spent their time “playing the piano, singing, or putting some particularly loud record on the gramophone”. This often went on “far into the small hours and without interval”, and at midnight they tended to shout out loudly to “gentleman friends” down on the pavement. When TSE eventually complained to the landlord, he was told “Well, you see, Sir, it’s the Artistic Temperament” (see Letters 1 334).
[Poems I 113–27 · Textual History II 449–52]
To Paul Elmer More, 28 Apr 1936: “I think myself that it is the most original thing that I have done. It is useless to speculate whether, if circumstances had permitted my finishing that play at the time, it would have been equally good as a whole; the only thing that is certain is that twelve years have made too great a difference in me for me to touch it now.” Smidt 61: “I asked Eliot in 1948 why he never finished Sweeney Agonistes and had the following reply: ‘Because when time lapses before a work is completed you change in the meantime and your inspiration changes. I don’t believe in rewriting poetry, it usually spoils it; or in continuing to work on older things. Most readers by now will have acquired some idea of what Sweeney Agonistes forms a fragment of, and I wouldn’t like to disturb that idea.’ Introducing Fragment of an Agon, Columbia, 28 Apr 1958: “This was a work I never finished because it has to be spoken too quickly to be possible on the stage, to convey the sort of rhythm that I intended. It was much too fast for dialogue, really” (Columbia University Forum Fall 1958, 14).