[19] variant is a field at home: “attachment to our own field”, Little Gidding III 11.
[21–22] we took up our positions: Churchill: “Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and · · · men will say, ‘This was their finest hour’”, House of Commons, 18 June 1940. TSE: “The constellations | Took up their stations”, Inside the gloom 3–4. “we returned to our places”, Journey of the Magi 40.
[Poem I 213–14 · Textual History II 550–51]
[22] To McKnight Kauffer [11 June 1940]: “I don’t think the last line will do: it is one of those awkward cases in which each word separately is what you want, but they won’t all go together. ‘Positions’ and ‘instructions’ so close together is disagreeable to the ear. So it must either be ‘we took up our places, in obedience to instructions’ or ‘we took up our positions, in obedience to orders’. I rather like ‘instructions’ better than ‘orders’, because it suggests voluntary cooperation, rather than mere discipline; but on the other hand I prefer ‘positions’ to ‘places’, because it has a more precise military sound. So I should like you to try them out on a few people of sufficient sensitivity to words and sounds, and decide this for me. Yours T.S.E. ¶ I don’t know how urgent this is: I am sending a copy to John [Hayward] for his opinion. I can get Herbert Read’s view when I see him on Thursday, and I think his would be valuable.”
[22] variant in obedience to orders: Simonides: “Stranger, tell the Lacedemonians that we lie here obedient to their orders”, Anthologia Palatina VII 249 (Grover Smith 324); see headnote. TSE on postwar renewal of literary relations: “there is much that we shall have to come to understand, in our diverse experience in these last three years. For this we do not need to be given orders, but we need facilities”, The Unity of European Writers (1944). “the element of unquestioning obedience should be as small as the situation admits—for always, in peace as well as war, some orders must be carried out whether they are understood and approved or not”, Leadership and Letters (1949).
A Note on War Poetry
Published in London Calling, ed. Storm Jameson (New York, 1942), then 1963+.
[Poems I 214–15 · Textual History II 551–53]
Written during the revising of Little Gidding. TSE, who had contributed The Marching Song of the Pollicle Dogs and Billy M’Caw: The Remarkable Parrot to The Queen’s Book of the Red Cross (1939), wrote to Storm Jameson, 12 Feb 1942: “Thank you for your letter of the 7th. These Red Cross books are very troubling. For the first Red Cross book I was able to provide two children’s poems which were the only unpublished work that I had to offer. The second book was the Indian Red Cross book for which I have written some verses about the Indian troops. Now comes your American Red Cross book and I am rather at a loss what to do. I never have anything unpublished on hand except things that I don’t want to publish at all and if I do anything for this book it would have to be specially written for the occasion. While I should be quite glad to do that if I could think of an appropriate subject, I am in a position in which I have already undertaken rather more than I can carry out between now and June, so I am afraid that if you want a contribution immediately I cannot be one of the contributors. If there were no hurry I should be able to begin thinking about it at the beginning of June.” To Bonamy Dobrée, 13 July: “Now about your friend Hurricane Jim. I put my mind on the problems of a Red Cross Poem (or Bun) for her · · · and finally it occurred to me that if I could not write a poem I might at least do something on the subject of the difficulty of writing a poem. So I send you the enclosed first for your opinion as a friend (candid): if you think it is good enough send it on to her; if not, return it to me. Perhaps the idea is wrong, perhaps it is injudicious, perhaps the composition will do me no credit. I leave that to your judgement. But if you transmit it to your friend, do not let her regard it as a POEM: it is a SET OF VERSES.”
To Hayward, 21 July: “I have written a set of verses for Bonamy’s friend Hurricane Jim (M. Storm Jameson) who has badgered me for her American Red Cross Book. Will the Mexican Red Cross Book turn up next? I am to address the Swedes, radio‑telegraphically, on Friday night, about War Poetry: I understand that it will be arranged in the form of a dialogue, my interlocutor speaking in Swedish for the better instruction of the Swedes in outlying farms, so it should be pretty rum.” Along with Little Gidding, the broadcast and these verses were mentioned in the next letter to Hayward, 26 July: “I provided three pages of text on WAR POETRY, out of which Mr. Ohlsson arranged an ingenious dialogue: he taking everything in Swedish, and giving me a few interjections such as ‘Well, that is very much what I think’ etc · · · When I copy them out I shall let you have a copy of my SET OF VERSES which I composed for Storm Jameson to oblige Bonamy.” To Hayward, 10 Oct: “I cannot wholly suppress in my mind the suspicion, which, however, I do not wish to pass on to any wider public than the recipient of this letter, that all these Red Cross levies upon literature serve chiefly to give otherwise unoccupied people a sense that they are ‘doing something’.”
To M. J. Tambimuttu, 22 Apr 1941, on selections for Poetry in Wartime (Faber, 1942): “I should not like it to be a collection of ‘war poems’ in the narrower sense, although the best that are written should certainly be included. In the first place, I do not think that there have yet been enough first-rate poems directly concerned with the war; and in the second place I believe that while people want poetry they do not want ‘war poetry’ in such a concentrated dose. I should like to consider an anthology of poems written during the war, whatever their subject matter.” T. S. Eliot on Poetry in Wartime (1942), from his radio broadcast to Sweden:
Not very long after the present war began, people were writing to the newspapers asking: “Where are the war poets?” · · · I think that the question is worth considering for a moment, if only to show why it should not be asked. For it does not concern this war only, but all wars; not this country alone, but all countries which pride themselves on their poetry.
When we ask for “war poetry,” we may be asking for one or the other of two different things. We may mean patriotic poetry · · · which expresses and stimulates pride in the military virtues of a people. Or we may be asking for poets to write poetry arising out of their experience of war. As for the first, we must consider, how very little first-rate poetry of this kind there is in any language—and how little of that has ever been written in the middle of a great war. The greatest war poem of Europe is Homer’s Iliad: it was not written during the Trojan War; and, although Homer was a Greek, I think that he makes the Greeks appear rather more unpleasant than the Trojans · · ·
So in general, I should say that while a poet, as a man, should be no less devoted to his country than other men, I distinguish between his duty as a man and his duty as a poet. His first duty as a poet is towards his native language, to preserve and develop that language · · · The beginning of the last war produced an outburst of excellent verse: but the men who were thus stimulated to write were not, I think, any of them real poets. The later stages of the war produced some verse of more permanent value: such as that of Isaac Rosenberg and Wilfred Owen, and the more bitter verse of Siegfried Sassoon. This was “war poetry” in its material: but its spirit was more that of sadness and pity than of military glory · · ·
[Poem I 215 · Textual History II 551–53]
I am impressed by the number of young British poets whose work has begun to appear during this war; and I am glad that so little of what they write gives an answer to satisfy the sort of people who ask “where are our war poets?” · · · When these poets write about the war, it is mostly about some limited experience, even trivial experience, such as cold, discomfort, or the boredom of waiting at an isolated post · · · the bigger experiences need time, perhaps a long time, before we can make poetry of them · · · when, after the war, the experience has become a part of a man’s whole past, it is likely to bear fruit in something very different from what, during time of war, people call “war poetry”.
(Rosenberg had been a friend of the Schiffs. TSE considered writing a preface to his poems in 1935, but the Faber board dissuaded him; see TSE to D. W. Harding, 17 May 1935. Faber published Sassoon’s Poems Newly Selected in 1940.)
To Desmond Hawkins, 5 July 1940, declining to campaign for the exemption of writers from war service: “I can’t see the exemption of writers merely for the sake of preserving them. So far as they can make a better contribution to the war (in its largest sense) in some job in which they can employ their talents, instead of being merely atoms in the ranks, I am all for finding them that sort of job. The example to which you refer, of artists being kept to ‘paint a record of the war’ at least fulfils the letter of that principle. But I cannot see why writers should desire any exceptional immunity, qua writers: if they are really conscientious Conscious Objectors, that is a different matter · · · I hope you will understand that I, as a person who owing to physical inferiority was rejected in the last war, am most loth to dogmatise or make any public expression of opinion of what younger men placed very differently from the way I was, should do or should not do now.”
To Dr. Alfred Weber, 15 Jan 1958: “I have your letter of 6th January and am so much touched by the amiability with which you accept my prohibitions that the asperity of my earlier communications is transformed and I am inclined, if so wished, to mitigate the sentence. If there are any two poems from which you have agreed to take four lines which you would care to print in full (with the exception of Ode which I do not like) you are welcome to do so. I should in fact rather welcome the printing complete of A Note on War Poetry.”
Title A Note on: a dozen pieces of TSE’s prose use this formula. “any book, any essay, any note in Notes and Queries, which produces a fact even of the lowest order about a work of art is a better piece of work than nine-tenths of the most pretentious critical journalism”, The Function of Criticism (1923) IV. The earliest ms title for this poem had been Notes on Poetry in Wartime. In drafts, The Cultivation of Christmas Trees enjoyed several introductory formulae: A Preamble to, A Comment Upon and A Note on (see Textual History). In 1963, “Notes on the Waste Land” had its own entry in the “Index of Titles of Poems”. War Poetry: to A. L. Rowse, 17 June 1944, on a proposed title: “NOT War Poems, ever! If the war stops, it kills the book; if the war goes on, it is meaningless.”
[Poem I 215 · Textual History II 551]
1, 3 expression of collective emotion · · · individual: Jane Ellen Harrison: “Art, as Tolstoy divined, is social, not individual · · · The dance from which the drama rose was a choral dance · · · what the Greeks called a thiasos. The word means a band and a thing of devotion; and reverence, devotion, collective emotion, is social in its very being”, Ancient Art and Ritual (1913) 240. TSE wrote to Harrison on 29 May 1923 inviting her to contribute to the Criterion, but she never did. “The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an ‘objective correlative’”, Hamlet (1919).
6–7 To create the universal, originate a symbol | Out of the impact: “A symbol created by death”, Little Gidding III 46 variant.
12–13 “incidents” · · · the effort to keep day and night together: OED “incident” 1b: “An occurrence or event, sometimes comparatively trivial in itself, which precipitates or could precipitate political unrest, open warfare, etc. Also, a particular episode (air-raid, skirmish, etc.) in war.” Several of OED’s citations, like TSE, have the word in quotation marks. (See headnote to Four Quartets 3. COMPOSITION for TSE on “an alerte · · · waiting for Incidents” in 1941.) Service Slang (1943): “There are no occasions, occurrences, or events in an airman’s life. Anything that happens to him is an ‘incident’ .. why, nobody knows.” To J. H. Oldham, 27 Aug 1943: “We all tend much more to employ military terms and metaphors nowadays: but I wonder whether there is too much a suggestion of wiliness for material ends about the word ‘strategy’. Incidentally, I think that there is a moderation to be observed in the use of military figures: the Church Militant should not become the Panzerkirche.” the effort: OED “war effort”: from 1919, “the effort of a nation to win a war, or of an individual group to contribute to that end” (see “the war effort”, in TSE’s prefatory note to Defence of the Islands).
13–15 In the effort to keep day and night together. | It seems just possible that a poem might happen | To a very young man (13 variant: With the struggle to keep two lives together): Faber catalogue 1936 (of TSE): “if he did not have to read so many manuscripts he would have more time for writing poetry. To which our reply has always been that after all we make it possible for him to keep body and soul together” (see headnote to Textual History, 3. KEY TO EDITIONS, 1936). “As body and soul begin to fall asunder”, Little Gidding II 81.
12–17 “incidents” · · · That is a life. | | War: Van Wyck Brooks: “it seems as if religion too were an incident · · · these countless ism’s · · · are all absolutely separate. And being incidents they do not mix together to form a background from which we look out upon life in general · · · warring · · · warring”, The Wine of the Puritans 78 (reviewed by TSE in 1909).
13 variant, 19 two lives · · · War is not a life: “as death resembles life, | Being between two lives · · · liberation · · · love of a country”, Little Gidding III 5–6, 9–10.
15 but a poem is not poetry: Marianne Moore: “I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle · · · the result is not poetry”, Poetry in Observations (1924) and included by TSE in Selected Poems of Marianne Moore (1935). In the introduction, he wrote: “If you aim only at the poetry in poetry, there is no poetry either.” TSE: “The poetry does not matter”, East Coker II 21. Wilfred Owen: “The Poetry is in the pity”, Preface for an unpublished collection, printed in The Poems of Wilfred Owen ed. Edmund Blunden (1931).
[Poem I 215 · Textual History II 552–53]
21–22 The enduring is not a substitute for the transient, | Neither one for the other: “nothing in this world or the next is a substitute for anything else; and if you find that you must do without something, such as religious faith or philosophic belief, then you must just do without it”, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism 113. “no substitute for sense”, Whispers of Immortality 10 (see note).
24–25 “poetry” · · · verse: see headnote to “Occasional Verses”.
To the Indians who Died in Africa
Published in Queen Mary’s Book for India (foreword by the Right Hon. L. S. Amery), 1943. (Queen Mary, 1867–1953, had been Empress of India during the reign of her husband, George V, from 1910 to 1936.) Reprinted in The Tiger Triumphs: The Story of Three Great Divisions in Italy (London, for the Government of India, 1946) without title or author’s name (though TSE’s publishers are thanked), set entirely in small capitals and with 11–15 omitted. After being collected in 1963, the verses were reprinted in Of Books and Humankind: Essays and Poems Presented to Bonamy Dobrée ed. John Butt (1964), where the explanatory paragraph is dropped and the title is preceded by the dedication “To Bonamy Dobrée because he likes it”.
[Poems I 215–16 · Textual History II 553–54]
To Cornelia Sorabji (1866–1954, barrister and social reformer), 9 Apr 1941: “I should be very happy to do anything in my power to forward the increase of the Indian Troops Comfort Fund · · · As for a contribution to the book, you do not say by what date such contributions must be received. You see, I have absolutely nothing on hand at the moment and I should have to try to write something specially as soon as I can make the time · · · I cannot definitely promise anything in prose or verse.” 26 Jan 1942: “I never have anything on hand, unpublished, that I can contribute for such collections as yours, and no poem anywhere near completion. What I had in mind, as a token—for it will be a disappointment if I do not have the honour of my name in the book—was to try to write a short epigrammatic poem in homage to the gallantry of the Indian troops in Africa. If I can do this, in the next ten days or so, I will send it to
you: if I fail, I shall write to offer my humble apologies.” 11 Feb: “As earnest of my good intentions I send you herewith some verses which I have composed with your book in view. I shall be grateful if you will let me know in time up to what date I can alter, substitute or withdraw, because I am not at all certain that I am satisfied with what I have done. I shall also be grateful if you will let me know your opinion of the suitability of these lines or any detail in them from the point of view of the people about whom and for whom they are written. There may be possibilities of misunderstanding of which I am unaware · · · PS. I am sorry the paper is a bit crumpled but the dog sat on it.” To Hayward [1 Mar 1942]: “I enclose a copy of the verses which I have composed to order for Cornelia Sorabji’s Indian Red Cross Book: I had to do it as she is in hospital with fractured hips. I have to make sure that there is nothing in it offensive to the Punjabis and Pathans.” Hayward, 3 Mar: “I venture to express the faintest possible uneasiness about the use of the word ‘graveyard’ in the last stanza. I do so because you say that you have been careful not to offend the Punjabis and the Pathans. It occurs to me that as Indians are consumed after death on Gats or Ghats or Gahts and are not buried in graves it may be inappropriate to suggest that interment is practised.” (TSE to Henry Eliot, 19 Oct 1929, after their mother’s death: “I have a perfectly irrational (not theological) dislike of cremation”.) TSE to Sorabji, 9 Mar 1942: “In the verses I sent you, I have been worried lest the phrase ‘the same graveyard’ in the last stanza should give offense to devout Moslems, or others. Do you think it would be better to change it to ‘may have the same memories’? which would do for the versification equally well. And if there is anything unacceptable about ‘the dog’s great grandson’ playing with the child, please let me know” (see Textual History). His letter concluded: “P.S. And does ‘the moment after death’ sound too soon for some believers? I may change that.” On this letter are notes, dated 16 Mar, apparently for a reply by Sorabji: “need not change—but if he wd rather (a) ‘graveyard’ sug[gestio]n safer [i.e. that it would be safer to substitute ‘memories’] (b) Indian Moslems do keep dogs, old fashioned ones—village watchdogs: in parts goats & cows more usual”. Meanwhile, Lady Richmond wrote to TSE, 13 Mar: “Miss Sorabji sent word that you would like to see your Poem & here it is—I am getting all the contributions to The BOOK typed here & am keeping them till she gets home, as we hope she will do very soon—as she has no facilities for keeping them in the Hospital. May I diffidently say how much I like the Poem? It, at least, will remain true, whatever the changes may be with which we may be faced by the time the book is ready.” TSE to Lady Richmond, 21 Mar: “This, I think, is the final version. After several consultations I have, I hope, expunged everything that might disturb the orthodox of any faith—at the expense of the only striking phrases, to be sure: but this sort of composition isn’t poetry, and has its own rules.”
The Poems of T. S. Eliot Volume I Page 157