Wolność w poezji i krytyce T. S. Eliota

Abstract

A poet must needs try to define the nature of freedom as both poetry and freedom are deeply interrelated in their elusiveness and transitoriness. The paper looks at T. S. Eliot's attempt at pinpointing the nature of freedom. Both his poetical work and critical writing are considered. The way T. S. Eliot covered in his poetry is long and reveals many a turn of thought, notwithstanding the poet's early doctrine of impersonality. When he sets off to explore the streets of a modern city, he sees no freedom for an individual, except perhaps a fleeting glimpse of it, hidden, however, and guarded against derision. The Waste Land's arid deserts exposed to the scorching sun may at their best create an illusion of freedom; a hallucination in a weary mind of a traveller. Even in the world of Sweeney, where freedom appears as absence of restrictions, it is rejected as worthless. These are Ariel Poems that mark the beginning of Eliot's quest for true freedom; a spiritual freedom of a Christian, who wants to stand by his newfound faith. Eliot's search consisted more in convincing himself that the ideals he had long had an inkling of were the ones he could profess rather than in finding anything completely new. And profess them he did, both in his essays and plays and in poetry. Four Quartets constitute the crowning of his reconciliation with the human condition and define freedom as acceptance of God's will towards us.