T.S.+Eliot

The Hollow Men

[|T. S. Eliot]

Eliot's World

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 "The Hollow Men" (1925) is a poem by T. S. Eliot. ... The poem is divided into five parts and consists of 98 lines of which the last four are "probably the most quoted lines of any 20th-century poet writing in English". "The Hollow Men" is a post [|World War I] poem about people who are 'hollow' inside. They speak about changing the world, but don't; declare that they believe in this or that, but don't practice it (hypocritical in other words). The entire epic poem is a story about a group of people who are alive on the outside and dead on the inside.



Excerpt From: S. A. Bodeen. “The Compound.” ,the prologue. iBooks. //"T. S. ELIOT WAS WRONG. MY WORLD ENDED WITH A BANG the minute we entered the Compound and that silver door closed behind us. // //The sound was brutal.// //Final.// //An echoing, resounding boom that slashed my nine-year-old heart in two. My fists beat on the door. I bawled. The screaming left me hoarse and my feet hurt”//



[|Do Not Go Gentle]

1. Mistah Kurtz: a character in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." 2. A...Old Guy: a cry of English children on the streets on Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, when they carry straw effigies of Guy Fawkes and beg for money for fireworks to celebrate the day. Fawkes was a traitor who attempted with conspirators to blow up both houses of Parliament in 1605; the "gunpowder plot" failed. 3. Those...Kingdom: Those who have represented something positive and direct are blessed in Paradise. The reference is to Dante's "Paradiso". 4. Eyes: eyes of those in eternity who had faith and confidence and were a force that acted and were not paralyzed. 5. crossed stave: refers to scarecrows 6. tumid river: swollen river. The River Acheron in Hell in Dante's "Inferno". The damned must cross this river to get to the land of the dead. 7. Multifoliate rose: in dante's "Divine Comedy" paradise is described as a rose of many leaves. 8. prickly pear: cactus 9. Between...act: a reference to "Julius Caesar" "Between the acting of a dreadful thing/And the first motion, all the interim is/Like a phantasma or a hideous dream." 10. For...Kingdom: the beginning of the closing words of the Lord's Prayer. © by owner. provided at no charge for educational purposes