At the beginning of 1928, Eliot was busy writing a new life. In fact, he was writing a new new life: \u2018Ash-Wednesday<\/em> [\u2026] was merely an attempt to do the verse of the Vita Nuova <\/em>in English\u2019, the poet would later write. In \u2018merely\u2019, Eliot disguises his own serious aspirations for the poem: to relineate Dante\u2019s text of radical love for a world between wars and a spirit undergoing conversion\u2019s anacoluthon. Nonetheless, what would become the second part of Ash-Wednesday<\/em> appeared for the first time in The Criterion<\/em> in January 1928, as a poem called \u2018Salutation\u2019:<\/p>\n Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree<\/p>\n In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety<\/p>\n On my legs on my heart my liver and that which had been contained<\/p>\n In the hollow round of my skull. And God said<\/p>\n Shall these bones live? shall these bones<\/p>\n Live?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The poem here speaks as and with and to (and perhaps for) the God of Ezekial 37, posing a question \u2013 twice, differently \u2013 on the edge of resurrection: \u2018Shall these bones live? shall these bones \/ Live?\u2019 At around the same time, a more worldly question of life and death had come to The Criterion<\/em>, with the voice of God reconstituted as Lady Rothermere, who had, at the end of 1927, withdrawn her funding for the magazine. Lady Rothermere and The Criterion<\/em> had always had an uneasy relationship \u2013 despite its distinguished contributors, which included Paul Val\u00e9ry, Marcel Proust, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf, I. A. Richards, Hart Crane and various other modernist dignitaries \u2013 and now she decided to pull the plug. The Criterion<\/em>, whose influence far exceeded its readership, found itself on the brink of extinction \u2013 and in need of its own new life.<\/p>\n Most letters gathered here pertain in some way to this uncertainty around the publication\u2019s future. \u2018Everything has been so kaleidoscopic\u2019, Eliot writes to Roger Hinks in January 1928; by March of that year, it is still \u2018in a tottering state\u2019 (to Mark Wardle). Even Thomas Hardy\u2019s death is subsumed by the magazine\u2019s immediate solvency: \u2018I should have written to you immediately on hearing of Hardy\u2019s death but had many other things on my mind. The fact is that the survival of The Criterion <\/em>is at present uncertain and we cannot look forward any further than March\u2019 (to Jean-Jacques Mayoux, 25 January 1928). Elsewhere, there are several apologies for delays: \u2018I am ashamed to say that in the doubtful state of Criterion<\/em> affairs [\u2026] I have not read a single manuscript of anybody\u2019s\u2019 (to Alan Porter, 4 April 1928); for missed lunches (with, for instance, Herbert Reed (17 February 1928); and for having to reject submissions and suggested reviews (for example, to Atherton Mercer, 24 January 1928). Much is written in haste and with little space for saying more than what is necessary \u2013 though there are glimmers of Eliot\u2019s comic gravity: \u2018All that I can say at the moment is that we have gone a good way toward getting the guarantees that we need; not that a few more millionaires could not be helpful if you know of any\u2019 (to R. E. Gordon George, 20 February 1928). In the end The Criterion <\/em>survived as a quarterly, and Eliot began the business of dealing with the backlog of contributors: \u2018Therefore I cling tenaciously to your Milton\u2019, he writes to H. J. C. Grierson on 14 June, lest the review should have slipped away in the \u2018period of extreme confusion\u2019.<\/p>\n Counterpointing the crisis are whispers of Eliot\u2019s literary immortality. There are letters to his usual coterie \u2013 Orlo Williams, Herbert Reed, John Gould Fletcher, Thomas McGreevy, Wyndham Lewis \u2013 alongside tantalising glimpses of rising stars, such as a young Louis Zukofsky (whose contributor\u2019s cheque got lost in the post \u2013 August 1929). There are the invitations to speak at various university literary societies, with names such as The Hesperides (Ronald J. Politzer, 24 January 1928), Imperial College Literary Society (Geoffrey F. Carter, 11 September 1928 ), King\u2019s College Literary Society (W. A. Simpson, 30 August 1928) and The Heretics (G. F. Williams, 20 March 1928), where he was asked to repeat his introduction to the Clark Lectures to an audience keen for a closer listen: \u2018many who attended your lectures [in 1926] would be very pleased to hear you on the same subject in a smaller room\u2019. Most are graciously rejected or gracefully postponed. Nonetheless, such an increase in attention might lead a poet to consider his self-image:<\/p>\n Thank you very much for the photographs. I think they are excellent \u2013 especially of Marion and John: the only faults in mind are the Charlie Chaplin moustache (due, I suppose, to the lighting) and my not having bathed my eyes \u2013 and the next time you photograph your male guests at 11 p.m. or so you ought [to] give them a rub over first with your electric razor, that is, if you use such a powerful lens.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is a letter, written in February 1929, to E. McKnight Kauffer, a well-revered artist and lifelong collaborator of Eliot\u2019s. Under the conditions of increased fame, and public scrutiny, the potentially comic \u2013 \u2018Charlie Chaplin moustache\u2019 \u2013 must be carefully controlled, and stylish blur is preferred to a clear lens revealing tired eyes. In a peculiar twist, Kauffer was also a known Eliot lookalike, and the latter would one day write a profile for his artistic counterpart: \u2018I cannot venture to say much about his appearance, because there is said to be a facial resemblance between Kauffer and myself.\u2019 Indeed, there is a certain Eliot-esque surreality in being photographed by your own doppelg\u00e4nger.<\/p>\n The two letters that pertain most directly to Eliot\u2019s poetic practice come from August 1928 and October 1929. The first, to Bonamy Dobr\u00e9e, gives abbreviated advice on his latest poem \u2018Thuriger\u2019, sent to Eliot for feedback, some choice lines of which run:<\/p>\n And the blood of Thuriger flowed evenly, steadily,<\/p>\n But no tears came,<\/p>\n Not a cry for a hard sword in the silence,<\/p>\n Only the flurry of bats<\/p>\n Over the stone where the body gleamed no longer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\u2026]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The clouds passed evenly; the grass stood still in the valley; <\/p>\n [\u2026]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then Thuriger rose and went to the stream,<\/p>\n To the rock by the pool where the waters ruined in froth;<\/p>\n Where the sun struck down on his head, and up from the rock,<\/p>\n And the shadows of eagles swept the rock.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Eliot\u2019s advice offers a valuable \u2013 if glimmering \u2013 insight into that exacting imprecision that spells the line between good and bad verse: \u2018Italics are bad in poetry. Abused by M. Arnold\u2019; \u2018Do Bats rustle or what?\u2019; Why SHOULD NOT the grass Stand Still?\u2019; \u2018RECOMMENDATION: Study the Poetical Works of Conrad Aiken and Know what to Avoid. RECOMMENDATION: Make up Your Mind on Theological Questions\u2019; \u2018Dont like toc toc\u2019. These suggestions constitute a judicious combination of general feeling and close reading. Curiously, Dobr\u00e9e\u2019s poem bears certain \u2013 but striking \u2013 rhythmic semantic resemblances to Eliot\u2019s own writing. It is hard not to hear, for instance, in its acoustic repetitiousness, the \u2018red rock\u2019 of The Waste Land<\/em> (not to mention its \u2018shadow\u2019), as well as murmurs of Ash-Wednesday<\/em>: (\u2018Why should the ag\u00e8d eagle stretch its wings?\u2019) It is perhaps this slightly uncomfortable proximity that provokes comments such as \u2018Thuriger is too much like Ernest Thesiger\u2019, and his advice on further reading: \u2018Consider the Major Heresies\u2019. Certain intimacies can be jarring \u2013 like being snapped by another lookalike.<\/p>\n The second letter is to Jean de Menasce and is (as ever) written \u2018suddenly and in haste\u2019: \u2018I have recently [sent] Madame de Bassiano a new poem for Commerce<\/em>, with a word that if you would care to translate it, I had rather you did [it] than anybody\u2019. A trusted translator is a different kind of intimacy. The poem in question is the third part of Ash-Wednesday<\/em>, which indeed appeared in Commerce<\/em> under the title \u2018SOM DE L\u2019ESCALINA\u2019, with de Menasce\u2019s translation on the facing page. The Vita nuova<\/em> becomes, at this point, the Purgatorio<\/em>: \u2018Ara vos prec, per aquella valor \/ que vos guida al some de l\u2019escalina, \/ sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor!\u2019 [\u2018Now I pray you, by that Goodness which guideth you to the summit of the stairway, be mindful in due time of my pain\u2019]. All of which speaks not only of Ash-Wednesday<\/em>\u2019s polyvocal existence and interest in translational and allusive knowingness, but also to the editorial pains taken by the poet in that these letters tell of Eliot\u2019s patient mindfulness \u2013 even at the point of various crises \u2013 in his reading of and dealing with others. A poetic development is always in balance against the magazine\u2019s financial struggles, the increasing strangeness of fame and a veritable mountain of material to read: short stories by Gerald Sykes (11 September 1928) and H. A. Manhood (3 October 1928), articles by Ethel Robert Wheeler on Thomas Chatterton (11 September 1928), poetry by Dudley Fitts (12 September 1928). Through Eliot\u2019s unfailing diligence, The Criterion<\/em> weathered its crisis, and in these letters we see the difficulty by which a great poem somehow takes new life while facing the needs of earthly survival.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n DR JACK BARRON<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018Shall these bones live?\u2019: The Criterion in Crisis At the beginning of 1928, Eliot was busy writing a new life. In fact, he was writing a new new life: \u2018Ash-Wednesday [\u2026] was merely an attempt to do the verse of the Vita Nuova in English\u2019, the poet would later write. In \u2018merely\u2019, Eliot disguises … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[13,3,4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19624"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19742,"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19624\/revisions\/19742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tseliot.com\/foundation\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Salutation-191x300.jpg\")
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\nAnd Thuriger remembered the dead limbs shining in the cave.<\/p>\n