NOT CLEAR

Abstract

Craig Raine has something to say about T. S. Eliot; there is nothing wrong with that, for there are always going to be plenty of things to say about one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century, and no reason whatsoever why Raine, whose critical writing can be lively and stimulating, should not be saying at least some of them. Although this is a short book, the thing Raine has to say can be stated at much less than book length: this is (at sentence length) how T. S. Eliot's governing concern is with ‘the buried life’. The proposition is a simple one, and in no sense deceptively so: Raine states it repeatedly in the clearest of terms, seldom without some kind of authorial fanfare. Near the beginning of the book, for instance: Given that the main events of Eliot's life are so sensational, even lurid, it may seem odd that the central focus of his oeuvre should concentrate on the life not fully lived, ‘buried’, avoided, sidestepped. … We writers frequently inherit our themes from our most admired predecessors. It is they who set the agenda. It is we who continue it, who develop it. It is important to realize that, for writers, the fully lived life also means the interior life, the mental life. Grey matter acting on reading matter is a matter of passion, too.