Ash Wednesday as a Religious poem
ELIOT’S ASH WEDNESDAY: A CHRISTIAN POEM
In 1930, just three years after his baptism and confirmation into the Anglican Church, T. S. Eliot published his conversion story. It was his poem Ash Wednesday.[i] He had converted amid tides of intellectuals rebelling against the over-secular society of the early twentieth century. Ash Wednesday is the chronicle of this conversion, told in beautiful allegories and metaphors. It portrays the struggle Eliot faced in converting. “It is a poem about the difficulty of religious belief, about the difficulty of renouncing the temporal world.”[ii] However, there is more in the poem than simply “the difficulty of religious belief;” the poem is at its core Christian. The allusions reference prayer, great pieces of classical Christian literature, and the Bible. Therefore, one should not simply lump Ash Wednesday together with Eliot’s other social commentary poems, but instead look to it as an example of modern Christian literature.
The poem’s title points the reader in the appropriate direction. Caroline Philips notes that, “as the title suggests, Ash Wednesday is essentially a meditation associated with the prayer and penitence appropriate to the beginning of Lent: a coming to terms with one’s unworthiness.”[iii] Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, a period of penance and reparations for sins. It culminates with Holy Week, containing Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, ending with Easter Sunday, the day celebrating Christ’s rising from the dead. The title Ash Wednesday calls these feasts to mind, the suffering of Lent that leads to death and eventually salvation. Salvation can only come about through suffering. This theme is frequent throughout Western Literature, and does properly set up the poem.
The poem opens with the following lines:
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn. [iv]
Eliot perfected the art of lifting lines
In 1930, just three years after his baptism and confirmation into the Anglican Church, T. S. Eliot published his conversion story. It was his poem Ash Wednesday.[i] He had converted amid tides of intellectuals rebelling against the over-secular society of the early twentieth century. Ash Wednesday is the chronicle of this conversion, told in beautiful allegories and metaphors. It portrays the struggle Eliot faced in converting. “It is a poem about the difficulty of religious belief, about the difficulty of renouncing the temporal world.”[ii] However, there is more in the poem than simply “the difficulty of religious belief;” the poem is at its core Christian. The allusions reference prayer, great pieces of classical Christian literature, and the Bible. Therefore, one should not simply lump Ash Wednesday together with Eliot’s other social commentary poems, but instead look to it as an example of modern Christian literature.
The poem’s title points the reader in the appropriate direction. Caroline Philips notes that, “as the title suggests, Ash Wednesday is essentially a meditation associated with the prayer and penitence appropriate to the beginning of Lent: a coming to terms with one’s unworthiness.”[iii] Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, a period of penance and reparations for sins. It culminates with Holy Week, containing Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, ending with Easter Sunday, the day celebrating Christ’s rising from the dead. The title Ash Wednesday calls these feasts to mind, the suffering of Lent that leads to death and eventually salvation. Salvation can only come about through suffering. This theme is frequent throughout Western Literature, and does properly set up the poem.
The poem opens with the following lines:
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn. [iv]
Eliot perfected the art of lifting lines