T. S. Eliot's Rhapsody On A Windy Night

T.S. Eliot is often regarded as a poetic genius of his time and frequently, to this day as well. He lived a fairly, normal life as he grew up in St. Louis, Missouri then later attended Harvard University. Eventually, he left the United States for Sorbonne, England and returned to Harvard to study some more and ended up back in England where he became under the influence of Ezra Pound. Pound recognized Eliot’s poetic talent and assisted in many of his publications and influenced his work. What stood out to Pound was, perhaps, Eliot’s distinct style of writing created from his intense use of diction and lengthy sentences that often derived from metaphors. Eliot is known to write with long sentences, many of which continue throughout a whole stanza. These longer sentences are typically extended metaphors or involve a metaphysical way of thinking that is portrayed frequently throughout the whole work and this is seen in “Rhapsody on a Windy Night.”
“Twelve o’clock.
Ma per cio che giammai di questo fondo non torno vivo alcun, s'i'odo il vero, senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo (Eliot).” The diction used is carefully chosen in each of his poetic pieces depending on the type of mood he wants to create or emotion he wants to be pulled out of the audience as they read his work. According to Robert Crawford, “Eliot’s mastery of the pliancy of language gives his poetry an insistency of sound and image that seems ineradicable (Crawford).” “The Wasteland” is a great example of this as it represents a spiritual and intellectual decay in the modern world and Eliot uses diction to evoke these feelings upon his audience.
“ Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of the light, the silence (Eliot