The work of T.S. Eliot shows how the transformative power of grace applies in many areas of Christian life, Assistant Professor of English Christina Lambert said in a lecture sponsored by the Anglican Student Fellowship on April 19.
“These texts invite us to experience joy in a dark world, and the possibility for transformation in relationships,” she said. “They teach us how to imagine that tenuous, joyful, difficult aftermath of what resurrection might look and feel like in daily life.”
The lecture entitled “To Construct Something Upon Which to Rejoice: Imagining Resurrection in T.S. Eliot’s Poetry and Plays,” covered Eliot’s lyric poem “Marina” and play “The Cocktail Party.”
“It is perhaps easy to imagine what resurrection feels like when you’re at an Easter service,” Lambert said. “But the question that we’re going to think through today is what happens when you go home? How do you live after you’ve been resurrected?”
T.S. Eliot argues time has a religious context, Lambert said.
“My talk has everything to do with what time it is,” Lambert said. “Not clock time that measures the moments you have left but liturgical time, a pattern for life and worship that invites us to embody salvation history annually.”
T.S. Eliot is an excellent writer to consider when asking these questions, she said.
“No stranger to darkness, Eliot’s post-1927 poetry depicts the Christian life lived out in a world that often resembles a wasteland,” she said. “He is confident of hope, but unsure of what exactly it looks like on earth.”
Lambert discussed how Eliot’s work allows the reader to experience joy in a dark world, and the possibility for transformation in relationships.
“They teach us how to imagine tenuous, joyful, difficult, aftermath images of what after resurrection might look and feel like in daily life,” Lambert said.
Lambert said that Eliot’s “The Cocktail Party,” a poem about a tormented married couple, strongly features the theme of hospitality.
“Edwards’ salvation narrative is born out of an initial act of hospitality,” she said. “The couple must welcome the mystery and reality of the stranger into their home and marriage. It’s a striking remedy for a world of apathy because it’s forcing numbed humans to a particularity of what only seems familiar.”
Freshman Lexi Travis said she enjoyed the talk.
“I was struck by her talking about hospitality and how this happens as a result of resurrection life,” Travis said.
Freshman Rachel England said she found it interesting how Lambert compared a play to liturgy.
“I never really thought of how the liturgical structure is similar to the way we present stories in literature and how T.S. Eliot intentionally incorporates that in his work,” she said.
England said that she learned a lot about T.S. Eliot from the talk.
“It makes me want to read some of his plays,” she said.
