Dear, Professor G______

Dear,
Professor G______

I love Eliot's work. Ezra Pound was anti-Semitic. There's no question about that. But, when I read Prufrock, for instance, I think of it more of a caricature. Oddly, I envision Yeats, or someone like him, deluded by magic and mysticism. Basically, of the hard-hearted scholar. Therefore, Anti-Semitism might be part of the caricature Eliot is portraying. I think of him as writing in a persona.

For one thing, Prufrock is not someone I'd like to be. He seems to be a satire on the jaded scholar. And, since Anti-Semitism was hotly popular around T. S. Eliot's time---it's undoubtable that had not Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the country would have likely turned Fascist---it's not unlikely that Eliot is creating a satire on the American Intellectual. I mean, I have his "Inventions of the March Hare" on my bookshelf, and all the poems seem to me more or less a persona of the half wise scholar. It's likely why the poems are so unpleasant.

It's kind of like Milton being charged with heresy because he wrote Paradise Lost. I'm a poet, too, and often the characters I write, while playing the narrator, can be quite different than who I actually am. It can often times be acting, or trying to understand something.

I found your article compelling in the direction that Eliot was not Anti-Semitic. I mean, had I to wager a bet, it'd have gotten less likely after reading that, in my own mind, that Eliot was anti-Semitic. I assume you're talking about the Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock and the Wasteland, when you say he seems anti-Semitic. I've never read the Wasteland, nor will I. But, I have an early draft of "Inventions of the March Hare" on my bookshelf, and I would think Eliot is creating a satirical caricature of the 20th century intellectual. I don't think it is autobiographical.

Garner, David. "T. S. Eliot's Anti-Semitism Hotly Debated As Scholars Argue Over New Evidence".  University of York. 5 February 2003. Web. https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2003/ts-eliot/. 4/19/22.

Eliot, T. S.. Copyright Holder Valerie Eiliot. Edited by Christopher Ricks. Inventions of the March Hare. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1996. Text