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‘ hispers of mmortality’I
T.S. Eliot

Title taken from Wordworth’s ‘Intimations of

Immortality’- just less certain.

The poem contrasts the Jacobean linkage of death

and sex (even the word ‘die’ had sexual
connotations for them, referring to the act of
intercourse) and the modern obsession with sex but
less certainty about the implications of death and
immortality.

The symbol of the ‘memento mori’ (remember that

you must die) was familiar in Renaissance art and
poetry, often as a skull. This fits the reference to
Webster’s The White Devil where a ghost enters
with a lily pot concealing a skull.

John Donne was a Jacobean poet (and Dean of St.

Paul’s) who wrote erotic poems mixed with
‘metaphysics’- philosophy about life, death, the
universe and everything! Eliot admired him and
other metaphysical poets because they ‘feel their
thought as immediately as the odour of a rose.’

The second half of the poem takes a lighter, more

colloquial tone as it deals with the present in the
form of the fascinating and voluptuous Grishkin (a
dancer introduced to Eliot by Ezra Pound). She is
seen as very sexy, feline and dangerous- is this part
of the fascination she holds for her admirers? A
number of philosophers circle her rather hopelessly,
as trapped as the scampering marmosets of the
Brazilian jungle.

Final ironic comment about their lack of certainty

may take us full circle to the Jacobean themes of
lust and death.

This free resource is available at www.teachit.co.uk. Copyright  2000 Teachit. Page 1 of 1

TS Eliot ‘Whispers of Immortality’