Masks and Soul: Shakespearean images in T.S. Eliot’s Poetry

Abstract

Poetic and dramatic works by T.S. Eliot include numerous allusions to Shakespeare's plays, different collisions based on Shakespearean plots, theatrical techniques and settings of the great playwright, etc. This paper considers the ways and instruments of transforming and representing Shakespearean images in Eliot’s poetic texts, such as “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, The Waste Land, “Marina”, “Coriolan”, etc. The important aspect of Eliot's reception is the appeal to Shakespeare’s heroes (Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, Ophelia, Pericles, etc.) as archetypes for creating his own poetic characters. The researcher identifies two main ways of transforming and representing Shakespearean images: masks and dramatic monologues (“dramatis personæ”). The characters in Eliot’s poems use Shakespearean masks as a means of self-identification (Prufrock), they are components of “compound” images (“a cubist woman” in The Waste Land). The dramatic monologues of Eliot’s protagonists are pronounced on behalf of Shakespearen heroes (Pericles, Coriolan). Shakespearean allusions in Eliot’s poetry are to expand the boundaries of the text, deepen the characters, include them into a certain cultural paradigm, etc. The analysis of Shakespearean images in Eliot's poetry allows us to understand the peculiarity of perception for Shakespeare and methods of poetic mastering of his heritage in Modernist culture.

Keywords

• modern poetry
• t.s. eliot
• william shakespeare
• reception
• allusion
• dramatic monologue
• masks