Ash Wednesday (poem)

Ash Wednesday (sometimes Ash-Wednesday) is a long poem written by T. S. Eliot during his 1927 conversion to Anglicanism. Published in 1930, the poem deals with the struggle that ensues when one who has lacked faith in the past strives to move towards God.

This article is about a poem by T. S. Eliot. For other uses, see Ash Wednesday (disambiguation).

Sometimes referred to as Eliot's "conversion poem", Ash-Wednesday, with a base of Dante's Purgatorio, is richly but ambiguously allusive and deals with the move from spiritual barrenness to hope for human salvation. The style is different from his poetry which predates his conversion. "Ash-Wednesday" and the poems that followed had a more casual, melodic, and contemplative method.

Many critics were "particularly enthusiastic concerning 'Ash-Wednesday'",^[1] while in other quarters it was not well received.^[2] Among many of the more secular literati its groundwork of orthodox Christianity was discomfiting. Edwin Muir maintained that "'Ash-Wednesday' is one of the most moving poems he [Eliot] has written, and perhaps the most perfect."^[3]

"Perch' Io non Spero" (part I of "Ash-Wednesday") was published in the Spring, issue of Commerce along with a French translation.

1928

"Salutation" (now part II of "Ash-Wednesday") was published in December, in Saturday Review of Literature. It was also published in January, 1928 in Eliot's own Criterion magazine.

1927

"Som de l'escalina" (part III of "Ash-Wednesday") was published in the Autumn, issue of Commerce along with a French translation.

1929

Reception[edit]

Initial[edit]

The initial reception of Ash Wednesday was largely positive, though some critics claimed his previous poems were better.^[9]

References in other works[edit]

Vladimir Nabokov parodied Ash Wednesday in his novel Lolita.^[10]^[11] In chapter 35 of Part Two of Nabokov's book, Humbert's "death sentence" on Quilty parodies the rhythm and use of anaphora in T. S. Eliot's poem. According to David Rampton, "...Quilty's versified death sentence is, in part, a comic version of Ash Wednesday."^[12] There was a reference to 'Ash Wednesday' by Narendra Luther while interpreting the stanza ...Consequently I rejoice, Having to construct something Upon which to rejoice... wherein he adds that he enjoyed every line, sentence, every page while writing books as they are building blocks for the final edifice. This is thus equated to the lines of T S Eliot, in the book A Bonsai Tree authored by Luther.

Two lines from Ash Wednesday are slightly misremembered by the character Clarice Starling in Thomas Harris's book The Silence of the Lambs and the 1991 film adaptation thereof. In the poem, the lines read "Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still." In the book, Clarice recalls the latter line as "Teach us to be still.^[13]" It is unclear whether this mistake is a genuine error of Harris's memory and/or research, or intentionally misquoted as a method of indirect characterization: Starling is described as well-read and intelligent, but more oriented toward action than she is toward academia.

Chris Marker uses the two lines "Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place" from Ash Wednesday as the epitaph to the English version of his film Sans Soleil. The French version of the film uses a quote from Racine.

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