TOP2-DES2
This Old Poem #2:
T.S. Eliot’s Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service
Copyright © by Dan Schneider, 6/20/02

  Doubtless 1 of the paragons of Dead White Maledom, as well as a bit of a headcase, Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) has got to be 1 of the most grossly overrated writers in the history of the world, & the English language. It’s not that he did not write 5 or 6 great & influential poems. He did- & that’s 5 or 6 more brushes with greatness than the vast majority of artists ever come within sniffing distance of. On my list of Eliotic brushes are The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock, Gerontion, The Hollow Men, &- perhaps- The Waste Land, & 2 of The Four Quartets: Burnt Norton & Little Gidding. 1 can view that as 1 great multi-part poem or 2 of 4 poems in a sequence. The problem is that is all he did- not nearly enough to sustain his decades-long coronation as the Greatest Living Poet. Not only are the poems not in that golden few not great, but most are not even good- & most are pretty bad. His plays are stilted & dull, & his criticism appallingly bad, & hopelessly twisted by his smallminded biases, & his slim poetic output very overrated.
  TSE longed to show off his erudition, & this quality is 1 of the reasons the bulk of his mature poems fail. His use of epigraphs is poor- especially when quoting from foreign sources. His music is OK, but most of his poems are hollow exercises devoid of insight, fun, & any real meaning. In essence, they are mere preening. TSE loved the fact that his poems needed extensive annotation, explication, & runs to dictionaries, thesauri, & other reference sources. This is the mark of a small ego. Nonetheless, let’s look at a good (i.e.- bad) poetic example of this. However, this poem is on par with many other of TSE’s lesser-known & non-canonical poems:

Look, look, master, here comes two religious caterpillars.
                                -The Jew Of Malta

Polyphiloprogenitive
The sapient sutlers of the Lord
Drift across the window-panes.
In the beginning was the Word.

In the beginning was the Word.
Superfetation of to en,
And at the mensual turn of time
Produced enervate Origen.

A painter of the Umbrian school
Designed upon a gesso ground
The nimbus of the Baptized God.
The wilderness is cracked and browned

But through the water pale and thin
Still shine the unoffending feet
And there above the painter set
The Father and the Paraclete.

. . . . . .

The sable presbyters approach
The avenue of penitence;
The young are red and pustular
Clutching piaculative pence.

Under the penitential gates
Sustained by staring Seraphim
Where the souls of the devout
Burn invisible and dim.

Along the garden-wall the bees
With hairy bellies pass between
The staminate and pistilate,
Blest office of the epicene.

Sweeney shifts from ham to ham
Stirring the water in his bath.
The masters of the subtle schools
Are controversial, polymath.

  This early poem (circa 1917-1918) is supposedly about TSE’s father, or TSE- depending on your take, &/or which TSE expert you put stock in. Regardless, let’s regard the Mr. Eliot of the title more objectively- & not necessarily a member of the poet’s clan. So, we know the poem is set in a church, or church-like setting- very traditional- also reflected in the poem’s abcb tetrametric quatrain. Is this a condemnation, critique, or embrace of religion? On to the epigraph, ‘Look, look, master, here comes two religious caterpillars.’ This is from 16^th century poet & playwright Christopher Marlowe’s play The Jew Of Malta. It is uttered by a servant of Barabas at the approach of 2 monks. The play’s view of religion is not so sunny & this quote would lead us to believe the epigraph is a summing up of the poem’s view, as well.
  Stanza 1: Line 1- Polyphiloprogenitive means to have a lot of descendants or children. It is a grabber of an opening- in meaning, but more so in its sound. An intriguing start to this poem. Line 2- So, we know these reproducing fiends are wise & supply arms (a sutler is a merchant- usually in arms) in the name of their deity- perhaps some irony or humor? Either way, a little excessive in the silly sounds. & why the poor punctuation? Line 3- Are these folk churchgoers? Are they bored & their eyes wandering? Does Line 4’s single sentence mean a reverend is trying to get their attention?
  Stanza 2: 1^st line repeats the prior 1- the last 3 lines are just a turgid & poor way to state that 1 of the Church’s early heads- Origen (a self-made eunuch)- was the product of a lot of ecclesiastical nonsense. For the uninitiated: superfetation means conceiving while pregnant so fetuses of differing ages can grow together. ‘To en’ is Greek for ‘The One’- i.e.- Christ. Mensual means monthly. Enervate means to lose energy, or be sluggish. Boy, isn’t this a probing stanza?
  Stanza 3: The 1^st 3 lines describes a 15^th Century painting upon a plaster wall surface; probably a church’s wall. It basically states he painted God’s halo, but now it (the painting, & church?) is old & outdated.
  Stanza 4: Watching over this painter was the painting of (or the real) God & Holy Ghost- ain’t you thrilled?
  We then get a elliptical break. Why? Was the drama too intense? Will the next part be so radically different?
  Stanza 5: Translation: Priests in black garb, some pimply-faced initiates hold well on to the mass’s offerings. Piaculative means ‘expiatory or appeasing on account of sins or crimes’.
  Stanza 6: Statues of angels watch believers confessions. What is the point of this all? Is it rote description? Is it coming to a point?
  Stanza 7: Hermaphroditic bees get full on the nectar from the male (staminate) & female (pistilate) sex organs of flowers. This is referencing the layety of the church. Says so much- eh?
  Stanza 8: Sweeney was TSE’s ‘everyman’ character with multiple poem appearances. Basically, it says that the clergy can understand things we cannot. Dull Sweeney is restless, shifting on his legs, in the face of this truth.
  Now, before we take a crack at rewriting, & vastly improving this overly long, dull, & predictable poem, let me acknowledge possibly the only plus quality it has. It makes good use of the sounds of polysyllabic words. The problem is simpler words could have been used, but what those words say would still be dull & said 1000 times before. Let’s look at the This Old Poem version:

Sunday Morning Service

Polyphiloprogenitive.
In the beginning was the Word,
The Father and the Paraclete,
The sable presbyters approach

Under the penitential gates
Sustained by staring Seraphim
Along the garden-wall. The bees
With hairy bellies pass between

The staminate and pistilate,
Blest office of the epicene,
Where masters of their subtle schools
Are controversial, polymath.

  As with most of the overrated poems I will be looking at in this series, this poem really cannot be made into a great poem without stripping its essence totally. But, I will show how even a cursory bit of editing can really make this a much more reader-friendly, & better, poem- while retaining some of the erudition- but canning enough of it so the poem does not come off as smarmy.
  1^st thing, condense this poem! 8 stanzas & 32 lines become 3 stanzas & 12 lines. To basically say that the Church is filled with effete foagies does not take 32 lines. Remember, this was the pre-converted TSE. In condensation we also can drop the ellipsis. What purpose, at all, did it serve? Next, let’s hack away at the title. It may have been important for TSE to include himself, or his father, in the poem. To the objective reader it adds nothing. An added bonus, however, is that the word ‘service’ can be read as a verb. Also trashed is the epigraph. A poem this brief rarely needs 1- & the sentiment comes through only if you know the reference, which you will only care to be moved to research it by the poem. Bad epigraph. Also gone is the abcb rhyme scheme- too dull. Its predictability merely reinforces the idea of stultifying Church thought- it does not embody it.
  Let’s look at the 1^st stanza:

Polyphiloprogenitive.
In the beginning was the Word,
The Father and the Paraclete,
The sable presbyters approach

  In this version the 1^st word/line is not a precursor to the poem’s logorrhea. Its idea we have stated. Condensing the original’s next 4 lines into merely line 4 used once removes the tautology, unnecessary repetition (which also reinforced a mass’s stupor, not embodied it), & makes the word ‘Word’ have a duplicity missing in the more solemn original- now it means God’s Word- & the 1^st line’s. The idea being that having lots of descendants is the meaning of life, or it all. Yet, the next line then expands that both meanings tie back to aspects of God, which the priests approach.

  Stanza 2:

Under the penitential gates
Sustained by staring Seraphim
Along the garden-wall. The bees
With hairy bellies pass between

  The priests are now situated under Divine eyes, & in nature. The 3^rd line now has an intriguing enjambment which (read as a sentence or line, may place the bees in this scheme of things natural & supernatural.

  Stanza 3:

The staminate and pistilate,
Blest office of the epicene,
Where masters of their subtle schools
Are controversial, polymath.

  Now, the whole scene is placed in a political & metaphysical context via this stanza’s 1^st line. Gone is all the unneeded wording, space-filling, & showoffy vocabularian grandstanding. The last 2 lines, in this version are far more effective than in the original. The ‘the’ in ‘Where masters of the subtle schools’- which was distancing & sought to be a comment on the Church’s secrecy, is now- with the change of ‘the’ to ‘their’- a comment on the mysteries of the bees- or nature. the whole poem takes on a mystical depth the other version lacked. By the end of the original version you were bored out of you mind. With almost 2/3s of the poem hacked off & revised, the reader wants to learn more of this intriguing, yet odd, poem. Is this version of the poem great? No. But it is a hell of an improvement over TSE’s version. & that’s what This Old Poem is all about.

Final Score (0-100):

T.S. Eliot’s Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service: 55
TOP’s Sunday Morning Service: 75

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