"Gerontion" discloses an event of an old man´s existence. Following Heidegger´s phenomenology I examine how Eliot describes this event. This article consists of three parts. The first part is a brief introduction to Heidegger´s notion of how poets disclose Being. In the second part I attempt to find in "Gerontion" phenomenological parallels with Heidegger. In the Origin of the Work of Art Heidegger says works of art include events of Being and that poets attempt to bring these events into "the greatest possible proximity to us." What Heidegger means by the greatest possible proximity is equivalent to what we call the visual immediacy which is one of the key terms in the twentieth-century aesthetics and means that entities are made present in just the way they look. Eliot´s rhetoric insists that the only means to visual immediacy is through a rethinking of the poetic tradition. For Eliot there is no other approach to poetic truth except through constant reflection on tradition, that is, destructive (Heidegger´s term) orientation toward the past. The third part is the conclusion. Eliot´s own term for visual immediacy is immediate experience. In the Concept of Being in Hegel and Heidegger Gerhard Schmitt says what Heidegger means by Being is "the indeterminate immediate" which cannot be discovered through determinate concepts. Schmitt implies that we can discuss Heidegger´s concept of Being and Eliot´s immediate experience on the same level.

Most of the critics dealing with the subject of how Eliot treats women agree that Eliot's early poetry focuses on the theme of the relationship between men and women. Some critics label him a "misogynist" by focusing on the negative and disparaging comments Eliot made on women. However, a careful examination of his works shows that Eliot's women as well as men are described as unhappy and unfulfilled personae. As Joseph Bentley said, life cannot be happy without a harmonious relation between the sexes. According to Bentley, without self-transcendence, without an awareness of unity, life is impoverished and dismal, which is the pivotal theme of Eliot's poetry, criticism, and philosophical writing. This study discloses how women are represented in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and how the relation of women and men is connected with Eliot's spiritual development.

We can find that the whole of his works is one poem and it has a consistent developing theme. The theme is no other than a union with an Absolute, that is, a pursuit of salvation. Eliot finds aesthetic means to express the moment of the union with God; the means is 'objective correlative'. One of the 'objective correlatives' is the 'still point', which is the most important and significant of all the imagery for the moment of salvation, and for the union with an Absolute. The purpose of this thesis is to study the meaning of the 'still point', its character and the process of reaching it, and to clarify the relation with the concept of criticism and philosophy which Eliot had studied. We can find the concept of 'still point' in the 'logos' of Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher, and in the 'Sunyata' of Madhyamika made by Nagarjuna, an Indic Buddhist priest. 'Logos' represents the character of the central-point and Sunyata represents the unification and removal of boundary for two different concepts. The way in which 'still point' is extracted can be discovered in Eliot's criticism and philosophy. 'Immediate experience' which is the essential concept of Eliot's philosophy and 'objective correlative' are very similar to the 'still point' in that they are the harmony, balance and unification of two opposites. 'Tradition' which he makes much of in his criticism is related to the 'still point' is also related to 'objective correlative', for 'objective correlative' is the product of the unification and reconciliation of two aspects. The significant symbols for 'still point' are 'Mandala' and 'wheel'. The circle in the middle of it and a square outside it signify the power of God. The wheel schematizes the tension and unification of spirit We can discover many other models of unification of 'still point' through the union of love and fire, word and Word, beginning and ending, exploration and revelation, etc. They are the examples of showing similarity that things of different nature can be unified. The 'still point' is achieved by intellectual perception of the 'Incarnated Word' in "Burnt Norton", by passional participation in 'Atonement' in "East Coker", by volitional response to the 'Annunciation' in the "Dry Salvages", and by 'Pentecostal Purifying' in "Little Gidding".

This paper explores automatons in T. S. Eliot's city looking in particular at its cultural homogeneity and lifelessness. Eliot defines tradition as the whole matrix of communal life and experience throughout generations. Individual ways of feeling and acting are constructed within the tradition of a community entailing unconscious communality and cultural diversity. Therefore Eliot's ideal community aims for a decentralization under the central direction, which leads to resistance against abstract individualism and capitalistic totalitarianism. Eliot envisions modern metropolis as the seat where cultural diversity and organic participatory are absorbed into money economy. The centripetal power of capitalism renders the present mechanical, lifeless and disenchanted. What appears in urban centers is the individuals not with intimate contact but with the cold comfort of machine connections.

This paper argues that The Waste land can be understood in terms of abundance and fertility, or life just as well as it can be in terms of ruin and desolation, or death. It captures the state of ruin or desolation or death in environmental metaphors such as the air-polluted London, the wastes-littered bank of the River Thames, and above all, the all-pervading super-dry environment it superbly presents. The barren sexual relationships between various couples are also used to present the female body on the same ontological status as the natural environment, both of them used as the dumping ground for human avarice or desire one example of which can be the commercial spirit represented by such figures as Mr. Eugenides. Against such destructive force as the avaricious commercial spirit that inevitably leads to the state of death, Eliot presents an ecological vision in which all creatures, whether animals, plants or mineral, are positioned on the same ontological level as humans. Eliot's readings, during his Harvard days, of biology, especially of heredity and eugenics as well as plant hybridization, and of eastern religions such as Buddhism, are adduced as the ultimate source of influence for such radical ecological vision as presented in The Waste Land. Eliot himself is thus argued to be a poet who attained the today's state-of-the-art ecological vision almost 50 years before any other ecological poets did.

This paper is an attempt to interpret "Ash Wednesday" based on the assumption that religion as the background of life indeed can contribute to the salvation of mortals, and to examine how Eliot can reach the 'still point' in the Christian view. Religion(Religare in Latin) means the reunion between The Absolute and humans on the basis of the cleansing of The Original Sin caused in Eden. On the other hand, it may be the great spirit of 'engagement' as nothingness standing against existence. Further, religion becomes not only a way of an imaginary level defending grim reality, but also a 'presence' determined over innumerable ages to save humans from the horror of death. Eliot, believing poetry can function as a substitute for religion, pursued several aspects of religion to grasp the very essence of life and an unknown stage after life. But he might have gone through severe conflicts between religion without consciousness and religion with consciousness as Paul de Man put it. Through reading "Ash Wednesday," this can be associated with whether religion serves as a role of a mid-wife or a soporific. As a whole, this poem surely touches upon 'washing worldly cares' such as honors and achievements on Earth, or 'baptism' in the Christian way. In this sense, the poetic narrator thinks that "the aged eagle" tries to fully stretch his/ her wings, which only become mechanical gestures and squirmings harboring under Heaven, revealed in "infirm glory" and "transitory power." After the narrator died, his/ her flesh was gulped down by carnivorous "leopards" and then the dry bones were exposed to the earth. This stands for the process of naturalization that must be destined for all living things. Under "a juniper tree," Elijah cried and faced his cruel fate, but "The Lady" was only indulged in "contemplation" regardless of his pressing situation. This can be thought of as 'A View of White Bones' issued from Hinayana as found in the lines: "Where all loves end/ Terminate torment/ Of love unsatisfied/ The greater torment/ Of love satisfied." Consciousness, escaping from its body, moved to a transcendental level through "the toothed gullet of an aged shark." This step can be equivalent to Jonah's regeneration, needing negation of worldly concerns. The process of negation, as shown in Upinishad, must be necessary for the dead to renew their souls, so they can expect the amazing grace of the Creator. After having forgotten his earthly affairs through limbo, the narrator came to "the third stair," in which some blessed and comfortable environments were given to him/ her: "spring," "fiddles," and "flutes." Here there are no values of things that humans valued extremely on Earth. The values are merely for either 'exchange value' or 'sign value' just a kind of made-up value. Self-restoration happens after "Mary" leads "the others" across the other shore of Lethe and "fiddles" and "flutes" wash their ears, equivalent to a regenerative scene of "unicorn" leading "hearse." The reality of "signed" cross exists in the apocalyptical background of "the silent sister" and functions as a way of redemption. The Creator sends his holy message to creations by "wind" as "the token of the word unheard, unspoken" corresponding to some sensible revelation. Eliot doubts authenticity of language since he thinks that "the unheard, unspoken word" can be the true word "for the world," and values "enough silence." In this way, "those who walk in darkness" are those who pursue 'self' and "those who avoid the face" are those who disregard 'self.' The poet does not want "to turn again," which means that he may recognize the principle of entropy heading from valuable Eros to valueless Thanatos. The prayer like "Bless me father" can correspond to the ego-centric desire of the narrator, for he/ she tries to transfer his / her own faults to the God. The Human's spirit, "weak spirit," is merely a "lost heart" which can cause "lost lilac" and "lost sea," and arbitrarily drives "salt savour of the sandy earth." In conclusion, Eliot, reminding me of a missing and crying baby yearning for its lost mother, reflects on his bitter past on the assumption of his imaginary death. His 'alter-ego,' the narrator, through the process of sweeping off worldly cares, eventually gets to "place of solitude" dusting off "time of tension" and comes to learn how "to sit still" under "the juniper tree." Thus he becomes to be reborn in one with "spirit of the river" and "spirit of the sea," which means an esoteric level of enlightenment through which Buddha must have overcome the glossy temptations of Maya. But wandering long since being banished from Eden, Cain's offsprings heartily wish for the ecstatic recurrence of it. Eliot says that we can come to terms with the Maker only through burning each secular soul and body as becoming "ash," meaning the extinction of fiery desire.