T. S. Eliot and the Essay: From The Sacred Wood to Four Quartets by G. Douglas Atkins (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 617 T. S.Eliot and the Essay: From The Sacred Wood to Four Quartets. ByG. Douglas Atkins. Studies in Christianity and Literature Series, Book 5. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1602 58255-2. Pp. x + 147.$49.95. Eliot and the Essay, as indicated by the title, is primarily a discussion of genre, specificallyof the essay in both prose and verse. As such, it continues Atkins' earlier work, which includes Tracing the Essay: Through Experience to Truth (2005) and Reading Essays: An Invitation (2008). It also extends his literary interests in the Augustans, particularly Dryden, considered in The Faith of John Dryden (1981), and in Eliot, discussed in Reading Essays and in Literary Paths to Religious Understanding (2009). In regard to the essay, Atkins recapitulates the distinctions drawn in his earlier books, emphasizing the importance of voice, of discovery, of writing as a journey. He maintains that the essay cannot be defined as one single thing and thus is "impure;' a "mixed" form, a "siteof tension between literature and philosophy;' and further, that essays are by definition "incarnational art: truth embodied" (ix, capital and italics in original). Atkins distinguishes two important varieties: "The personal, Montaignian essay focuses on the self observed" and "the familiar, Baconian essay focuses on what the selfobserves" (6, emphasis in original). In regard to Eliot, Atkins seesthe prose in TheSacred Wood asat once continuing and modifying the tradition of the essay. He maintains that Eliot's essays, unlike Montaignes, are observational, attending to what is outside the self. Focusing on "Tradition and the Individual Talent;' Atkins states that Eliot's work contains opposites, such as past and present, faith and doubt, and holds them together in tension. Moreover, he claims that the essay in general and Eliot'sessaysin particular are a species of "embodied thought" and that the form and the content of Eliot's writing reflect the "both/and" mentality which runs through his work. Atkins' definition of the essay encompasses not only prose, but verse. Before turning to Four Quartets, he identifies the Augustans, specifically Dryden and Pope, as Eliot'sprecursors in the verse essay.Dryden in ReligioLaici and Pope in the Essay on Man and the Moral Essays created the paradigmatic philosophical poems. Atkins maintains that the excellence of these poems, both as literature and as philosophy, is inseparable from a commitment to the via media in politics, religion, and art. He holds that Four Quartets is a work in this tradition, a mixture of poetry and philosophy that embodies the thinking process of the poet. The weaknesses and strengths of this book are also related to genre. In the preface, Atkins says that his work, like the genre under discussion, is "impure:' He describes his book as "an essay in several parts;' and then he confesses that "I range rather widely, focusing attention on collateral issues and eschewing the thesisdriven nature of the usual scholarly monograph" (ix). This description, which is accurate, explains some of the charm of the book, but it also points, as he seems to realize, to two major weaknesses. First, it has no thesis, in the sense of an argument 618 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE that is outlined and supported by evidence or analysis. It has several motifs, such as the claim that the essayis "embodied truth;' but this is not supported, and indeed, it begs the question, for as often as not, the essay is embodied falsehood. Second, the book lacks structure. The length blurs the natural beauties of the essayas genre, and the digressions work against coherence and meaning. Atkins meanders freely, with little inclination to direct his steps back toward a central destination. The digressions often take the form of long quotations that are insufficiently integrated into the subject at hand. In many instances, more than half of the lines on a page consist of quotations, and in some cases, three quarters of the lines. Atkins himselfcomments on and by implication apologizes for this procedure. For example, he introduces a quotation on the essay by Graham Good by saying: "Good then proceeds to these apposite comments, which I quote in their entirety despite their length" (60). In preparing to enter Four...