April 2020
54
ISSN 2278 0742
Symbolism in T S Eliot’s “Game of Chess” Samuel Mundru Abstract Everything matters in poetry right from a coma to an exclamatory mark, format to figurative language, phrases to words, scenes to small objects. This article focuses on these small objects used in the elaborate description of the unnamed lady described in the second section the poem Wasteland titled ―Game of Chess‖, Authored by four times nominee to the noble prize, a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, and literary critic Thomas Stearns Eliot. Along with allusions and anthropological pieces of evidence, there is also an extensive use of Symbolism in the poem Wasteland. Harvard union library, and writings of Valarie Eliot hold the evidence that T.S Eliot was greatly influenced by Arthur Symons's ―The Symbolist Movement in Literature‖ which introduced him to the literary style of combining "ironic elegance and psychological nuance" popularized by Jules Laforgue, the unique style of describing a personality with the help of objects that he/she uses or are present around them. Game of Chess is the best example of this kind of narration. When it comes to the question of interpreting Game of chess, it is common for critics to talk about allusions and attributing the unnamed lady to Eliot's first wife Vivienne, ignoring the significance of the objects in the poem. The main aim of this article is to analyze the roles of these objects namely the Glass, the Door, the seven branched lamp stand, the carved dolphin, which are all a part of the subtle elegance of the poem and have double-layered meaning to describe the psychological condition of the characters in the Game of Chess. Keywords: Symbolism, Eliot, Game of chess, Objects, Wasteland Symbols are to express something which would otherwise be inexpressible. F. Clarke Fraser
The provenance of Symbolism takes us back to Parnassianism, a French literary movement in reaction to romanticism sparked by author Théophile Gautier and Arthur Schopenhauer. Parnassianism is very much similar to Neoclassicism with its rigid rules and conventions. The pioneers of Symbolism, like Stephen Mallarme, Paul Verlaine, who were against naturalism and realism in literature, refused to accept the clarity and objectivity of Parnassianism by allowing free verse and retaining the Parnassianism love for wordplay and musical qualities
Volume 9 Issue 1
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