T. S. Eliot’s use of symbols in his poetry
T. S. Eliot is one of the most influential poets of the modern age. Blessed with a terrible mind, he has become a proverbial name in the realm of modern poetry for his use of symbols and images in his poetry. It is a well-known fact that Eliot was much influenced by the French Symbolists, especially by Laforgue, Mallarme and Gautier. Eliot praised Donne for the reason that drew him to the French Symbolists. It is symbols that enable him to express the mysterious, the obscure, the complex and the new. To quench the thirst of spiritual attainment, he has to depict and interpret the abstract and the mystical by means of symbols alone. As a traditionalist, Eliot adopts certain conventional symbols and images in his poetry. Thus, he chooses the cross for Christianity; deserts, dust and the wasteland for infertility in spiritual terms; water especially as rain or flood for spiritual revival or awakening; the rose for love; the fog, the evening and night for the lost soul wanderin...