“Shantih Shantih Shantih”: Influence of Eastern Philosophy on Selected Major Poems of Thomas Stearns Eliot – a Literary Analysis

Abstract

Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 Sept. 1884-4 Jan 1965), poet, critic, and editor, born in St. Louis, Missouri was an eminent figure in the realm of modernism. The nature of life in the modern world and the human predicament of life in such a modern world form the theme of Eliots major poems. There were various social, political, religious as well as personal reasons that created a great impact on Eliots intellectual mind. Like many of his contemporary scholars, Eliot believed that the Western Civilization was a fragmentary mess as he had confronted both the early twentieth centurys frightening alienation and the collapse of the Western bourgeois synthesis. The Christian religion in Western society had been replaced gradually with the progress in economy, natural science and philosophy. He detailed this alienation in poems like "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"(1917) and The Waste Land (1922) and himself participated in the search of Reality that seemed to be veiled and creating a utopian world of eternal peace and harmony exploring the philosophy of Henri Bergson, Eros, aestheticism, humanism, idealism, and even Oriental Eastern philosophies like Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sufism for doctrines to explain and repair the fragmentation of culture. As a member of such a modern society which seems still confused and chaotic, the present researcher had been drawn towards analyzing Eliot's quest in the majority of his poems for a universal philosophy that would bring unity among all diversities and would satisfy all cultural and religious queries and confusions.