@@Konrad_Wallenrod Well, the piano was added by the uploader. You can find the version with Irons' voice alone on Audible and elsewhere away from RU-vid.
Since it's the most famous bit, people tend to put EXTRA-DRAMATIC...EMPHASIS....ON THOSE. WORDS. But Elliot mumbles past them because that's exactly what it is; a whimper.
I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us-if at all-not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer- Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
I think that is part of the beauty of the poem. The last few lines build up a tension that is never resolved, the "bang" never comes and all that we're left with is the whimpering scratches of a finished tape recording.
It's as originally intended by the author, so much onus has been put on the end of this prose, The way he recites it is like the wave of a hand, indicating he is done with such nonsense/things of import he cannot change. It's a truly terrifying and beautiful piece.
The reading of the final line surprised me yet I loved it. Life ends quickly, suddenly and harshly. He conveys all that in his reading of that final line, panicked pacing and then silence as our world ends.
the hasty delivery of the crown jewel of the poem, the resolution of the suspense, is so in line with the words... he ends the poem with almost with a running page and a fade out. there is no care.
Memorized this poem once for a recital at school but this is so cool to hear T.S. himself read it. My rhythm very close to his but dang my end much slower and somber. Thank you for posting this!
Wonderful! I'm coming back to Eliot after some 36 years. I liked The Hollow Men when I first read it but my English teachers' interpretation of it put me off. I saw A.N. Wilsons' documentary on BBC 4 recently and the sound of Eliots' voice was a revelation. I'm not a poetry follower, I like Phillip Larkin, John Betjeman and a few other bits and pieces but The Hollow Men is now my number one favourite poem. For me it articulates my feelings of existential despair beautifully.
I like how eliots poetry takes you on a spiritual journey. Stuff like prufrock is the listless, aimless wandering of youth and juvenile scepticism. This and the waste land show that scepticism and lack of direction evolving into an all encompassing terror and disease. Finally ash wednesday and four quartets bring us to a kind of religious resignation and hope.
Last few seconds, ' This is the way the world ends . This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.' = new cell ringer
And this proves that all poetic interpretation is subjective, and so every poetic interpretation is choice and guesswork--- not knowable the way every English teacher I ever had suggested, reading this slowly and morrosely. Not contemplatively as he does. And those last lines-- read always so slowly every time I've heard it and group-analyzed why in every English class, he zoomed through 🤣 Thanks for this recording.
Wow. I like the interpretation about war on another post. This reading though points the interpretation as heroine addition. Too bad nobody made a video showing contemporary pictures of our lost hollow men on the streets.
We are born hollow, we stuff ourselves by clinging to entities and delusions that will be gone with death, in the end we are empty. We are never full as in (full)filled, just stuffed, might as well be hollow.
If I wasn't delated from FB and without real life freinds I'd post this somewhere. I feel like I am alone, only on an island with my wife and child watching the apocalypse, as people seem replaced or to have vanished and only vapid can be seen but still in dwindalong number. What's next down the road I don't know, I dont even knowing I would have anyone to make the remark to
Maybe unpopular opinion, but imo this poem can be read better / performed better than the way TSE did himself. It's nice to hear his own rendition, regardless.
@Y T I noticed that instead of providing a perspective that may help someone enjoy the piece and create dialog. You just take a pretentious stance that could turn people away. Just something to think about for the future.
@Y T Here's the thing, I never claimed that what you had said was right or wrong. I called you out for being pretentious, and you responded by doubling down. So I thank you sir for proving me correct. With that I'll restate my previous comment in a way that I hope helps. If you feel that you have more knowledge on a subject, you should present that knowledge in a way that doesn't draw attention to yourself. Instead your knowledge should enhance the original subject.
I don't know what university experience you've had, but I did a module in modernism for my minor in English. The first text we studied was The Wasteland, the second text was Tradition And The Individual Talent. After covering Eliot, the lecturers connected every other writer we covered to him.
