The Chair She Shat In: Eliot, The Waste Land, and Volkswagen
What I'm saying is that Eliot and Volkswagen have more in common than foundations in antisemitism. Consider the following:
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
And then:
If ever I am called upon to read aloud from The Waste Land again, I'm totes reading those DAs as, like, "DUUUUH!!??"
And also, stinky chair, ha ha. Must be the broken Coriolanus.
