T.S. Eliot’s Christmas Poems : An Essay in Writing-as-Reading and Other “Impossible Unions”

This is the first full-scale analysis of T.S. Eliot's six ""Ariel Poems"" as Christmas poems. Through close readings, Atkins argues that these poems considered together emerge as clearly related representations of the ""impossible union"" that occurred in the Incarnation "Here G. Douglas Atkins presents T.S. Eliot's six "Ariel Poems" as dramatizations of the meaning and significance of Christmas: Journey of the Magi, A Song for Simeon, Animula, Marina, Triumphal March, and The Cultivation of Christmas Trees. Commissioned to commemorate the season, these short poems, of around 40 lines each, considered together emerge as clearly related representations of the "impossible union" that occurred in the Incarnation. In commentary with a narrative drive rhyming with the poems' own progress, Atkins brings the reader along on a "journey toward understanding," to the ultimate Mystery. The fresh, new readings demonstrate the artistic achievement of these remarkable poems"-- Provided by publisher