T. S. 엘리엇의 『스위니 아고니스테스-아리스토파네스풍의 멜로드라마의 단편』의 이해할 수 있는 실패

Abstract

Sweeney Agonistes is T. S. Eliot’s first exploration in dramatic form and generally regarded as a failure. But his inclusion of this poem in his collections of poems makes the readers speculate on its significance in his oeuvre. Following his guide that his departure from the apparent immaturity in his earlier works is a sign not of change or reversal but of expansion or development of his emotion, this poem is a first step to change ordinary people’s sensibility in spite of their propensity to sentimentalism. It should not be defined just as a “failure” but as a “successful failure” because it is an initiation into the final phase of maximizing the influence of his revolution in sensibility upon the audience like popular Marie Lloyd. As a result of its failure, the tone of humor is changed into that of seriousness in all the following poetic dramas, even though this alteration of his strategy to ask for his audience’s conscious attention is not good enough to change the spiritual values of his community, which is Eliot’s ultimate goal of revolution in sensibility.