Gerontion by T.S. Eliot (read by Tom O’Bedlam)

The word “Gerontion“ isn’t in the Oxford dictionary. The root Geronto- mean old age, so a reasonable guess is that it means the state of being old, together with the realisations, revelations that come with old age. The opening quotation comes form Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure Eliot’s wife, formerly Vivienne Haigh-Wood who had some notoriety as a flapper when he met her, started having an affair with Bertrand Russell after a year or two after their marriage in 1915. This poem first appeared in about 1919. It seems to be addressing Vivienne - at least, some of the time. It would be hard to see how it could not be influenced by what was prepossessing his thoughts. There is now a lot of speculative fiction about their relationship and about Eliot’s sexuality: Why would a young man of thirty write about being an old man? The poem could be an explanation of why he cannot offer Vivienne intimacy or recover the passion that once they had, and the bitterness of his disappointment. It is as if he had become an old man. He seems to have developed a repugnance for physical intimacy, later seen in passages that he was advised to delete from the Fire Sermon in the Waste Land - and be turning towards religion for spiritual salvation. His religious convictions grew stronger and he was baptized in the Anglican-Catholic church in 1927. The ideas expressed above are mine only. If you want to know what other people think, start here: concitation = agitation or stirring up. “impudent crimes“ is is every version I’ve seen, but I suspect it ought to be “imprudent crimes“. The line, “Rocks, moss, stonecrop, iron, merds“ he does better in a later poem: “Stone, bronze, stone, steel, stone, oakleaves, horses’ heels...“ Evleyn Waugh’s novel “Vile Bodies“ published in 1930 was strongly influenced by Eliot’s poetry. The photograph is of Vivienne.