Eliot’s Ghost in the Vale: The Influence of High Modernism on Ali’s Early and Late Verse

Author(s)	Dr. Hiteshkumar Patel
Country	India
Abstract	This paper examines the pervasive and evolving influence of T.S. Eliot’s High Modernist theories on the poetic corpus of Agha Shahid Ali. From his early "echoes" in Bone-Sculpture to his later mastery of formalist structures in The Country without a Post Office and Rooms Are Never Finished, Ali’s work is a sustained dialogue with the "ghost" of Eliot. Drawing on Ali’s doctoral thesis (T.S. Eliot as Editor) and critical evaluations of his verse, this study analyzes how Ali adapted the concepts of "impersonality," "tradition," and the "objective correlative" to the specific geopolitical trauma of the Kashmiri "Vale." It argues that while Ali eventually rejected Eliot’s personal politics, he remained an intellectual heir to the Modernist belief that the "Waste Land" of the present could only be navigated through the "shackles" of rigorous form and a transnational literary archive.
Keywords	Agha Shahid Ali, T. S. Eliot, High Modernism, Kashmir, The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot as Editor, impersonality, tradition, formalism, poetry of witness, distancing devices, ghazal, hybrid forms, diaspora, exile, memory, and history
Field	Arts
Published In	Volume 6, Issue 6, November-December 2024
Published On	2024-11-05
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2024.v06i06.83925

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