Difference Between Understanding and Explanation
A large part of this lecture is devoted to Eliot's critique of what he calls "the criticism of explanation by origins" (107). One of these is The Road to Xanadu, by John Livingston Lowes, a work that is now virtually unknown. The other, however, is James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, a work composed mostly what Eliot refers to as "merely beautiful nonsense" (109) that has puzzled critics since its publication.
These works provide Eliot a springboard from which to launch an "analysis" of his own poems. He takes an amused tone when describing his feelings on hearing what some readers have thought about his various works, with primary reference to The Waste Land. Eliot discusses the process by which the notes to that poem came to be, saying that, to his regret, "They have had almost greater popularity than the poem itself" (110). Eliot uses the example of Finnegans Wake in order to illuminate the distinction between explanation and understanding.
Read more about this topic: The Frontiers Of Criticism, Content of The Lecture
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