Christianity And Culture-Study Of Anglican Church Conservative Belief In Eliot's Literary Theory

As a poet,Eliot has brought about the a sea change of English poetry in terms of poetic themes and techniques.As a critic,Eliot put forward the theoretical formulations such as “objective correspondence”,“non-individualization”,“traditional order of literary composition”,and “literature should have religious standards”.The unique poetic works and poetic theory made Eliot the greatest English poet in the Twentieth Century.In 1927,Eliot joined the Church of England and announced that he was a political conservative,literary classicist,and religious member of Anglo-Catholic tradition.After Eliot turned to the Catholic faith,he took up religion as the standard of literary judgment,and propagated the idea of building a Christian society to redefine the meaning of culture.This paper aims at analyzing the religious elements in Eliot's literary theory after his conversion to Anglican Church.First of all,I provide an overview or Chiness translation of Eliot's works and the existent scholarship on him in Chinese and western language.The survery brings we to sire particular attention to the religious elements in his literary theory.Secondly,based on information regarding his times,his unique individual experience and the aesthetic characteristics of Anglican Church,I examine Eliot's turn to Catholicism.Eliot converted to Anglican Church for the beauty of order and paradox in spiritual crisis caused by a crisis of religious belief,the disillusionment of the war,and unique social conditions at that time.Thirdly,focused on features of Anglican Church,the paper analyzes the religious elements in Eliot's literary theory after Anglican Church conversion,particularly the beauty of order and the important of paradox.The beauty of order is represented by Eliot's view that literature constitutes a traditional order and the traditional consciousness of "non-individualization".The beauty of paradox is represented by the beauty of examining “ugliness” formed from the Eliot's reference of Jules Rafg,Tristan Corbiere and Baudelaire's poetic works before Eliot's conversion,the affirmation of the religious significance of Baudelaire's satanic themes thereafter,and the affirmation of the secular life and the darkness in poetry.Finally,the paper analyzes the relationship between literature,religion and culture in Eliot's literary theory.Starting with his adoption of the religious standards as the literary standards,the paper articulats Eliot's vision of constructing a Christian society anddefing culture on a broad base.In addition,given Raymond Williams' evaluation of Eliot,the paper analyzes the lingering echo caused by Eliot's religious inclination.