Abstract

As a poet, Eliot interacted with the spirits of the eminent dead. He is always calling up ghosts in his literary practice because of how heavily he uses the echoes of deceased writers. Eliot sees Dante and Donne as live ghosts, but he attempts to cast off additional historical figures as dead weight. There are good and bad ghosts, and early Eliot saw Milton - whose subtle influence seeps into English poetic diction - as a bad ghost. In addition, Eliot wrote ritual poetry designed to elicit spiritual encounters, frequently represented by spectral beings. Dante provides a wide range of ideas for stand-alone ritual pieces, such as the ones found in the haunting sequences of "Little Gidding" and "Burnt Norton." The presence of ghosts in Eliot's writing is not directly connected to his belief in the Communion of Saints, even though he was a devoted Christian. Eliot creates a quasi-pagan faith akin to spiritualism to connect with a secular society. Ghosts are powerful symbols in T.S. Eliot's poetry that represent the poet's concern with the breakdown of contemporary society, the vanishing of spiritual principles, and the unrelenting march of time. Through the use of the ghost motif, Eliot gives a profound contemplation on the fractured nature of existence while capturing the haunting spirit of the human predicament.