Sweeney Among the Nightingales PDF

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Notes on Sweeney Among the Nightingales...

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“Sweeney Among the Nightingales” by T.S. Eliot -

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A man with the name Sweeney has no business visiting with the nightingales Greek myth about Philomena who was raped and had her tongue cutoff and hands cutoff so that she couldn’t tell the story, later turned into a nightingale Allusion: o Fall of Troy, Agamemnon o Murdered by his wife as soon as he gets home o “I have been brutally murdered. I am mortally wounded” o The heroic view of life from the past Eliot looked down on all immigrants (especially the Irish and the Jews) but had sympathy for the predicament of women (very unusual for male writers) Second Stanza: o Mock epic o Pretends epic hero o “Blast of trumpets” as if it were an epic Finds a lover in what is conventionally called a whore house (“the person in the Spanish cape / tries to sit on Sweeney’s knees”) “She yawns and draws a stocking up” - some sort of signal Bouncer: “the silent man in mocha brown” trying to figure out what the signal means and what he’s supposed to do Owner of house: Rachel Rabinovitch Wistaria – beautiful blue romantic flower The host (Rachel) Mock epic again – the nightingales (whore house women who are victims of male predatory desire) o Way of life that is pathetic o Eliot’s unusual empathy o Convent of the Sacred Heart? – closest thing we have to a convent is the whore house (segregated women serving the needs of society – ironic comparison) Now the nightingales drop real excrement on Agamemnon’s funeral shroud...