"Reflecting the Fire:" Comparison of Death in Agha Shahid Ali's "A Wrong Turn" and "Houses" with T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets.

Nolan P. Meara
Dr. Hena Ahmad, Faculty Mentor

T.S. Eliot profoundly inspired and influenced Agha Shahid Ali's poetry, particularly Ali's use of form, allusion, and focused imagery in The Half-Inch Himalayas. This paper will demonstrate how Ali’s imagery and allusions connect the poems, “A Wrong Turn” and “Houses” with Eliot’s Four Quartets. Further, I will analyze how we can see T.S. Eliot in Ali's use of death, impermanence, and time in these poems. Imagery such as fire and water, bones, and the destruction of human creation highlight an elegiac quality to Ali’s poetry, reflecting Eliot’s interest in timelessness in a broken world. 

 

Keywords: Agha Shahid Ali, The Half-Inch Himalayas, T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, Poetry, Houses, A Wrong Turn

Topic(s):English

Presentation Type: Oral Presentation

Session: TBA
Location: TBA
Time: TBA