브래들리의 “유한중심론”을 통해 본 『황무지』

A Reading of The Waste Land in Terms of “Finite Centre”

First of all, the presence of several or many more, depending on the reader, voices—points of view—in The Waste Land contributes to the creation of the ambiguous poetic world of the text, making the poem one of the most difficult literary works in the history of the Western literature. Particularly, Eliot’s use of numerous allusions and citations in conjunction with his Impersonal theory makes it difficult for the reader to discern the poet’s own thematic message, if any, in the text, and even the protagonist(/s)’s voice(/s), which have resulted in various interpretations of the poem to such a degree that we cannot find with any other poet. Taking into consideration the inherent ambiguity of literary texts, in particular, modernist works, The Waste Land surpasses any other literary text in its representation of the rich signified(signifié). On the number of the speakers and the identity of the protagonist(/s) in The Waste Land, the Eliotic scholars have not showed any consensus of opinion among them. In The Waste Land of 433 lines, according to the reading of David Perkins, there appear at least 37 allusions or citations of other past texts including literature, religion, myth, anthropology, and music, which requires the presence of several or many more voices of the speakers. Eliot’s explicit intention of such poetic techniques, as revealed in his discussion of the “mythic method” in James Joyce’s Ulysses, which means the writer’s use of mythic motives to make a parallel structure between a myth and his text, was to create the universal world of the text that can appeal to the modern reader familar with the western cultural tradition. In this point, the use of different voices of various speakers for a poetic effect can be classified into the mythic method. On the other hand, the presence of different voices of speakers can be said to reflect Bradleian impact on Eliot’s poetics, because its poetic effects result in the same undivided or unified experience that underlies Bradleian epistemology. In particular, Bradley’s “finite centre” doctrine seems to have influenced Eliot’s use of numerous voices of speakers in The Waste Land. According to Eliot’s reading of Bradleian philosophy in his doctoral dissertation, “the point of view—finite centre—has for its object one consistent world, and accordingly no finite centre can be self-sufficient, for the life of a soul does not consist in the contemplation of one consistent world but in the painful task of unifying jarring and incompatible ones, and passing, when possible, from two or more discordant viewpoints to a higher (one) which shall somehow include and transmute them(KE 147-48).” The endlessly changing voices of speakers in The Waste Land, creating a vicissitudinary kaleidoscopic world, reflect such a Bradleian view of experience that Eliot had in mind. Eliot’s poetic world and Bradleian “finite centre” intend a unified experience or unified knowledge of experience through multiple points of view—various speakers’ voices with Eliot and changing viewpoints with Bradley.