This thesis examines T. S. Eliot's religious attitude in his pursuit of the spiritual salvation. Eliot's life and religion, the thoughts and works of Bradley, Pascal, and Dante who severely affected Eliot's pursuit were investigated. Based on this background, Eliot's poem, Ash-Wednesday (1930) was thoroughly probed into from the Christian perspective, for Eliot wrote it just after his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism in 1927.
At Harvard, Eliot came to know about F. H. Bradley, the philosopher of idealism at that time. Bradley's philosophy provided Eliot with theories of God. Nevertheless, he realized that the answer to his ultimate question was not in the philosophy but in the doctrine of Christianity. Thus, he found that Bradley's philosophy has an obvious limit in solving his problem.
Eliot was influenced by Pascal, who suffered from despair in his worldly life as an intellect and faced the authority and fallacy of the established religion. Pascal, however, overcame all the difficulties with his pure faith. Likewise, Eliot accepted the doctrine of Incarnation and the Holy Spirit instead of despair and disillusion.
Eliot took over the European spirit with Dantean language and sensibility. He was most of all influenced by Dante, who was a devout Catholic and classicist. Just like Dante, Eliot was also a Catholic and classicist and carried the universal value of human beings in his literary works, where he pursued his own spiritual salvation.
Eliot's Ash-Wednesday is like a piece of prayer to God. From part 1 to part 6 throughout the whole poem, the poet hopes not to turn to the worldly life and pursues the spiritual salvation. In part 1, he is determined not to turn again and prays to reach salvation. In part 2, he repeatedly gives up the flesh and wishes to spiritually revive, and he recovers himself by the Lady's mediation. In part 3, he steps up the stairs to the heaven beyond the numerous hopes and despairs crossed. Finally, he overcomes all the barriers of the heavy distress, just like the "dark night of the soul" in the writings of Saint John of the Cross. But he immediately realizes that no human being can climb up without God's love, so he prays to God in the lowest and humblest posture. In part 4, as the stage of the higher dream, he pleads the Holy Mother to mediate and comes to allude to Jesus' manifestation. In part 5, he looks over the surrounding world with the heart of a prophet, and he speaks for God. In part 6, he returns to "turning," the theme of the whole poem. Although he does not turn to the worldly life, he says that the present time and place is also the time of tension that can not be rejected. That is why he should have the higher dream for his spiritual salvation.
In conclusion, Eliot had an innate disillusion and a sense of crisis. Although he started from the philosophy of disillusion, he realized that nothing in the world could be a solution. So he accepted Christianity and pursued the spiritual salvation in it. Conversion to Anglo-Catholicism was just the start of his spiritual salvation. In Ash-Wednesday, his prayer to God and the Holy Mother in the lowest and humblest posture is well described.