The Fire Sermon

“The big claim you could make is that modern poetry was born in Margate” (Professor David Herd 13/09/15)

On 13^th October, Professor David Herd, Head of the School of English at The University of Kent joined The Waste Land Research Group to help us unpack Part III of the poem, ‘The Fire Sermon’, which include the 50 lines of the poem that Eliot wrote whilst in Margate in 1921.

Professor Herd discussed 'The Waste Land' in terms of how Eliot was holding elements of the modern poem together; rejecting regularity in favour of a structure which reflected the state of the world post WWI (as well as his own state of mind following a nervous breakdown). Herd identified some of the motifs Eliot was experimenting with; burning, clutching and connecting, as devices for managing content and holding disparate fragments together, marking the birth of the modern poem. 

Sitting in Margate Museum we also listened to T.S Eliot reading 'The Fire Sermon' and discussed Professor Herds ideas on connectivity in relation to the other sections of the poem. 

Photos: Jenni Deakin.