Grace to the mother-for the garden-where all love ends : the image of woman in T. S. Eliot’s Later poetry

Abstract EN

T.

S.

Eliot is known to have been a defender of culture and order which he feared were being destroyed by waves of sensual and material values.

Hence, his constant yearning to create a higher mode of life governed by beauty and virtue, which could only be achieved through a rigorous discipline.

Eliot’s search for a way out of the waste land becomes visible in his later poetry which addresses the essential features for a peaceful and blessed existence.

Woman in Eliot’s later poetry acts as an agent of love and life, approaching if not identified with Virgin Mary and Dante’s Beatrice; the two being symbols of beauty and virtue-qualities of what Eliot terms as the rose garden.

The study traces the image of woman in Eliot’s later poetry in relation to the concept of the rose garden which stands for a stable society and a serene life, governed by ethical values.