20-438: The Hollow Men is a poem by T. S. Eliot. The Hollow Men may also refer to: The Hollow Men This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. " The Hollow Men " (1925) is a poem by the modernist writer T. S. Eliot . Like much of his work, its themes are overlapping and fragmentary, concerned with post– World War I Europe under
40-572: A Roud Folk Song Index number of 7882. It uses the tune which Nancy Dawson danced into fame in The Beggar's Opera in mid-1700s London. The same tune is also used for "Lazy Mary, Will You Get Up" and " Nuts in May ". A variant is used for " The Wheels on the Bus ". The most common modern version of the rhyme is: Here we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush. Here we go round
60-534: A "hollow sham" and "hollow at the core". The latter is more likely since Kurtz is mentioned in one of the two epigraphs . The two epigraphs to the poem, "Mistah Kurtz – he dead" and "A penny for the Old Guy", are allusions to Conrad's character and to Guy Fawkes . In the 1605 Gunpowder Plot , Fawkes attempted to blow up the English Parliament and his straw-man effigy (a 'Guy') is burned each year in
80-404: A cold and frosty morning. This is the way we put on our clothes, Put on our clothes, put on our clothes. This is the way we put on our clothes On a cold and frosty morning. Here we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush On a cold and frosty morning. Other versions of the song tend to say "so early in the morning" or just "early in
100-469: A key habitat for the cultivation of silkworms. As Bill Bryson explains, Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tried to emulate the success of the Chinese in silk production but the industry was held back by periodic harsh winters and mulberry trees proved too sensitive to frost to thrive. The traditional lyrics "Here we go round the mulberry bush / On a cold and frosty morning" may therefore be
120-635: A profound effect on the Anglo-American cultural lexicon. An obituary for Eliot stated that the last four lines of the poem are "probably the most quoted lines of any 20th-century poet writing in English." Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush " Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush " (also titled " Mulberry Bush " or " This Is the Way ") is an English nursery rhyme and singing game . It has
140-594: A river where Charon cannot ferry them across. This is the punishment for those in Limbo according to Dante, people who "[...] lived without infamy or praise [...]" They did not put any good or evil into the world, making them out to be 'hollow' people who can only watch others move on into the afterlife. Eliot reprises this moment in his poem as the hollow men watch "[...] those who have crossed with direct eyes, to death's other kingdom [...]". Eliot describes how they wish to be seen "[...] not as lost/Violent souls, but only/As
160-552: Is seen in lines like "[...] eyes I dare not meet in dreams [...]" calling themselves "[...] sightless [...]" and that that "[...] [death is] the only hope of empty men [...]". The "hollow men" fail to transform their motions into actions, conception to creation, desire to fulfillment. This awareness of the split between thought and action coupled with their awareness of "death's various kingdoms" and acute diagnosis of their hollowness, makes it hard for them to go forward and break through their spiritual sterility. Eliot invokes imagery from
180-502: Is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. When asked in 1958 if he would write these lines again, Eliot said he would not. According to Henry Hewes: "One reason is that while the association of the H-bomb is irrelevant to it, it would today come to everyone's mind. Another is that he is not sure the world will end with either. People whose houses were bombed have told him they don't remember hearing anything." The poem
200-588: The Inferno , specifically the third and fourth cantos of the Inferno which describes Limbo , the first circle of Hell – showing man in his inability to cross into Hell itself or to even beg redemption, unable to speak with God. He states that the hollow men "[...] grope together and avoid speech, gathered on this beach of the tumid river [...]", and Dante states that at the Gates of Hell, people who did neither good nor evil in their lives have to gather quietly by
220-624: The Netherlands (the bush is a juniper in Scandinavia). Local historian R. S. Duncan suggests that the song originated with female prisoners at HMP Wakefield . A sprig was taken from Hatfeild Hall (Normanton Golf Club) in Stanley , Wakefield, and grew into a fully mature mulberry tree around which prisoners exercised in the moonlight. The mulberry tree died during 2017 and was cut down and removed on 19 May 2019. Cuttings were taken during
SECTION 10
#1732779810977240-513: The Treaty of Versailles , hopelessness, religious conversion , redemption and, some critics argue, his failing marriage with Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot . It was published two years before Eliot converted to Anglicanism . Divided into five parts, the poem is 98 lines long. Eliot's New York Times obituary in 1965 identified the final four as "probably the most quoted lines of any 20th-century poet writing in English". Eliot wrote that he produced
260-510: The 1980s and have grown into mature trees. Further cuttings taken from these trees will be replanted at HMP Wakefield to replace the mulberry tree. The Christmas carol, "As I Sat on a Sunny Bank", collected by Cecil Sharp in Worcestershire , has a very similar melody; as does the related " I Saw Three Ships ." Another possible interpretation of the rhyme is that it references Britain's struggles to produce silk, mulberry trees being
280-535: The United Kingdom on Guy Fawkes Night (5 November). Certain quotes from the poem such as "headpiece filled with straw" and "in our dry cellar" seem to be references to the Gunpowder Plot. The Hollow Men follows the otherworldly journey of the spiritually dead. These "hollow men" have the realisation, humility, and acknowledgement of their guilt and their status as broken, lost souls. Their shame
300-468: The difficulty of the alliteration, since mulberries do not grow on bushes. Halliwell said subsequent verses included: "This is the way we wash our clothes", "This is the way we dry our clothes", "This is the way we mend our shoes", "This is the way the gentlemen walk" and "This is the way the ladies walk". The song and the associated game are traditional, and have parallels in Scandinavia and in
320-409: The hollow men/The stuffed men [...]". As the poem enters section five, there is a complete breakdown of language. The Lord's Prayer and what appears to be a lyric change of " Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush " are written until this devolution of style ends with the final stanza , maybe the most quoted of Eliot's poetry: This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This
340-405: The morning" in place of "on a cold and frosty morning". The verse "This is the way we go to school" is used sometimes. The rhyme was first recorded by James Orchard Halliwell as an English children's game in the mid-nineteenth century. He noted that there was a similar game with the lyrics "Here we go round the bramble bush". The bramble bush may be an earlier version, possibly changed because of
360-415: The mulberry bush On a cold and frosty morning. This is the way we wash our face, Wash our face, wash our face. This is the way we wash our face On a cold and frosty morning. This is the way we comb our hair, Comb our hair, comb our hair. This is the way we comb our hair On a cold and frosty morning. This is the way we brush our teeth, Brush our teeth, brush our teeth. This is the way we brush our teeth On
380-476: The title "The Hollow Men" by combining the titles of the romance The Hollow Land by William Morris with the poem "The Broken Men" by Rudyard Kipling ; but it is possible that this is one of Eliot's many constructed allusions. The title could also be theorised to originate from Shakespeare 's Julius Caesar or from the character Kurtz in Joseph Conrad 's Heart of Darkness , who is referred to as
400-498: Was first published as now known on 23 November 1925, in Eliot's Poems: 1909–1925 . Eliot was known to collect poems and fragments of poems to produce new works. This is clear to see in his poems The Hollow Men and " Ash-Wednesday " where he incorporated previously published poems to become sections of a larger work. In the case of The Hollow Men four of the five sections of the poem were previously published: The Hollow Men has had
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