The Young Men Come and Go . . .

I’ve added an older piece on T. S. Eliot’s “Portrait of a Lady” (1911), which details the relationship between a young man and an indeterminately older woman. In the linked essay, the couple’s sterile attempts at communication allegorize the struggle between feminine culture and masculine “kulchur” (to use Ezra Pound’s term). . . . the young man in “Portrait of a Lady” represents the modern artist’s dilemma: disdainful and smug towards conventional aesthetic expression, but he remains cautious about breaking free from tradition (characterized by the lady). Disgusted and overwhelmed, he chooses to flee to “another country” rather than confront the issue directly. You can read the essay here.