T. S. Eliot and Bob Dylan: Confronting “The Modern Condition” with Faith

The works of T. S. Eliot and Bob Dylan seem to flow from the same spring – an agonizing sense of the contemporary human condition and the state of society – and several critics have recently begun to observe the similarities between these two writers. Through comparative readings of T. S. Eliot’s and Bob Dylan’s earlier and later works this project investigates how their religious turn influenced their work. This project argues that the earlier works of Eliot and Dylan share several Modernistic characteristics both in terms of their depiction of the bleak modern reality and in terms of stylistic features. It then goes on to show how their later, distinctly spiritual works, written after their significant religious turn in contrast to their earlier more cynical and secular works convey a sense of faith and meaning despite the grinding reality of modern life. A key focus of the project is therefore the extent to which the earlier and later works of Eliot and Dylan reflect different understandings of the essential factor in Modernist writers’ portrayal of the twentieth century human condition: alienation. In the earlier works of Eliot and Dylan, the alienation seems to be that of an individual who has been detached from his essential nature and spirituality and is experiencing a sense of powerlessness and despair due to the social and political structures of modern society. Their later works, by contrast, depict individuals experiencing alienation after having embraced religious faith in a society with different beliefs and values.