“Ash Wednesday “: A Structuralist Analysis with Reference to Translation

Abstract

T.S.Eliot's “Ash Wednesday” is a penitential poem about the spiritual progress of the soul. Along the path of repentance ,the soul goes in progress and regress. It is in conflict between progressing forward to the spiritual world of God or retreating to the world of materialism. To analyze this poem, a structuralist approach- drawn from culler’s model 1975_ is adopted. The model is based on conventions of reading poetry. It consists of different types of oppositions that reflect different states of the soul and provides unity to the sections of the poem. Analyzing the poem in terms of this model of oppositions reflects the deep themes of the poem thoroughly and depicts the opposition within the repenting soul and the conflict between progress and regress. Consequently,a translation which is based on this structuralist analysis would be an accurate one which comes closer to the source text and renders meanings is a way that suits the themes of the poem and preserves the literary effect and the aesthetic value of the poem