FROM NARCISSUS TO TIRESIAS: T. S. ELIOT'S USE OF METAMORPHOSIS.

The article presents a discussion related to the use of metamorphosis by T.S. Eliot, British poet and critic, in his literary works. Metamorphoses, or transformations of the self, are at the heart of Eliot's early poetry. From the wavering mind of the character Prufrock of the poem "Prufrock," who tries on a variety of selves in his quest for self-knowledge, to the character Tiresias of the poem "Tiresias," who certainly is the most important personage in the poem "The Waste Land," and represents the culmination of this early interest in the changing self; the concern with fluctuations of identity is evident in Eliot's poetry. The Tiresias figure first appears as Narcissus, another character of the poem by the same name "Narcissus" in Eliot's early poem, "The Death of Saint Narcissus." Although "Narcissu" is not a fully successful poem, a knowledge of its sources illuminates both Eliot's early poetic techniques and his far greater achievement in "The Waste Land." "Narcissus" was written in the fall of 1914 when Eliot was a student at Merton College, Oxford. There are two versions of the poem in "The Waste Land Manuscript" and a final version, submitted by Ezra Pound to "Poetry" in August 1915 but never published there, in "Poems Written in Early Youth."