Shoring Up Fragments Against Our Ruin: Quotations and Allusions

The Fire Sermon itself adds another depth to Eliot’s work.  Buddha’s sermon parallels another renowned sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus preaches to his disciples.  Jesus praises and blesses those who suffer for righteousness.  He too yearns for his disciples to achieve deliverance from earthly passions.  Nevertheless, Eliot upsets the sermon, but in this instance, the contrasting message assimilates religious undertones.  Similarly, the religious undertones are reversed to portray the religious doubt characteristic of the modern mentality.  Despite the frequent biblical allusions, the characters and context imply an absent god, unresponsive to the horrors of modern life, but the repetition of religious references mirrors the human tendency to cling to faith in times of hardship.

The Fire Sermon itself adds another depth to Eliot’s work.  Buddha’s sermon parallels another renowned sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus preaches to his disciples.  Jesus praises and blesses those who suffer for righteousness.  He too yearns for his disciples to achieve deliverance from earthly passions.  Nevertheless, Eliot upsets the sermon, but in this instance, the contrasting message assimilates religious undertones.  Similarly, the religious undertones are reversed to portray the religious doubt characteristic of the modern mentality.  Despite the frequent biblical allusions, the characters and context imply an absent god, unresponsive to the horrors of modern life, but the repetition of religious references mirrors the human tendency to cling to faith in times of hardship.