Old-Fashioned or Modern?

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
which shall be the darkness of God....
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing;
wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing;
there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

-T.S.Eliot

It is interesting how T.S. Eliot influenced poetry. Eliot was born in America but moved to England in 1914 to attend Oxford University. He wasn't fond of university towns, so he preferred to be in London most of the time. He naturalized as a British citizen in 1927. He came into the scene with this new form of modern poetry (called Modernist) that C.S. Lewis was, at first, not fond of. But C.S. Lewis was a lover of the past, and had deep apprehension about where the world was heading (perhaps that is why he did not enjoy many modern things). I read an interview Lewis gave in the 1950s and he expressed his desire for the "old-fashioned" and saw the some churches and Christians heading down a dangerous path of accepting everything modern because they didn't want to offend others. He acknowledged the need to stand up for what is right when necessary, and not just let it slid because we are to love our neighbors. As the years went on, Lewis actually met T.S. Eliot and liked him very much. His writing grew on Lewis, and he enjoyed the poetry even though it wasn't what he automatically was drawn to.

Eliot is regarded as one of the best poets of the 20th century, and his stream of consciousness style of writing is a characteristic of the modernist movement in poetry, which offers an interesting flow inside the mind of the subject as you read. Most interesting is the contrast of his poems before and after he became an Anglican Christian. His later poems clearly address the deep spiritual questions and struggles of a Christian, like this passage above.

C.S. Lewis and T.S. Eliot have very different writing styles, but they are each used in their talents, for the glory of God. You may not like the old-fashioned stuff because it is harder to understand. The modern poems might be more approachable to you, but each poet has deeply moving poetry that makes me think and read again to let it soak in. The meaning behind, the meaning before, and the meaning deep within.