“After Such Knowledge: The Poetry of T.S. Eliot”
Book ticketsOrganised by:
British Psychoanalytic Association
Description
The Poetic Mind Seminar
Saturday 27th June 10am – 12pm
“After Such Knowledge The Poetry of T.S. Eliot”
Stephen Taylor
Louise Hayman- Chair
Hybrid – In-person and online
89 Prince of Wales Road, NW5 3NT & Online via Zoom
We know what is happening. We have known for decades. And yet we do not act. Why? This paper takes Eliot’s anguished question from Gerontion as its starting point “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?” and turns it
on the defining crisis of our time.
Drawing on the poetry of T.S. Eliot as both diagnostic instrument and moral compass, Stephen Taylor argues that the failure to respond to climate breakdown and social collapse is not primarily a failure of information or political will. It is a failure of narrative specifically, the absence of any credible path to redemption within prevailing environmentalist discourse.
Working at the intersection of epiphenomenalism and evolutionary psychology, Taylor asks what it would take to move from paralysis to action, from knowledge to transformation. Eliot prophet of the waste land, poet of spiritual desolation and tentative renewal turns out to be an unexpectedly illuminating guide.
Stephen Taylor holds degrees in philosophy and psychology and trained as a psychotherapist. He works as a software developer and community organiser in North London, and is a Zen Buddhist and performing poet.
Louise Hayman is a psychoanalyst with the BPA and co-chair of Poetic Mind.
The Poetic Mind Seminar
A series centered on the intersection of poetry and psychoanalysis can explore how both disciplines utilise language to navigate the complexities of human experience.
