Because this blog HAS to. For the record, 2005 marks the 75th anniversary of the poem's publication. Those of you wishing to hear the poem, may want to follow this link to a 1955 reading by Tom (see also this). Those of you interested in the poem should take a gander at the late Dame Helen Gardner's The Art of T.S. Eliot, which I fear is now out of print. It remains the watershed study of Eliot's later poems, particularly the Four Quartets, but which have their central origins in Ash-Wednesday. You can find a few glimpses of her work here, though they're all about Burnt Norton. (The especially studious might find this of interest, too.)
Note, by the way, this related news out of the Vatican, even if, for reasons not entirely explicable, the idea of an American performing Ash Wednesday services seems about as appropriate as a dog using a litter box. Then again, Tom was a Yank, but that doesn't quite count: after all, he became, as many used to say of New Zealanders, more English than the English, which at least engenders a vaguely continental air. Besides, we all know our neighbours to the south are always more worried about the flesh than the word. (See also this.)
Teach us to care and not to care, and teach them to sit still....
POSTSCRIPT: Ash Wednesday always for the Doc signals a period of mourning. Several of his colleagues in cavorting retreat from the corridors of alcohol for Lent, which truly is, er, Lamentable. O my people, what have I done unto thee....
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