ABSTRACT
Through his work, Eliot attempts to chart a place for himself on the maps of gender, sexuality, religion, politics and poetics that will afford him metaphysical vision. In “The Death of St. Narcissus,” Eliot satirizes the burgeoning cult of the personality; motivated by egotism verging on onanism, Narcissus’s “sacrifice” goes unremarked by God or His people, and so the culture Narcissus dances for remains unregenerate. Eliot uses such persona poems to try on off-center sexual and gender roles, as well as to denigrate what he designates as predatory female sexuality and to celebrate the emasculate—celibate—male.
