Dr Aakanksha Virkar to investigate T. S. Eliot’s engagement with Beethoven’s legacy and its historical and political relevance

The university will receive £94,264 to fund the study that will focus on an improved understanding of the role of art in 1930s Europe and will offer insights into culture, politics and links to contemporary issues of far-right nationalist movements.

Bringing together literary and musicological analysis, the project radically proposes that Eliot's interest in Beethoven was not only a response to the 1927 Beethoven centenary, but a powerful critique of Nazi cultural ideology and rhetoric during the inter-war years.

As a literary scholar, Dr Virkar has explored the intersections between literature and the arts extensively. As we approach the 2027 bicentenary, marking 200 years from Beethoven’s death, this timely research project – T. S. Eliot and Beethoven: Aesthetics, Music and Politics 1870-1945 – will investigate how Eliot’s poetic series 'Four Quartets' (1942) and 'Coriolan' (1932) explore the myth and meaning of Beethoven. A particular focus is the ‘heroic’ idea of the composer, as seen not only in Beethoven’s music and in musical discourse, but also in art and visual culture.

Klinger, Max. ‘Beethoven’ (Vienna, 1902, polychrome sculpture in marble, bronze and ivory, height: 3.10 m) Leipzig, Museum of Fine Arts. Photograph by Alexander/Schmidt/PUNCTUM courtesy of Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts.

Dr Virkar said: “In a recent major journal article (Open Access) in the Journal of Modern Literature, I have argued that the first of Eliot's 'Coriolan' poems is an ekphrastic response to the famous 1902 Beethoven sculpture by the Jewish artist Max Klinger. Klinger’s sculpture was first exhibited in Vienna as part of the ‘Beethoven’ exhibition by the Vienna Secession artists. In the poem, Klinger’s artist-hero embodies for Eliot an idea of heroism that can counter the fascist conception of Beethoven as military hero. During my British Academy fellowship, I will continue to explore how Eliot's Beethoven series critiques the Nazi deployment of high culture in its creation of myths and heroes.”

There are plans to share findings widely with the public and the project will result in both a major journal article and a joint monograph with the globally leading Beethoven scholar Daniel Chua, Professor and Chair of Music at Hong Kong University and author of Beethoven and Freedom (2017). Dr Virkar is also a Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies (IES), School of Advanced Study, University of London and this research will draw on resources at IES, the British Library and the German Historical Institute London.

For the first time, the research will examine Eliot’s Beethoven series as deliberately satirising and resisting the arguments of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf', through a celebration of fin-de-siècle Vienna and the Jewish artist as creator of culture. Far from the politically disinterested or reactionary poet imagined by the public and scholarly community, this project repositions Eliot as a poet whose engagement with Beethoven’s legacy was an artistic and philosophical defence of art against Nazi cultural and educational policy or 'Kulturpolitik'.