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Destined to Hope or Remorse: T.S. Eliot, Francis Bacon, and Their Furies

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dc.contributor.authorLlorens Cubedo, Didac
dc.date.accessioned2025-10-14T10:00:36Z
dc.date.available2025-10-14T10:00:36Z
dc.date.issued2023-09-29
dc.descriptionThe registered version of this article, first published in “Modern Drama, vol. 66, 2023", is available online at the publisher's website: University of Toronto, https://doi.org/10.3138/md-66-3-1268 La versión registrada de este artículo, publicado por primera vez en “Modern Drama, vol. 66, 2023", está disponible en línea en el sitio web del editor: University of Toronto, https://doi.org/10.3138/md-66-3-1268
dc.description.abstractThis article traces the relationship between the Furies as depicted in T.S. Eliot’s The Family Reunion (1939) and the work of painter Francis Bacon. Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) – a triptych depicting three grotesque amorphous creatures, which he identified with the Furies – was directly inspired by The Family Reunion, which in turn draws on Aeschylus’ The Eumenides. Eliot’s play not only generated a creative response by Bacon that inaugurated his characteristic style; crucially, it also led him to the Oresteia as a source of inspiration that would be pivotal for his later career. In the play, Eliot’s goddesses of retribution pursue Harry, who is said to have perpetuated a family curse by murdering his wife. The integration of the Furies into a modern play with a Christian background and their visual representation on stage are central challenges of The Family Reunion, as Eliot acknowledged. Bacon represented the Furies as monsters in Three Studies, a triptych that evokes Christian iconography linked to mythology. There are, however, essential differences between Eliot’s and Bacon’s approaches. In The Family Reunion, the Furies become salvific “bright angels” offering Harry an escape from his private hell, whereas in Bacon’s representations, they remain monsters or birds of ill omen that never bring hope. Eliot eventually came to consider his Furies a dramatic failure, recommending they be invisible on stage and subsequently adhering to realism in his drama; for Bacon, the Furies became recurrent images of horror and guilt, haunting but inspirational.en
dc.description.versionversión publicada
dc.identifier.citationLlorens-Cubedo, Dídac. “Destined to Hope or Remorse: T. S. Eliot, Francis Bacon and Their Furies”. Modern Drama 66.3 (2023): 349-67. https://doi.org/10.3138/md-66-3-1268
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.3138/md-66-3-1268
dc.identifier.issn0026-7694 | eISSN 1712-5286
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/30400
dc.journal.issue3
dc.journal.titleModern Drama
dc.journal.volume66
dc.language.isoen
dc.page.final367
dc.page.initial349
dc.publisherUniversity of Toronto Press
dc.relation.centerFacultad de Filología
dc.relation.departmentFilologías Extranjeras y sus Lingüísticas
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.es
dc.subject5505.10 Filología
dc.subject.keywordsAeschylusen
dc.subject.keywordsChristianityen
dc.subject.keywordsEumenidesen
dc.subject.keywordsThe Family Reunionen
dc.subject.keywordsmythologyen
dc.subject.keywordsvisual artsen
dc.titleDestined to Hope or Remorse: T.S. Eliot, Francis Bacon, and Their Furiesen
dc.typeartículoes
dc.typejournal articleen
dspace.entity.typePublication
relation.isAuthorOfPublication489e9ab0-80ac-4973-8b7e-3c36bd85a4c6
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery489e9ab0-80ac-4973-8b7e-3c36bd85a4c6
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