page_title: A Song for Simeon
section_title: Arguments over anti-Semitism
hierarchical_section_title: A Song for Simeon / Themes and interpretation / Arguments over anti-Semitism
context_page_description: "A Song for Simeon" is a 37-line poem written in 1928 by American-English poet T. S. Eliot. It is one of five poems that Eliot contributed to the Ariel poems series of 38 pamphlets by several authors published by Faber and Gwyer. "A Song for Simeon" was the sixteenth in the series and included an illustration by avant garde artist Edward McKnight Kauffer. The poems, including "A Song for Simeon", were later published in both the 1936 and 1963 editions of Eliot's collected poems.
  In 1927, Eliot had converted to Anglo-Catholicism and his poetry, starting with the Ariel Poems and Ash Wednesday, took on a decidedly religious character. "A Song for Simeon" is seen by many critics and scholars as a discussion of the conversion experience. In the poem, Eliot retells the story of Simeon from the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, a just and devout Jew who encounters Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus entering the Temple of Jerusalem. Promised by the Holy Ghost that he would not die until he had seen the Saviour, Simeon sees in the infant Jesus the Messiah promised by the Lord and asks God to permit him to "depart in peace".
context_section_description: Eliot's poems have frequently been examined for instances of anti-Semitism—prejudice or discrimination against Jews. Scholar Louis Menand states that while Simeon is treated respectfully by Eliot, his characterisation is "in the tradition of Christian condescension toward the virtuous heathen".  Comparatively, Craig Raine, a poet and an Emeritus Fellow of New College, Oxford, wrote a book-length defence of Eliot against the claims of deliberate anti-Semitism and argues that "A Song for Simeon" provides a sympathetic discussion of the Jewish diaspora. University of British Columbia scholar John Xiros Cooper states that the accusations of anti-Semitism lodged against Eliot rest "on a few isolated lines of poetry" and a passing reference in one prose text. Indeed, Eliot denied the claim, declaring, "I am not an anti-Semite and never have been. It is a terrible slander on a man." Political theorist and author Leonard Woolf, who was both Jewish and one of Eliot's close friends, believed that Eliot was "slightly anti-Semitic in the sort of vague way which is not uncommon. He would have denied it genuinely."
  Anthony Julius, a British lawyer who is one of Eliot's most trenchant critics on this issue, writes that "A Song for Simeon" is "exceptional in a poetry in which elsewhere Jews are dumb. The voice, however is a disciplined one and speaks lines prepared for it ... . The song is for, not of Simeon. Eliot gives the Jew lines that locate him, and by implication all Jews, wholly within the Christian drama. Incapable of denying its truth, but equally incapable of living that truth."  He accuses Eliot of animating "the topoi of the Jew acknowledging his obsolescence"—essentially employing a tired characterisation of a Jewish figure as a voice attesting that Jews have no role in the Christian future.  Julius compares Simeon to Moses stating that he is "fated to see the Promised Land but not to enter it ... witness to its truth, but denied its redemptive power, the Jew stands solemnly, humbly, outside Christianity's gates". Further, Julius draws on a quote from Eliot's earlier poem "Gerontion" to say that in this Christian future the Jews "may find a ledge there to squat on".
  Julius' view is considered extreme by many critics. Comparatively, Julius tempered his harsh criticism by claiming that Eliot's anti-Semitism does not detract from the poetry and that it offers a creative force showing rare imaginative power to Eliot's art.  Literary critic and professor Christopher Ricks agreed, citing the wit and commentary of Eliot's depictions of Jews; he asserts that Eliot was at his most brilliant in his prejudice.
caption: Aert de Gelder's early 18th-century painting Het loflied van Simeon (Simeon's song of praise)
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