Song for Simeon

Prayer for Tradition In the poem "A Song for Simeon," T.S. Eliot uses ambiguity and religious allusion to convey decay and death of the old order to make room for modernity. Examining the imagery in the poem and the tone used allows for a better idea of what the speaker's attitude is toward these changes, and perhaps a hint of how the author himself feels. The view the speaker takes toward the changes he …

…fear toward the future, frustration with the present, or discontentment with religion. The ambiguity of language allows the poem to take on almost any meaning the reader wishes to give it, and because T.S. Eliot uses imagery to convey his ideas there is not one concrete interpretation everyone will see. For these reasons, the poem says as much, if not more, about the reader as it does about both the speaker and the author.