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a passage in Dante's Divine Comedy describes his visions of the heavens and the angels residing therein) (Morace). Others, however, are much more vague. To some critics, the misquoted lyrics of the old children's rhyme, "The Mulberry Bush," signifies that the poem's narrator is attempting to come to terms with the perversion of childhood beliefs (Morace). This is a small part of the lingual support for a popular theory that much of the poem is about faith and religion, and especially the pain of Godless existence ("A Lament" 941). To others, however, the insertion of "prickly pear" into this passage instead signifies an emphasis on locked away lust, as mulberry bushes were once a common symbol for fertility and cacti one for chastity (Or perhaps a phallic symbol) (Smith). Yet others are able to read the poem in such a way as to think it no more than a 100-line diatribe on Eliot's highly personal quest through poetic progression, citing numerous vague allusions to older works within and the fact that the apparent spiritual journey of the narrator closely mirrors the literary one taken by Eliot himself (Morace).

Regardless of precise interpretation of the poem's more complicated parts (Of which there are many, and these have been argued extensively in many places), there are things that can be agreed upon. For instance, the interpretations of the poem as a spiritual quest and poetic journey find middle ground in the fact that this poem marks a perfect midpoint in Eliot's vast body of work (Bradbrook 92). In mechanics, it holds onto some of his old habits, such as a reliance on numerous allusions to not only older works, but older styles as well. However, it also begins a marked progression toward the very complexat-times nearly pompously soand convoluted nature of his later works. Spiritually, the narrator finds him or herself locked in an indecisive miasma between a painful past and an uncertain future, and the narrator thus begins to question nearly everything, from belief to very existence. Thus, the narrator's quest is largely an internal, spiritual one. Much the same, Eliot himself was on the verge of conversion to the Anglican Church of England at the time of this writing, and this conversion would mark his later work in a very real and noticeable way.

Furthermore, it would be difficult to fail to notice Eliot's common usage of juxtapositions and opposing phrases and themes to convey a point. Many critics agree that the central pivot of "The Hollow Men"

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