エリオットの村 - Living, Loving, Thinking, Again

Steven Morris “TS Eliot village bids for world heritage status” http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/aug/22/ts-eliot-village-world-heritage

TS エリオット*1ゆかりの村、英国のEast Cokerで、地元自治体の大規模宅地開発に反対して、村の世界遺産 *2への登録を申請しようという運動が地元住民や文学関係者を中心に起きているという話。

East Coker is one of the places Eliot celebrates in his Four Quartets series and is the final resting place of the his remains. A plaque in the church bears the opening line of his East Coker poem: "In my beginning is my end."
Jim McCue, who is editing a new anthology of Eliot's work and also signed the Unesco letter, said: "The poem was written at the beginning of the second world war and was a symbol of a kind of England that is precious and worth fighting for."
He said fans of TS Eliot travelled to East Coker from around the world for a first-hand taste of the place that inspired him. "It is not just the village that is important," he said. "It is the landscape all around that Eliot is writing about."
As well as the Eliot connection, the village is notable for it sunken lanes and a medieval dancing circle. There are also Roman remains and rich farmland.

３月の記事*3によれば、エリオットとEast Coker村との馴れ初めはこんな感じ；

Eliot visited East Coker in 1937 after discovering a family connection: his forebears emigrated from the village to New England in the 1660s. Three years later the author of The Waste Land published East Coker, the second of four long poems that together became the Four Quartets.
Eliot asked that his ashes be buried in the village and a minor literary cottage industry has sprung up around the pilgrimages made by his admirers.

また、「米国TS エリオット協会」も開発に反対している；

Now the TS Eliot Society of America has written to South Somerset District Council, urging it to scrap its construction plans. David Chinitz, professor of English at Loyola University Chicago, wrote: "The Eliot connections and the unspoiled quality of this rural village make East Coker a frequent destination for those of us who appreciate Eliot's work. Like Eliot, we value the village deeply as a landmark and a refuge."

そういえば、神戸市の谷崎潤一郎故居問題*4はその後どうなったのだろうか。

*3:David Sharrock “East Coker, TS Eliot's placid village, resists threat of housing invasion”http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/20/eliot-east-coker-housing-estates

*4:See http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20070123/1169516497