The wasteland notes. A Summary and Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land 2023-01-05
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The Wasteland, written by T.S. Eliot in 1922, is a long and complex poem that serves as a commentary on the state of society and culture in the aftermath of World War I. The poem is named after the wasteland, a metaphor for the barren and desolate landscape that Eliot saw as a result of the war and the societal and cultural decay that had occurred.
The poem is divided into five sections, each of which explores a different theme or idea. The first section, "The Burial of the Dead," introduces the theme of death and rebirth, as the speaker laments the loss of life during the war and the resulting emptiness and despair. The second section, "A Game of Chess," explores the theme of sexual desire and the ways in which it can be both destructive and fulfilling. The third section, "The Fire Sermon," discusses the destructive power of desire and the ways in which it can lead to spiritual and emotional decay. The fourth section, "Death by Water," is a meditation on the futility of human endeavors and the ultimate demise of all things. The final section, "What the Thunder Said," concludes the poem with a vision of a new, rejuvenated society rising from the ashes of the wasteland.
Throughout the poem, Eliot employs a range of literary devices and techniques, including allusions to classical literature, myth, and religion, as well as the use of imagery, symbolism, and stream-of-consciousness narration. He also makes extensive use of poetic structure, including the use of rhyme, meter, and repetition, to create a sense of cohesion and unity in the poem.
One of the most striking features of The Wasteland is its fragmented and disjointed structure, which reflects the chaotic and chaotic nature of the wasteland itself. The poem is composed of a series of short, disconnected sections, each of which seems to stand alone and is separated by ellipses. This fragmentation is meant to convey the sense of disunity and lack of meaning that characterizes the wasteland, and to suggest that the only way forward is through the creation of new, cohesive structures and meaning.
Overall, The Wasteland is a powerful and thought-provoking poem that offers a nuanced and complex exploration of the themes of death, rebirth, desire, and the search for meaning in a world that has been shattered by war and societal decay. It is a testament to Eliot's talent as a poet and his ability to create a work that is both deeply personal and universal in its themes and implications.
The Waste Land Summary
. But the key phrase in here that kind of organizes it all is: These fragments I have shored against my ruins That's potentially the guy who is sitting on the shore, fishing, who is saying that. For years the battles in the trenches held at a virtual stalemate, and the body count rose as each side added reinforcements to maintain the trenches. After the event He wept. The second episode contains a troubled religious proposition.
The speaker pesters him with a series of ghoulish questions about a corpse buried in his garden: again, with the garden, we return to the theme of regeneration and fertility. They don't seem to be that related to each other. You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique. Reference to the First World War again — the trenches were notorious for rats, and the use of this imagery further lends the poem a sense of decay and rot. Hyacinth was a young Spartan prince who caught the eye of Apollo, and in a tragic accident, Apollo killed him with his discus. The interior of St. There are distinct voices rather than in earlier poetry, in which you might have found a single speaker that's guiding you all the way through.
WHAT THE THUNDER SAID In the first part of Part V three themes are employed: the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous see Miss Weston's book and the present decay of eastern Europe. The Waste Land Poem Written by American-born poet T. Allusions are basically shout outs to other works. They're all kind of sprinkled in among general references to waste, which you might expect given the title. In 1914, Eliot also met the American expatriate poet Ezra Pound, whose influence on Eliot would be profound. He says the possibility of relation to tradition is gone. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognize in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.
Eliot's work included other masterpieces such as "The Four Quartets" and "The Love Song of Alfred J. A rat appears along the bank, bringing the speaker back to the non-magical present, reminding him of the dead. Chapman says Handbook of Birds in Eastern North America 'it is most at home in secluded woodland and thickety retreats. The complete text of the Buddha's Fire Sermon which corresponds in importance to the Sermon on the Mount from which these words are taken, will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren's Buddhism in Translation Harvard Oriental Series. And then you have that 'HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME,' which is the bartender coming in and he's talking. Eliot studied philosophy and French literature at Harvard. In 1927 he became a naturalized British subject and a member of the Anglican Church, at which point, his work began to change thematically, addressing more religious issues.
The five parts that follow provide various scenes, including a fortune teller visit, two women in bar, a scene along the river, and others that form the fabric of the poem and play on the themes of despair. Explanations were out the window. The whole passage from Ovid is of great anthropological interest: '. Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Eliot died January 4, 1965, in London, England, of emphysema and related complications.
Eliot’s Poetry The Waste Land Section I: “The Burial of the Dead” Summary & Analysis
Pound, like Eliot a crucible of modernism, called for compression, ellipsis, reduction. This seems to be built upon the idea of sex as the ultimate expression of manliness, a theme that Eliot enjoyed exploring in his works. See The Proposed Demolition of Nineteen City Churches P. How can we analyse The Waste Land and discover its true meaning? O the moon shone bright on Mrs. A woman is surrounded by art, jewels and perfumes - including the painting of classical mythology's Philomela transforming into a nightingale. Several later editions followed, including one by Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press in 1923. Pound provided copious editorial help with The Waste Land prior to its publication.
During the 1930s Eliot began devoting much of his writing time to lectures and literary criticism, publishing such landmark works as The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism: Studies in the Relation of Criticism to Poetry in England 1933 and After Strange Gods: A Primer of Modern Heresy 1934. What the Thunder Said 1. At the same time he became assistant editor of the Egoist 1917—1919 , in which he published Prufrock, and Other Observations 1917. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. The five sections which include The Burial of the Dead, A Game of Chess, The Fire Sermons, Death by Water and What the Thunder Said introduce concepts of such disillusionment, philosophical questioning, and judgement.
Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a 'character', is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest. Goldsmith, the song in The Vicar of Wakefield 257. The broken finger-nails of dirty hands. So you might include a bit of something in your work that's meant to reference something else. He probably borrowed this idea from James Joyce, who had used it in his novel Ulysses, which was published in book form in 1922, the same year as The Waste Land, but which had been appearing in instalments in the Little Review for several years prior to that. This section — and the poem — ends with the arrival of rain in a thunderstorm, where the DA sound of the thunderclap is interpreted in light of the Hindu Upanishads.
A Summary and Analysis of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
THE FIRE SERMON 176. Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Modernism is the broad term used to describe post—World War I literature that employs techniques Eliot uses in The Waste Land. The interior of St. He was a bright and hardworking student, who experienced a classical, wide-ranging education. And not only that she's not into it, but that this has been happening forever.
But since Eliot was writing in the early 20th century and not now, he had a little bit of a different sample set of things to take from, a way nerdier and more erudite sample set. The speaker remembers a female figure from his past, with whom he has apparently had some sort of romantic involvement. Warren was one of the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the Occident. These are meant to reference—but also rework— the literary past, achieving simultaneously a stabilizing and a defamiliarizing effect. In either case my experience falls within my own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all its elements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surround it. They're all kind of sprinkled in among general references to waste, which you might expect given the title. Shades of the Fisher King myth here again.
