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T.S. ELIOT. THE WASTE LAND

What were your primary impressions?
Would you categorize it as an epic or a lyrical poem?
I.

D. Daiches

Central thematic preoccupations of the poem:

-

Barrenness, decay, death

Quest for life and resurrection

Symbols of the failure of modern Western civilization (desolation,

moral decay, social emptiness)

Not intelligible without outside references

Certain obscurity

The poet is forced to recreate his own myth, to draw on his readings,
references, quotes, allusions; Miltons Paradise Losta common set
of references: biblical, classical; but for the modern poet there is no
such common set available. Thus the conclusion is an incoherent
collection of phrases and quotations?

The Sanscrit blessing at the end: Peacebut its not convincing

It can be read as a synthetic myth

II.

Overview

Eliot believed that modern society lacked a vital sense of community and
a sense of the centre. The waste land stands for modern European culture
which has gone too far from its spiritual roots.
It is permeated with numerous allusions to ancient religions: Christianity,
oriental and classical beliefs, Budhism. It also turns to the Medieval legend
of the Holy Grail. And in all of them finds the mythic cycle of the death
and resurrection of gods.
This is an age when Western civilization and culture was mesmerized and
altered forever by the discovery/description of primitive/other belief
systems:
Jessie Weston: From Ritual to Romance 1920the story of the Fisher King
loss of fertility
Frazer: The Golden Boughwith ancient vegetation myths and fertility
ceremonies

Modern society was seen as being the infertile part of the cycle, where
humans are isolated, sexual relations are sterile and meaningless.
III.

Outline of parts

1. The Burial of the Dead: the voice of a countess looking back on

her pre-WWI youth as a lovelier, freer, more romantic time. Her
voice is followed by a solemn description of present dryness when
the dead tree gives no shelter. Then the poem returns to a
fragmentary love scene of the past, perhaps the countess. The
scene shifts to a fortune-teller who reads the tarot cards and warns
of death. The final section presents a contemporary image of
London crowds moving along the streets blankly, as if dead. One
pedestrian calls out to another, grotesquely asking if the corpse in
his garden has sprouted yet, suggesting the necessity of death
before rebirth can take place. In the final line the poet calls the
reader a hypocrite who thinks he is any better off.
The subsequent parts of the poem are similarly complex, shifting
unexpectedly to different locations and speakers.
2. A Game of Chess presents a neurotic rich woman frustrated by her
male companions reserve. This is followed by a gossipy barroom
conversation about a woman who was unfaithful to her soldier
husband during the war and who had an abortion to hide her guilt.
3. The Fire Sermon mingles snatches of an old marriage song
celebrating the Thames River with a contemporary image of the
filthy, trash-filled Thames. Then, starting at line 215 the ancient seer
Tiresias narrates a banal and loveless scene of seduction of a typist
by her lover, a petty real-estate agent. The scene is squalid and
passionless; the sexual act is meaningless to both participants. This
is followed by contrasting images of Queen Elizabeth I boating on
the Thames with her lover, the earl of Leicester.
4. Death by Water fulfils the prophecy made by the fortune-teller in
part 1. It is a brief section, marking death as the end, or, in keeping
with the whole poems structure, death that must precede
transformation and rebirth.

5. What the Thunder Said begins with images of a journey over

barren and rocky ground. The thunder is sterile, being
unaccompanied by rain, by a mysterious sense of some
compassionate spirit visits the traveller. Chaotic images of rot and of
a crumbling city lead up to line 393, at which time a cock (a symbol
of Christ) crows, announcing the coming rain.
The poem ends with the exposition of three terms from Hindu lore:
Datta (to give alms), Dayadhvam (to have compassion), and
Damyata (to practice self-control). Then the poem seems to collapse
into a rush of quotations and allusionsa flood of meanings and
suggestions ending with the word shanty (peace).
IV.

Central themes

It is built on a series of conversations and scenes that lead through the

waste land to a moment of hope: the expectation of rain.
Is it only about death? What are the elements that show resurrection as
well?
-

Imageryinevitable death

Also numerous references to vegetation and growth: branches grow

out of this stone rubbishshowing mankinds struggle for survival;
graves become like a garden; bodieslike bulbs taking root.

Organic imagerysecond layer representing a potential for a

possible redemption in contrast with the despair, hopelessness,
melancholy in the Unreal City.

The narrator: I had not thought death had undone so many

Walt Whitman: When Lilacs Last in the DoorYard Bloomd

Eliot: Lilacs out of the dead land sturring dull roots with spring rain
-

Disillusionment

Impossibility of communication

Collapse of confidence in moral, sexual values

Study of civilization doomed by its own sterility

V.

Main features

Formal innovation

Reflection of a critical historical moment: disillusionment after WWI

Illustration of Eliots stated position on literary history and Western

culture [Oswald Spengler: Decline of the West]

Great variety of mythological, religious, literary materialoccidental

and oriental alike

Symbolic picture of the modern waste landneed for regeneration

Terror of modern life: loneliness, emptiness, misuse of sexuality

vividly presented

Paradox: poem ends with a blessing

VI.

Method of using the material

Direct quotationBaudelaire

TranslationDante

Paraphrasing

Allusion

Misquotation: changes within quotation

There is a basic paradox at the heart of The Waste Land: it is a highly

personal lyrical poem with the imperative of impersonality.
VII.

Who writes The Waste Land?

Im never sure that I can call my verse my own.

The poetic I becomes a problem also thematicallyfor it is a poem of
distributed mental states.
Coherence due to:

- characters (Piresiascentral); -archetypes; -

literary symbols
Personae: it is choir of voices coming together from past and present in
different places/times. They all experience neurosis. The narrative method
employed: the appearance of figures as a nightmare.
VIII. Organization/structure
-

Formal eclecticism

Combines lyric fragments that jump schizophrenically from the

sublimity of dream language to the ridicule of pub language.

The mythical method (Eliot about Ulysses)in Ulysses order and myth
narrative modes cant be used any more in fiction.

Frazer: The Golden Boughsimilarity between the primitive and Christian

mythsmyths of fertility; a continuous parallel between antiquity and
reality; immense panorama of futility.
Method:
-

Allusion (used also by Joyce). Tradition: a living body of texts that

are structurally united, organized.

Religious mix (Attis, Osiris, Adonis, Aeneid, Shakespeares Tempest,

Thiresias); E. Spenser Protholonion; Wagners The Ring Cycle;
medieval Grail legend

Beginning:
-

Allusion/paraphrase of Chaucer

Memorial passage: mondene culture between WWI ; the menace can

be felt in tis atmosphere(nationalist tendencies).
Book of the Prophets: in the middle of the desertimage of
fractured civilization: heap of broken images

Personal passage (lyricism)about a failed love affair, desire for

union that ends in nothing, in a sombre atmosphere

Quot. By Wagnersea stressing failure

Decayed prophetMadamme Saso. The clairvoyant pack of cards

tells about the different characters that will appear
Phoenician Sailorin protagonist
BelladonnaMadonna
Man with 3 stavesassociation to Fisher King
The Citycontemporary W.L. (Baudelaire)
Addressing the reader

The Burial of the Dead (Anglican ceremony)

-

Personalized failures

List

Death of the lover

Mother Earth without resurrection

Game of Chesstitle of Middleton

-

Game presented parallelly with a seduction scheme

Description of an excessively rich surrounding of woman

suffocating

Sexualized surrounding (Cupido), artificial smells, unnatural light

A painting looking like a window presenting a scene from antiquity

Philomena (what is left of old, rich legends is just withered stumps)

Description of a woman

Dialogueher neurotic questions

Ragtime musicShakespeare transformed into distraction

Looking for solutions: what shall we do? pass the time

Roomfertility, resurrection/not possible

Discussion in a publow placed women talking about sex-life

Meaninglessness of how time passes

The Fire Sermon

-

The most complex part

Source: Buddha-sermon. Buddha asked by his disciples what can

constitute salvation. Buddhas answer interpreted differently

Introductionlandscape near London, seemingly pastoral but a

depressed qualityreminds of Renaissance poetry

The description is more and more desolate

The sands start to be populated by absence; nymphs (ironically)

woman with light moralsone night affairs with unpleasant
consequences

FishingFisher King

Images of drowning are not relieved by resurrection dreary images

Image changed into humorous with the rhythm of popular ballad

life in a prostitutes house

Sweeneycharacter in Eliots poetryinsensitive male

Feet-washingreligious gesture (knightgrail)

City

Mr. Engenidashomoerotic images; tries to seduce the narrator

Tiresiasreplaces the narratorwitness of scenesheroic quatrains

versus free verse of the rest of the poem

Scene: typist and the young man mechanical sex

Elisabeths time

Song: Wagner
I can connect nothing with nothing
St. Augustin and Buddhaneed for a religious vision, desire for
worldly things binds man; need for place

Death by Water
Mrs. Sosostres: Fear death by water
-

Lack of moral regeneration

Addressing the reader