T.S.Eliot
The Waste Land
Read carefully and analyse the notes to the poem. Why did Eliot decide to use this highly “un-poetic” device in The Waste Land? What authors and texts are referred to? What are the reasons behind the choice of these particular texts and authors?
Consider the compositional method employed in the poem. How does it affect the reader? Does it make the poem easy or difficult to follow? Is it a traditional “well-made” poem or “a patchwork of seemingly isolated images, fragments, quotes, allusions, and paraphrases of Dante, Shakespeare, the Upanishads, the Bible, Greek myths, Wagner operas” combined with various scenes from modern life?
Is the poem spoken/presented by a single speaker (Tiresias), or are there other speakers (voices)? Can we distinguish different styles in the poem (colloquial, sophisticated, elevated, “poetic”)? Why does Eliot introduce different languages?
Find examples of Eliot's use of “the mythical method” characteristic of modernist poetry. (The mythical method consists in the persistent juxtaposition of the past and the present as well as references to texts from different cultures and historical periods.)
Identify different characters and settings (places) in Eliot's poem. What role do they play in the poem?
Find appropriate passages introducing the motif of the waste (barren, infertile, lost) land and its possible regeneration suggested by images of water and vegetation. Consider different manifestations of the “waste land” presented in the poem (decline of religion, failure of interpersonal communication, mechanical sex replacing true love, urban decay, environmental pollution).