Paper 4, Module 19: Text

Role Name Affiliation

Principal Investigator Prof. Tutun Mukherjee University of Hyderabad

Paper Coordinator Prof. Hariharan

Balagovindan

Institute of English, University of

Kerala

Content Writer/Author

(CW)

Dr. Sanchitha J, Govt Women’s College,

Thiruvananthapuram

Content Reviewer (CR) Dr. Jameela Begum

Former Head & Professor, Institute

of English, University of Kerala

Language Editor (LE) Prof. Hariharan

Balagovindan

Institute of English, University of

Kerala

2

T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland

https://samirshomepage.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/676.jpg

Major influences in Eliot’s poetic career:

Metaphysical poetry

Arthur Symons’ The Symbolist Movement in Literature

Ezra Pound, the American poet and critic who shaped Eliot’s evolution as a poet.

Common features of his poems:

realistic, though depressing portrayal of contemporary society

intellectual and rational verses

tones of bitterness, pessimism, irony, satire and paradox

reveal the poet’s disappointment with modern life in general

Important works:

Poems-The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock (1915),The Waste Land (1922),Four

Quartets (1945)

Introduction

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was an

eminent poet, literary critic and dramatist of

the twentieth century. Eliot was one of the

representative writers of the Modern age in

English literature, roughly the period

between 1890 and 1950.Other famous

modernist authors include James Joyce, D.

H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf and Ezra

Pound. In 1948, Eliot was awarded the

Nobel Prize in Literature.

3

Criticism- Tradition and Individual Talent (1919), The Function of Criticism ((1923)

Play- Murder in the Cathedral (1935)

Learning Outcome

To gain a general awareness of early twentieth century society

To identify different modernist poetry techniques

To appreciate the use of myths to convey meanings effectively

To evaluate the language, form and content of the poem aesthetically

To analyse the universal relevance of the poem today

Click on links below and classify the chief characteristics of modern

literature.

www.odessa.edu/dept/english/dsmith/modern.ppt

http://www.slideshare.net/vijaymangukiya/modernism-ppt

Characteristic features of modernist literature.

breaking away from conventional rules of narration and rhyme,

application of techniques such as stream-of-consciousness narration and free verse.

common literary topics - alienation, despair, meaninglessness of life

strong reactions against current religio-socio-political issues

focus on spiritual and moral degradation of man.

The Waste Land

The Waste Land is considered a masterpiece in Modernist English Literature. Eliot depended

on a variety of sources while composing this poem.

4

Sources

Eliot was influenced mainly by the following two books, which narrate legends of many

lands, from ancient Egypt to the England of King Arthur.

Jessie Weston’s From Ritual to Romance

Sir James Frazier’s The Golden Bough

Other main sources include The Bible, The Hindu Upanishads and Buddha’s Fire Sermon.

Eliot also quotes profusely from authors like Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare,

Edmund Spenser, Aldous Huxley, Andrew Marvell, Walt Whitman and even Baudelaire,

Ovid and Homer.

Read on the internet about the important myths/legendsusedin The

WasteLand

1. Legend of the Fisher King: The impotent Fisher King made his kingdom an infertile

“waste land”. Weston and Fraziernarrate ancient stories of healing the Fisher King to

make the land fertile again. Eliot brilliantly adapts the legend of the Fisher King’s

wasteland to illustrate the deteriorating condition of modern society.

2. Grail Legend: The Holy Grail is believed to be the cup in which the blood of Jesus

Christ was collected, and has healing powers.The young knight Percival was one of

King Arthur’s legendary Knights of the Round Table.During his quest of the Holy

Grail, he stays in the castle of the Fisher King.

3. Legend of Oedipus: The King of Thebes, Oedipus, unknowingly killed his father and

married his mother invoking the wrath of the gods. When he knew the truth he

became blind and the land became infertile.

5

4. Legend of Tiresias: The legendary soothsayer of Thebes, Tiresias was gifted with

prophecy and immortality. According to legends Tiresias was punished by Goddess

Hera who changed him into a woman. He wasalso struck blind by Goddess Athena

because he saw her bathing naked. Eliot uses Tiresias as a narrator because he has

enjoyed both manhood and womanhood.

5. Emmaus: The wasteland referred to in The Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes. God

commands the prophet Ezekiel to warn the people to stop engaging in evil activities.

Narrative style

modernist technique of fragmentary narration

verses which seem to lack continuity.

disconnected episodes

mostly monologues, but it also has many narrators.

excellent use of ‘cinematic technique’ –jumping from one scene to the other,

juxtaposing image upon image in rapid succession.

inter textual references

use of many languages including Latin, Greek, German and Sanskrit.

Eliot’s narrative style has a great impact on the readers who understand the poem by

successfully connecting the disconnected verses.

Click on the link below and listen to T.S.Eliot reciting the poem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNx_9AR7JJk

The Waste Landis dedicated to Ezra Pound, ilmigliorfabbro which means ‘the better

craftsman’, as a mark of gratitude to Pound’s efforts. Published in 1922, four years after the I

World War the poem begins on a pessimistic note with an epigraph in Latin and Greek, taken

from Satyricon by Petronius Arbiter:

6

For I saw with mine own eyes,

celebrated Sibyl of Cumae, hanging in a jar

And when the boys called out to her:

‘What do you want?’

She replied:

‘I wish to die’.

According to mythology Sibyl was granted immortality by Apollo, but she forgot to ask for

eternal youth. Hence her body withered away till only her voice was left and she was

eventually kept in a jar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumaean_Sibyl). The epigraph points

out that, like Sibyl, men and women living in the modern waste land fear life and are haunted

by the wish to die. This pessimism is reflected throughout the poem, which consistsof five

sections.

I. The Burial of the Dead

II. A Game of Chess

III. The Fire Sermon

IV. Death by Water

V. What the Thunder Said

Now let us take a look at each section in detail.

I. The Burial of the Dead

Click on audio book link above.

Listen to the first section / read poem carefully.

Identify the four main narrative voices.

Find out at least 3 intertextual references.

7

https://0.s3.envato.com/files/84896293/pv_590.jpg

Notes

This section deals with the theme of the glorious past contrasted with the gloomy

present.Title is an extract from the Anglican funeral service. Poem begins on a harsh note

with ‘April is the cruellest month’. Theopening line echoes Chaucer’s Prologue to the

Canterbury Tales. Why do you thinkSpringis described as an unhappy season? The bright

and joyful Spring breathes life into the dead earth which is buried during winter. But images

used ‘dead land’ and ‘dull roots’ signifyunwillingness to be revived and reborn. Modern

people strangely prefer the gloomy Winter thatcovers Earth ‘in forgetful snow’, itsbitter cold

and numbness enable people to stop thinking about the fertile past.

The four narrators narrate different episodes. First episode moves to and fro, between Marie’s

past and present. Her nostalgic childhood recollections and fun times with cousins playing on

the snow are juxtaposed with the present sombre images of having coffee in the park with

friends.Marie who claims to be a pure German and not a Russian, is supposed to beCountess

Marie Larisch who wrote her autobiography ‘My Past’(1916). Marie’s memories end in a

meditative mode, ‘I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter’ signifying her current

unproductive existence.

Second episode is narrated in a frightening prophetic voice against the background of barren

images. Certain linesare taken fromThe Bible,where prophets like Ezekiel, Isaiah and

Jeremiah warn Israelites to reject their evil ways. The prophet-narrator persuades man to take

shelter ‘under the shadow of this red rock’. Here red rock symbolises the church (Rosenthal

1960). References denote the spiritual degradation in post-war society. Prophet warns

nonbelievers, ‘I will show you fear in a handful of dust’. The scene suddenly shifts to image

8

of a sailor waiting for the ‘hyacinth girl’. Hyacinth is a symbol of fertility in ancient Greece.

Eliot introduces a happy quote from Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde, based on a

medieval love tragedy. Asin the story, section ends on a tragic note, indicating the lack of

love and meaningful relationships in the modern age.

Third episode shows an imaginative Tarot card reading session. Madame Sosostris, a

character inspired by Huxley’s Crome Yellow, is a dishonest fortune teller ‘with a wicked

pack of cards’. She selects the narrator’s card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor and cautions

him to ‘Fear death by water’. Other cards show Belladonna (Madonna in Christianity), man

with three staves, the Wheel of Fortune, the one-eyed merchant and The Hanged Man. All

these images have various symbolic significances. She talks of her vision of ‘crowds of

people, walking around in a ring’. This is probably an allusion to circles of hell in Dante’s

Inferno. The imaginary session ends with amentionof the horoscope of another imaginary

client, Mrs Equitone.

Final episode is a dreamlike walk through London. It is the modern waste land and described

as the ‘Unreal City’ (Baudelaire’s Paris) and ‘the brown fog of a winter’s dawn’ (Dickens’

London).An aimless wandering crowd is portrayed, each man walking ‘fixed his eyes before

his feet’ and exhaling ‘short and infrequent’ sighs. The poet-narrator meets a former

acquaintance, Stetson with whom he had fought in the battle of Mylae. He asks Stetson weird

questions, whether the corpse ‘planted’ in the garden has survived the frost and sprouted and

bloomed. He advises to keep away the Dog from digging it up (adapted from Webster’s The

White Devil), so that what is buried would eventually sprout and bloom, symbolising

spiritual/moral rebirth. Section ends with a quote from Baudelaire. The reader is addressed as

a hypocrite and also a brother, to sustain the miserable mood of the poem.

9

II. A Game of Chess

http://pb-i4.s3.amazonaws.com/photos

Notes

The suitable title is taken from a Jacobean play, Women Beware Women by Thomas

Middleton. In this play a young wife is seduced by a Duke, while her naive mother-in-law is

playing a game of chess. Title alludes to the depressing state of sexual relationships in the

modern waste land. Two episodes in this section expose contrasting images of women

belonging to high and low classes in society.

First episode opens with a graphic description of the home of a rich woman. With jewels

‘from satin cases poured in rich profusion’ and ‘strange synthetic perfumes’ she awaits her

lover amidst luxurious surroundings. Eliot parodies lines from Shakespeare’s Antony and

Cleopatra to show that Cleopatra and the rich woman are similar in their passion. But the

modern woman lacks emotional intensity. She is also compared to Dido, Queen of Carthage

who gives a grand banquet to her unfaithful lover Aeneas. To highlight the predicament of

the rich woman, Eliot also compares her to Philomel, acharacter from Ovid’s

Metamorphoses. Philomel was raped by her brother-in-law, ‘the barbarous king’ Tereus. He

cut off her tongue to prevent her from telling her sister. But Philomel manages to tell her

sister who takes revenge by killing her son and feeding him to the king. The gods transform

Click on audio book link above.

Listen to the second section or read poem carefully.

Discover the two episodes.

Identify the intratextual references used.

10

the sisters into birds to save them from Tereus. Philomel becomes a nightingale and

symbolises violence against women, still widespread in modern society. Problems are still

faced by women in modern waste land as represented in line,‘And still she cried, and still the

world pursues’.

Episode ends with a conversation between a man and the rich woman who has brushed her

hair ‘spread out in fiery points’. The man suddenly starts to sing ‘O OOO that

Shakespeherian Rag’, a popular jazz song of 1912. The ironical verses ‘It’s so elegant / So

intelligent’ indicate how even classic songs are cheapened in the modern age. Woman’s

words reveal her insecurity and anxietyin spite of leading a comfortable life. She requests the

man to talk to her and share his thoughts as she longs for a more meaningful and loving bond.

Broken dialogues indicate an obviouslack of communication. Eliot liberally quotes from

Webster, Lawrence and Shakespeare to emphasise how society’s moral and spiritual

decadencedestroyshuman relationships. The reference to the game of chess signifies that

modern life is a game people play to win with cunning and manipulative moves.

In the second episode, scene abruptly shifts to a bar in London. We listen to a conversation

amongpeople from working class section of society. Two women, Lou and May discuss their

friend Lil, with a man named Bill. They criticise Lil for not being ashamed and making

herself ‘smart’ enough to receive her husband Albert who is in the army. Albert who is

returning home after four years naturally ‘wants a good time’ with his wife. The women feel

obliged to advise thirty-one year old Lil not to ‘look so antique’ otherwise ‘if Albert makes

off, it won’t be for lack of telling’. Their talk reveals that relationships in lower class society

are also meaningless and mechanical. Meanwhile in the background the bar keeper keeps

shouting ‘HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME’. Eliot uses this refrain again and again to show

11

that it is time people started changing their attitudes to life in order to be saved. Section ends

with the narrator wishing ‘Goodnight’ reminding us of Ophelia bidding farewell in

Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is relevant that like Cleopatra and Dido who committed suicides,

Ophelia undergoes ‘death by water’. Lil is compared with the rich lady, interestingly both

women face similar problems in spite of their class differences and contrasting lifestyles.

III. The Fire Sermon

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals

Notes

Eliot presents his important and subtle observations of the modern waste land, in this longest

and most complex section. Title alludes to Buddha’s Fire Sermon which urges men to give up

their attachment to worldly desires symbolised by fire. Title also echoes Saint Augustine’s

words, thus representing a synthesis of both Eastern and Western philosophy. The opening

stanzas known as the ‘river song’ paint a murky picture of the River Thames during autumn

season. Having lost its sheltering canopy of leaves the ‘river’s tent is broken’ and resembles a

waste land. The reference to the departed nymphs signifies that ‘Sweet Thames’ has lost its

splendour. The famous refrain from Spenser’s Prothalamion highlights the sad condition of

the Thames abandoned by everyone including ‘the loitering heirs of City directors’. Lines

have also been adapted from the Bible and Andrew Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’ to

lament the death of spirituality. The narrator fishing in the once-glorious river, now reduced

to a ‘dull canal’, represents the Fisher King. The sight of a slimy-bellied rat symbolises the

Click on audio book link above.

Listen to section III or read poem carefully.

Who do you think is the narrator?

Discuss the imagery used.

12

rapid decay prevalent in modern society. The Fisher King’s castle becomes a mere ‘gashouse’

in the waste land.

Eliot also alludes to incidents from Shakespeare’s The Tempest where Prospero magically

causes a shipwreck to take revenge on his brother. The ‘sound of horns and motors’ is

combined with an allusion to John Day’s Parliament of Bees. In this play the sounds of horns

and hunting bring Actaeon to where Diana is bathing. Similarly Sweeney, the modern-day

Actaeon is brought to Mrs. Porter, the present-day Diana. The reference to ‘wash their feet in

soda water’ alludes to the healing ritual of the Fisher King. The ritual to lift the curse of

sterility is accompanied by children singing. The lines in French are translated as ‘Oh those

children’s voices singing in the dome’. The constant reference to ‘bones’ in this section

signify modern man’s dark obsession with death.

The allusion to Philomel is repeated before the scene moves on to the ‘Unreal City under the

brown fog of winter’. Eliot presents Mr. Eugenides of Smyrna, who is probably the one-eyed

merchant mentioned by Madame Sosostris in The Burial of the Dead. According to Weston’s

book, Smyrna merchants were the main carriers of the Grail legend. Mr. Eugenides invites

the narrator to join him for lunch at Cannon Street Hotel and a weekend at the Metropole.

Both places were notorious during Eliot’s time as secret meeting places for homosexuals. Mr

Eugenides thus represents the new cult of sterility overshadowing the modern waste land.

The typist episode provides the perfect setting to introduce the main protagonist of the waste

land, Tiresias. Although he is a blind prophet, Eliot affirms that what Tiresias sees is the

substance of the poem. Cursed by Goddess Hera to be a woman, he throbs ‘between two

lives’. Pictured as an ‘old man with wrinkled female breasts’, Tiresias is the representative of

13

the decadent culture of the modern age. Tiresias narrates the affair of a young typist with ‘the

young man carbuncular’. The ‘bored and tired’ typist lives alone in an untidy apartment and

dines on ‘food in tins’. She does her domestic chores mechanically as she awaits the

‘expected guest’. Her lover, also insignificant like her, is a ‘small house agent’s clerk’. His

‘one bold stare’ reveals his bold intention, which is to ‘assault’ the young woman. Athough

she doesn’t desire him, she does not resist his advances and submits indifferently. Tiresias

laments that there is no room for love in a modern relationship; it is purely physical in nature.

Eliot quotes from Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield, ‘when lovely woman stoops to

folly’ to show the disintegration of traditional values.The typist hardly notices her ‘departed

lover’. She is glad when the sexual act is over and casually puts a record on the gramaphone.

Tiresias walks along the Strand and Queen Victoria’s street with the sound of music ringing

in his ears. He sometimes hears the ‘pleasant whining of a mandoline’ beside a public bar in

Lower Thames Street. It comes from the Magnus Martyr, a church, an ‘inexplicable

splendour of Ionian white and gold’. Significantly it is the place where the fishermen lounge

at noon. The ‘clatter and a chatter from within’ the walls of this splendid church indicate how

simple and uneducated fishermen lead meaningful lives. Two songs are included here. The

first depicts the sad state of the modern Thames which ‘sweats oil and tar’ symbolising moral

pollution. This description is a continuation of the opening stanzas of The Fire Sermon. The

lines parody a song from Wagner’s opera Ring Cycle which describe women singing glories

of the river Rhine. The chorus ‘Weialalaleia’ reflects the beauty of the Rhine.

The next song brings back Elizabethan images of the lovely Thames portrayed in

Prothalamion. It picturises Queen Elizabeth I and Earl of Leicester rowing on the Thames,

discussing marriage plans. Their relationship is contrasted with the affair of the typist and the

14

clerk. Both may be considered similar as they did not have a happy ending. Eliot tries to point

out that modern affairs deliberately exhibit an absolute lack of emotion unlike traditional

relationships. The scene shifts to the speaker lying ‘supine on the floor of a narrow canoe’.

There is a description of a gloomy tour through London. The lines ‘My feet are at Moorgate,

and my heart under my feet’ may be a reference to Elizabeth. The queen decides not to marry

Leicester for the sake of her kingdom. Though it made Leicester weep and promise a ‘new

start’, she had no choice.

The concluding stanza is narrated on Margate Sands (mouth of river Thames). The word

‘nothing’ is repeated signifying the emptiness of modern life. The line ‘To Carthage then I

came’ refers to St. Augustine’s Confessions which narrate the saint’s transformation from a

man of the world to a man of God. Images of ‘burning’ allude to Buddha’s Fire Sermon

which encourages burning all kinds of worldly pleasures. Eliot stated that he had brought

together representatives of eastern and western asceticism deliberately in this section.

IV. Death by Water

The shortest section of this poem describes the death of Phlebas the Phoenician. He is

mentioned by Madame Sosostris in ‘The Burial of the Dead’ as the drowned Phoenician

sailor. This section reminds us of her warning, ‘Fear death by water’. Her prophecy comes

true. The literal meaning of this section refers to the physical death of Phlebas, from where

there is no return to life. His body has decayed and the sea current has ‘picked his bones’. He

Listen to Section V in audio book or read.

See painting Ophelia by Sir John Everett

Millais.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ophelia_(p

ainting)

15

cannot be brought back to life again. From a religious perspective, death by water indicates

baptism and spiritual rebirth.

The phrase ‘you who turn the wheel and look to windward’ refers to people inhabiting the

waste land. Modern people live selfish and meaningless lives on their own terms, with no

concern for others. They are indifferent to and devoid of any good emotion. Eliot’s advises

them to repent and be spiritually reborn. Otherwise they will be doomed to the same fate as

Phlebas, irrespective of whether they are ‘Gentile or Jew’.

V. What the Thunder Said

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/cartoon-clouds-thunder-vector-illustration

Notes

This final and most complex section begins with violent images alluding to Christ’s

crucifixion. Poet gives brief glimpses of events before His resurrection. The garden of

Gethsemane where Christ was arrested, trial before Pilate, ‘the agony in stony places’; all end

with ‘He who was living is now dead’. The images of spiritual death are continued in

‘mountains of rock without water’, ‘feet are in the sand’ and ‘dry sterile thunder without

rain’. The nightmare is worsened by the song of the hermit-thrush ‘drip drop ... but there is no

water’.

The scene moves on to the Legend of Emmaus. Christ appears to two men from Emmaus, but

they fail to recognise him. To them, as to the rest of the world, He is just ‘the third’ person

16

‘gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded’. The next scene presents horrifying images of

‘murmur of maternal lamentation’ and ‘hooded hordes swarming over endless plains’. They

symbolise a decaying and dying Europe in the grip of communism, pointing out the fate of

modern waste land. Falling towers refer to powerful and ‘Unreal’ cities like Jerusalem,

Athens, Alexandria, Vienna and London which are destroyed. More nightmarish images of

decaying civilizations come up – ‘bats with baby faces in violet light’, ‘blackened wall’,

‘empty cisterns and exhausted wells’, ‘decayed hole’ and so on. Cleanth Brooks say that

violet colour symbolises repentance. The empty chapel among the tumbled graves refers to

the Chapel Perilous in the Grail legend. It is purposely filled with horrors to prevent the Holy

Grail from being stolen. The image of the cock on the rooftop is significant. Its ‘Co corico co

corico’ has the power to chase away evil forces. After the cock crows, there is a flash of

lightning and ‘a damp gust bringing rain’.

The scene again shifts all the way to the ‘sunken’ Ganga. Weston remarks that fertility rites

are mentioned in early Sanskrit legends. When devas, asuras and men asked Prajapathi how

to live well, he answered Da (the sound of thunder). Prajapathi then asked them to interpret

Da. Men replied Datta – ‘give’; asuras replied Dayadhvam – ‘sympathise’ and devas replied

Damyata- ‘control’. Eliot wanted to connect the Upanishads with these human qualities

(Aiken, 1968). Tiresias asks humanity to give and surrender as it is more important than

preserving memories and honouring obituaries. Instead of being compassionate, each one is

in his selfish egoistic prison, suffering from loneliness like Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.

Tiresias finally remarks that man lacks self-control which leads to chaos and unhappiness.

The image of the Fisher King collecting fragments from ruins with hopes to rebuild reappears

in the end. The reference to mad Heironymo reveals the anger and frustration of the poet at

the collapse of Western culture. However the poet concludes optimistically chanting Shantih

shantih shantih.

17

Conclusion

The Waste Land can be seen as a mosaic of images depicting man’s journeys from birth –

from past to present to future - culminating in his death. The images produce a totality of

effect in the end leading to a better understanding of the poem. According to I.A. Richards

“The Waste Land is a music of ideas, the ideas like the musicians phrases are not arranged

that they may tell us something, but that their effects in us combine into a coherent whole of

feelings and attitudes” (Principles of Literary Criticism).