The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

•  The Waste Land by T.S.Eliot as Modernist text

• Introduction:-

• The poetry of modern age expresses the chaos and the changing scenario of life and society.
• T.S.Eliot's The Waste Land is both a demonstration and a manifesto of what the new poetry wanted to do and could do.

• T.S.Eliot (1888-1965) describes the boredom, emptiness and pessimism of modern age in bitter, ironical and satirical verse.

• His famous poem The Waste Land is considered the most important poetic documents of the age. It expresses poignantly a desperate sense of the poet, and the age's lack of positive spiritual thinking. Eliot's overwhelming need for redemption transformed him into a religious poet. His intense zeal for religious truth, which lead finally to a new hope in the Christian ideas for rebirth & renewal.

• In his pursuit of giving a realistic representation of life around him, he many times becomes critical of the spiritual degeneration of men and expresses his deep despair over utter emptiness of the contemporary civilization.

• He introduced a new poetic style. His diction is original and unique. It comprehends paradox, irony and contrast.

• Frank Kermode rightly observes that English Poetry would have had no future without the invaluable work done by T.S.ELIOT.

Positive words

Negative words

(1st  part) spring rain winter kept us warm went on in sunlight you feel free branches grow Red rock Morning (2part) burnished throne marble, fruited vines light upon the table glitter of jewels sylvan scene Rain Albert's coming back (3rd  part) the river the nymphs sweet Thames (5th part) a cock stood on the roof tree co co rico co co rico bringing rain flash of lightening Datta,Dayadhvam,Damyata Shantih,Shantih,Shantih

(1st  part) cruelest (month) dead (land) dull (roots) night, dried tubers stony rubbish dead (tree) dry (stone) neither living nor dead NOTHING a bad cold drowned(Phonecian sailor) blank the Hanged man fear death by water unreal city death has undone so many sighs man fixed his eyes before his feet dead sound crying that corpse disturbed Hypocrite frightened you know only a heap of broken images (cricket) no relief i will show you fear in handful of dust my eyes failed silence (2 part) smoke burned sad light barbarous king so rudely forced desert still she cried (Philomela) dirty ears my nerves are bad tonight why do you never speak i think we are rat's alley dead men Nothing again nothing you know nothing? do you see nothing ? do you remember nothing? Are you alive or not? is there nothing in your head? a game of chess ( negative connotation-intrigue) pressing lidless eyes poor Albert if you don’t give it him if you don’t like lack of telling ashamed ....Albert won’t leave you alone (3part) broken sink i sat down & wept... a rat crept... dull canal my father's death white bodies naked... dry garret sound of horns &  motors so rudely forced unreal city the human engine she is bored & tired unreproved, undesired no defense vanity ...of the dead departed lover automatic hand whining of Mandolin the river sweats oil & tar tramps & dusty trees he wept i made no comment Nothing with Nothing the broken fingernails of dirty hands ......people who expect Nothing Burning BurningBurningBurning (4 part) A fortnight dead cry of gulls (5part) frosty silence agony in stony places shouting & crying prison he who was living now dead we who were living are now dying here is no water but only rock dead mountain one can neither stand nor lie nor sit. dry sterile thunder without rain not even solitude in mountains but there is no water maternal lamentation hooded hordes swarming burst in violet air falling towers upside down in air were towers blackened wall tolling bells empty cisterns exhausted wells decayed hole tumbled graves empty chapel dry bones Ganga was  sunken blood shaking my heart awful surrender not to be found in our obituaries seals broken our empty rooms each in his prison nightfall rumors #London Bridge is falling down falling down. Fragments i have shored against my ruins. Hieronymo's mad again.

• The Waste Land

•   The Waste Land represents our current world is a mob of faces, of fragmented images. The scene is set, history is added, and then the voices come in, expressing the feeling of war generation. the feeling of hopelessness  that are still around today, in depression, unhappiness, lack of caring........perhaps despair is not European condition, as most people would have despaired at some point in their lives.

•   The Waste Land is a collage of several things/Images, in which Eliot tries to attempts to tell the story of the modern person. He gives voice to the many voices, the many ideas, the many people in a diverse culture, which is also why he may include numerous languages.

•  The sequence of pictures-Modern Technique of Cinematography:-

•  As in cinema, there are a series of shots transcending time and place, meaningless if. Considered separately, but taken together forming a coherent whole.

•   It helps in controlling time and space- gives universal and permanent significance.

•   Successive clippings, after a few readings fix themselves in memory and convey a coherent whole of meaning.

•  The sequence of picture is central to the poem. The interpretations of these pictures and other symbols and images may vary from person to person. Yet, what is definite is the vitality & realism of these pictures as they pass by like shorts in films.

•  In its novel use of fragmentary voices, dense allusiveness, mythic structures, urban setting, coiling irony and unabashed difficulty, T.S.ELIOT'S The Waste Land epitomizes the central thematic and stylistic tendencies of Modernist Literature.

• Much of the poem brings us face to face with the Modern artist's dilemma of how to find an adequate poetic form and expression to convey his inner experience. It shows us that the modern poet is acutely aware of the conflicts and contradictions, the complexities and fragmentation of his society. So that he can no longer use traditional methods of writing poetry.

•   Hence the artist today is forced to recreate his own esoteric myth & symbols, and draw upon his own vast and unique range of reading for references and allusion to adequately express his meaning or experience. This leads to the charge the Eliot's poetry, especially in The Waste Land is often abstruse and suffers from extreme ambiguity. Thus the disintegration of modern art and poetry itself into the realm of obscurity and elitism becomes a crucial issue in Eliot's poem.

•   Entire The Waste Land is in the stream of consciousness of Tiresias. So whatever Tiresias sees that is the substance of the poem. Eliot rightly chooses Tiresias as a unifying link to connect past, present and future. We are in the stream of consciousness of Tiresias.

•  The very first line of The Waste Land is 'April is the cruelest month', which breaks the archetype of Chaucer's 'April is the sweetest month', is itself the characteristic of modernist literature. He breaks the basic symbol.

• Eliot is showing mirror to world, which they are. Rather than praising he is criticizing rottenness of Western culture. But as a modernist writer he can’t do that in traditional way like Hardy, Dickens or another. So how to do that? He does this in awkward way. He tries to say through hazy, blurred images in a haphazard way.

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.             ← 1st image.

• Snow covered mountain       -2nd image.
• Marie & cousin         - 3rd image.
• Landscape image
• Lovers coming, wet hair (Tristan and Isolde) – image
• London Bridge (mechanical people)-image
• Madame Sosostris-image
• A lady seating & beautifying herself-image
• Philomela & Procne-Image
• Two person seating (in coffee house) image
• Albert coming back- image
• Image of river Thames
• Tiresias-Sailor, typist, clerk image
• Phlebas the phonecian
•  What the thunder said-
• Christian imagery- Christ caught after last supper.
• Mystical image
• Sterile dry thunder without water
• Falling towers image
• Ganga, Himavat image
• Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata.

•  Conclusion

Thus, The Waste Land is remarkable piece of writing of Modernist Literature.