Eliot's The Waste Land

[Kafka's Crow]

After spending over two decades with this poem and reading countless secondary texts and background texts, contemporary texts, Eliot's other writings, above all continually thinking about this text over this period, I am NOW reaching some sort of a conclusion about my understanding of this work. It is a lament about a universal wasteland that the inter-war world had descended into (WWI came as a biger shock to human psyche compared to WWII, which although more destructive, had the effect of a softened blow because of the horrors of the previous War) and all the images, thoughts (negative or positive), memories and fears that this central theme could generate: a heap of broken images. There are religious, historical, cultural, psychological, literary, philosophical "echoes" throughout the text that point towards this loss of innocence. The poem moves like a vertigo and all these images rapidly drown into it. The movement becomes only faster as the poem moves towards its end, it becomes more and more chaotic but the theme of the loss of innocence, death, impotence, rape still remain omipresent and it all ends with culture, religion, history, literature, philosophy etc pointing at the revival in the very last stanza. 'This heap of broken images', 'these fragments' that the 'narrator' "shored against my ruin" at the end of the poem are themselves the redemption from sterility of modern time. This is Eliot's "Tradition", the combined and accumulated human creation that does not die but "undergoes a sea-change/ Into something rich and strange." Eliot, forever a traditionalist, believes that the combined force of human history and achievement would re-generate humanity. The poem is explicity universal. You can not interprate it on a personal level, at least not for a sustained period as Eliot himself walks in and out of the poem like countless other ghosts. There are no central characters.

Joyce's Ulysses, though published in the same year, provided the "mythical method" for Eliot to work on a mytho-poec structure. Ulysses can be interprated on many levels. "'History, said Stephen, 'is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake up'" (or something like that), there is no such desire to wake up in The Wasteland. For Stephen, the sound of the voices in the playground (humanity) is God. For Eliot, tradition is the God, the creator and destroyer, humanity's only defence against ultimate annihilation.

[Paulclem]

It's 50% or so Pound, Eliot just got all the credit - you can almost tell the Pound lines from the pure Eliot lines, from the gentle touches Pound employs (a style borrowed much from Romance-language verse) and the drudge sort of heavy lines that Eliot used.

Even so, when it comes to background, an overall understanding of the texts involved is an asset - though one may not know The Golden Bough, for instance, one still should be adept with some of the footnotes - Faber put out a decent companion book, as well as other scholarly works are usually worth the money. They really seem to add to the understanding.

As for fully understanding it - I've read it over 100 times and each time it is different - the poem is always intense, and always too big - Pound himself rightfully called it the Longest Poem Ever Written, and it holds to that - there is just so much in it.

I don't think there's any evidence that Pound added lines. The manuscripts with Pound and Eliot's notes were published by Eliot's wife, The wasteland: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts, and I don't think you can infer that any lines were added by Pound.

Having said that, Pound was cited as a collaborator and was supported by Eliot even when his Fascist views became well known for his literary talents. It's not the case that Eliot took all the glory, and after all he did write the poem.

[Nemo Neem]

The Waste Land is a personal favorite of mine. Nobody will ever know what it is about. It's just a series of thoughts and intertextuality. The best interpretation that I can give is that Europe is decayed, lost, and fragmented like the poem.

[Kimberlyn Daven]

T.S. Eliot is one of the most popular poets of the 20th century. Eliot's `Wasteland' is considered a milestone in English poetry. One of his most loved poems is The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock. Set in the big, dirty city, the speaker of the poem is a very unhappy man who is afraid of living and possesses a diffidence that is common to modern man. War, cities, boredom and fear – all these are classic modernistic themes and makes for thought-provoking concepts! Some interesting facts on Shmoop.com led me to think deeper about this poem, The Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock.

[Dinkleberry2010]

Eliot himself in his volume The Waste Land and Other Poems gives extensive explication and footnotes about The Waste Land.

[JBI]

Eliot himself in his volume The Waste Land and Other Poems gives extensive explication and footnotes about The Waste Land.

If by extensive you mean sparse - my critical editions give far more, and even leave many out - there are several books of scholarship that try to find all his sources, and even then they still get situations where they wonder if it is an allusion or a stretch, and what it could possibly mean. Eliot's footnotes are, if anything, cryptic and the more obvious ones anyway.

[Dinkleberry2010]

Eliot's footnotes are extensive and they are not cryptic

[kelby_lake]

Eliot himself in his volume The Waste Land and Other Poems gives extensive explication and footnotes about The Waste Land.

Not that extensive.

[Dinkleberry2010]

yes that extensive

[mayneverhave]

The annotations were only written so that The Waste Land could be published in book form.

As for the annotations themselves, some are notoriously missing, while the meaning of others, and what significance they have for the poem, is cryptic. Many could possibly be red herrings.

[Virgil]

I don't recall any being red herrings, but they were cryptic and did not fully help. There are good resource books that can help.

[Paulclem]

In the early 80's when I was in the 6th form, we were introduced to The waste Land, but it was heavily influenced by what I thought were the attitudes of the teachers at the time - that Eliot was an elitist writer. The teachers I had at the time had strong socialist opinions which they inculcated in us all through school. It was a strong working class area, and so they were generally preaching to the converted. I just assumed that it was those teachers.

Recently a colleague of mine came out with the same ideas, and it turns out that the charge of elitism was also levelled at Eliot in a different part, and definately not socialist, part of the country.

I find this a part if the literary critical tradition which has been a stifling factor in certainly my colleague's study of Eliot. I strongly disagree with the teachers influencing me in the way they did at the time, but it also skewed my view of The Wasteland for a long time.

I think Eliot was elitist, but that should not have intruded so much into my experience of the poem which stands as a brilliant piece. Has this been other's experiences?

[Virgil]

I love most of Eliot's poetry, certainly his major works. He is definitely an elitist, but what difference does that make as to the quality of his work? None for me, and frankly i get a kick out Eliot's elitism.

[kelby_lake]

yes that extensive

They basically just explain some of the allusions, as opposed to explaining the poem.

I like The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock. At least it's easier to understand.

[Dinkleberry2010]

why would Eliot want to explain the poem