Eliot's The Waste Land

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And yet while Shakespeare puts forth the effort to publish his "real" poetry, he doesn't give a second thought to his plays.

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As an historical note, this difference in publication between the plays and the sonnets is relatively weak as evidence of Shakespeare's own personal estimation of either work. The decision to publish or not to publish has some pretty clear economic motives. Sonnets were more profitable the more they were circulated. Showing them to lots of important people and getting a reputation for yourself was a way to receive patronage. Publication could make you some money too if enough of the reading public liked them, and also would add to your potential circulation among potential patrons/flatter all those people who get dedication poems etc. in print.

Publishing plays, on the other hand, could lose more money than it would gain. In a copyright free age, publishing a play would mean that other theaters could steal it and make a profit off of it, thereby losing your theater money. Most theaters and playwrights in the period really don't want their plays published because that was putting the words out in the public domain, and enacting words was their business. It would be a little like Andrew Lloyd Weber posting the complete book and musical score to his newest musical on a security free website with no claim to copyright attached. That's one likely reason that there are so many variations between the published quartos of the plays: because some were probably compiled from the memories of actors who performed the roles and/or from surreptitious note takers/memorizers in the audience of performances. Naturally plays were published more legitimately when they had more or less run their course in the theatres and the author or theater managers thought they could make some additional money off of the publication, but the big money focus was the use of the script for performances, and the publication of a play wasn't really regarded as a big claim to fame or literary worth.

It wasn't until 1616, the year of Shakespeare's death, that we get the combined ego and classicism of Ben Jonson and the publication of his (that is, Ben Jonson's) monumental first folio. Jonson was really quite an innovator in terms of the sorts of claims he made for the status of theatrical entertainments as "high" literature (of course, to get back to the economic side of things, he was also making a fair amount of money at court from Masques and other court dramatic entertainments rather than relying as heavily on public performances as Shakespeare apparently did). It's very hard to say whether, had he lived a few years longer, Shakespeare might have personally responded in kind with his own publication or might even have been planning to do so anyway, regardless of Jonson, since he had retired from the theatre and might be able to whip up a little modest retirement fame and fortune with such a publication. In any case, we all know that his friends did so in 1623, and if you've picked up a facsimile of Shakespeare's First Folio (or even the real thing) you'll see that economic concerns continued to motivate, both in the patronage dedication to the Earls of Pebroke and Montgomery, but in the address "To the great Variety of Readers" which begins:

"From the most able, to him that can but spell. There you are number'd. We had rather you were weighd. Especially, when the fate of all Bookes depends upon your capacities: and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well! It is now publique, & you wil stand for your priviledges wee know: to read and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a Booke, the Stationer saies. Then, how odde soever your braines be, or your wisedomes, make your licence the same, and spare not. Judge your sixe-pen'orth, your shillings worth, your five shillings worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates and welcome. But, what ever you do, Buy. Censure will not drive a Trade or make the Jack go. And though you be a Magistrate of wit, and sit on the Stage at Black-Friers, or the ****-pit, to arraigne Playes dailie, know, these Playes haue had their triall alreadie, and stood out all Appeales; and do now come forth quitted rather by a Decree of Court, then any purchas'd Letters of commendation..."

It's a fascinating statement for thinking about the economic motives behind performance and publication, the shift toward addressing a slightly wider reading public rather than only an elite patron, and the shift from thinking of a play as something you go to hear and something you might like to read, clearly something they feel they may need to convince the potential literate buyer is a worthwhile enough activity to shell out the money for the volume.

Which goes to show you how conscious Shakespeare was at making money. Those that advocate the poor suffering writer/artist free of societal influence as the means of great art can never explain why Shakespeare became enormously wealthy from his endeavors. And he didn't become wealthy by accident. He was conscious and pro-active in getting wealthy.

I was certainly aware of the concerns for keeping the plays from being plagiarized and used by competing theaters, but was thinking more along the line of the fact that Shakespeare had made no known effort to publish his plays after his retirement as opposed to such efforts with his poems. Of course plays were not afforded the sort of respect that was held by poetry... perhaps not unlike the newer art forms of the last century such as film, photography, and television where some of the strongest work was irrevocably lost die to the lack of concern for its artistic merit... and many others have demanded extensive restoration work. Still... what I was thinking of was the fact that Shakespeare made no known efforts such as Jonson did to preserve the work and one wonders if he saw the work in a manner not unlike Bach or most pre-Renaissance artists as not really having some great lasting worth.

Virgil, I doubt that any artist, outside of some starry-eyed romantic student, believes that the "starving artist" is some ideal to be sought after or a sure sign of artistic integrity. Certainly, one might question the integrity of the artist who makes a concerted effort to pander to a larger audience at the expense of the quality of the art, but I surely believe that even artists such as Van Gogh and William Blake were in no way adverse to making a living from their art. They were simply ill-equipped... or in the case of Van Gogh (and many others) did not live long enough to reach that audience which did recognize their merit. There is surely an audience for nearly anything. The challenge is to continue to create the best work possible while attempting to make a connection with that audience.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Certainly art is "elitist" to a great extent... and still is. There is a definite degree of ego involved in thinking that what one has to say through whatever artistic means is worthy of consideration. "Serious" artists also tend to think of an "elite" audience... not unlike themselves: an audience that is well read... educated... experienced. With a figure like Bach I imagine that he recognized his own mastery of his craft and professionalism... he was after all from a family of professional musicians. He must have had a certain degree of self-assuredness... but did he really fathom just how great his achievements were... especially as his work never achieved great acclaim... not even in his local parish...? Especially as the music he composed began to appear increasingly old-fashioned?

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The elitist charge that we discussed a little in our 6th Form focused upon the requirement of the publisher - Faber - for more poetry to supplement The Waste Land, and Eliot's response in providing the notes. I didn't, and still don't find the notes helpful, and at the time - post WW1 - they did presume a very particular education. I suppose it was just a sign of the times, and as St Lukes has pointed out, a measure of his self image.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Virgil, I doubt that any artist, outside of some starry-eyed romantic student, believes that the "starving artist" is some ideal to be sought after or a sure sign of artistic integrity. Certainly, one might question the integrity of the artist who makes a concerted effort to pander to a larger audience at the expense of the quality of the art, but I surely believe that even artists such as Van Gogh and William Blake were in no way adverse to making a living from their art. They were simply ill-equipped... or in the case of Van Gogh (and many others) did not live long enough to reach that audience which did recognize their merit. There is surely an audience for nearly anything. The challenge is to continue to create the best work possible while attempting to make a connection with that audience.

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I agree with that, though with the qualification that "pandering" is in the eye of the beholder. There are many places, perhaps almost in every play, that one can say he is pandering. It's what else you do around it that separates the great and prosperous writer from one who may just be great or may just be prosperous.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

I agree with that, though with the qualification that "pandering" is in the eye of the beholder. There are many places, perhaps almost in every play, that one can say he is pandering. It's what else you do around it that separates the great and prosperous writer from one who may just be great or may just be prosperous.

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I think the whole starving artist bit is a manufactured poetic trope. Think of how Tasso was presented in the 19th century - both Byron and Goethe writing of him as if he was some misunderstood artist whose own age couldn't appreciate his genius - hardly the case.

Now if you look at those two authors, they try to manufacture such identities - Byron plays the misunderstood wanderer, but lets be honest, what poet ever had such a reputation in their own life? Byron was the most accepted writer of the time period, and along with Longfellow and Pope, probably of all time in English.

Goethe too was well loved - but think about Werther, or Tasso, or whatever - the character seems central to his understanding of his times.

I think Lionel Trilling analyzed it best in Sincerity and Authenticity - 19th century thought was essentially controlled by this concept of the sincere, to the point where the starving, sincere, passionate artist collided with poetry, creating the romantic image that we still see poets as.

As for Eliot - I suspect he himself had legitimate doubt - one of my professors who is an Eliot specialist (and don't go ranting about new post-modern thinkers now, the woman is nothing but) suggests that only religion seems to have given him any sense of confidence - if he is elitist, the concept of the Wasteland seems to me to embody the destruction of that elite idea - it is strangely in Sanskrit and mystical writings that had only just been translated from the Spanish that he seems to have found any closure.

His whole poetic identity seems to be that poet in transition who lacks confidence is in the future, and is plagued by uncertainty - I suspect that is something true - an interesting critical work by Balachandra Rejan entitled The Overwhelming Question suggests that his whole poetic identity and career is based around the question of "what is man's relationship to the universe, and what does all this mean?" or something along those lines.

I don't like reading too much into Prufrock as autobiography, but I suspect on some level even there Prufrock and Eliot sort of collide, despite their differences - the Wasteland Eliot seems to me to be the least stable - indeed he seems to have been so plagued by his own uncertainty and the destruction of what I think he saw as "Western culture", in the sense that Wagner constructed in the burning of Valhalla at the end of the Ring, seems to have shaken him to the brink of mental instability.

In truth, pound himself seems to have been the reason the work actually solidified at all - supposedly the manuscript is quite literally a heap of broken images - that's why before I emphasized Pound's role - Eliot, from my understanding, wasn't mentally stable enough to finish the poem.

Now, the Eliot of Four Quartets seems more stable, and to me only because of Christianity. His treatment of Dante too seems to change, moving outside of Inferno into Purgatorio and Paradiso. The closing lines of Little Gidding hint at a final sureness in Eliot that he seems to only have been able to get at that point, with the culmination in the meeting between the Fire and the Rose in the last section, it seems that he finally found a suitable answer to his "overwhelming question." That is, that all of this destruction has a purpose, as it leads to the moment beyond time, in the infinite of Paradise.


The Eliot of the Wasteland is very different though - the whole poem is so uncertain of itself, even in the end. The closing lines to me gesture to a blank transition - there is the word, but things sort of die off, without closure. That to me is the haunting thing about the Wasteland - that it just swallows itself, and never goes beyond - it remains. The poem is never certain, is always intense, and is always overwhelming, in that one can never seem to completely control it - one cannot completely understand it, one cannot completely grasp what it all means - the whole thing is caught up in itself, and essentially eats the reader up with it in the destruction - in the space of nothingness, the Unreal city of uncertainty, and no meaning.

Your professor sounds quite knowledgable. I'm not against contemporary critics, only those that try to deconstruct social issues out of thin air. The Wasteland is a bit unstable. Is it intentionally so or was that the period Eliot was sufferring a nervous breakdown? Perhaps it was inspired from his emotional problems, but I tend to think it was intentionally so. The notes he provides seems to indicate a conscious mind at work with a purpose. However he came about it, and with Pound's editing, it turned out exceptional.

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Originally Posted by Virgil

Your professor sounds quite knowledgable. I'm not against contemporary critics, only those that try to deconstruct social issues out of thin air. The Wasteland is a bit unstable. Is it intentionally so or was that the period Eliot was sufferring a nervous breakdown? Perhaps it was inspired from his emotional problems, but I tend to think it was intentionally so. The notes he provides seems to indicate a conscious mind at work with a purpose. However he came about it, and with Pound's editing, it turned out exceptional.

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The finished product is more stable than the fragments - essentially Pound rebuilt the thing out of literally almost unconnected bursts of poetry - the five-section structure that perhaps is the most significant structural scheme in Eliot's career is indeed Pound's - the poem itself seems grabbed out of his mental instability, or at least suggests it - from what I understand, it is almost by fluke that the poem emerged at all, only because of Pound's insistence and dedication to it, because he somehow saw something in it that, I am told, everybody else would probably have discarded as insane nonsense.

His whole poetic identity seems to be that poet in transition who lacks confidence is in the future, and is plagued by uncertainty - I suspect that is something true - an interesting critical work by Balachandra Rejan entitled The Overwhelming Question suggests that his whole poetic identity and career is based around the question of "what is man's relationship to the universe, and what does all this mean?" or something along those lines.

I think we need to remember that 4 years previously, the Great War had just ended, and the carnage had become visible. Anyone with the problems Eliot had at this time would no doubt have felt that the world had become a wasteland.

As for Eliot - I suspect he himself had legitimate doubt - one of my professors who is an Eliot specialist (and don't go ranting about new post-modern thinkers now, the woman is nothing but) suggests that only religion seems to have given him any sense of confidence - if he is elitist, the concept of the Wasteland seems to me to embody the destruction of that elite idea - it is strangely in Sanskrit and mystical writings that had only just been translated from the Spanish that he seems to have found any closure.


This is undoubtedly true, as his Catholic conversion illustrates, but the inclusion of Asian thought stems from his interest in Buddhim, for which there are examples in the poem. Eliot felt that Buddhism in the West lacked the necessary tradition, at that time, to support his spirituality, and he was no doubt correct.

The finished product is more stable than the fragments - essentially Pound rebuilt the thing out of literally almost unconnected bursts of poetry - the five-section structure that perhaps is the most significant structural scheme in Eliot's career is indeed Pound's - the poem itself seems grabbed out of his mental instability, or at least suggests it - from what I understand, it is almost by fluke that the poem emerged at all, only because of Pound's insistence and dedication to it, because he somehow saw something in it that, I am told, everybody else would probably have discarded as insane nonsense.


I guess it's about how much importance you give to Pound and his influence on the poem, which is important. In the end he advised Eliot with effect, but without Eliot's lines there would be no poem, not the other way around. If he had sat on it, Eliot would no doubt have crafted it and changed the message, as he changed his attitude into the twenties.

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Originally Posted by JBI

The finished product is more stable than the fragments - essentially Pound rebuilt the thing out of literally almost unconnected bursts of poetry - the five-section structure that perhaps is the most significant structural scheme in Eliot's career is indeed Pound's - the poem itself seems grabbed out of his mental instability, or at least suggests it - from what I understand, it is almost by fluke that the poem emerged at all, only because of Pound's insistence and dedication to it, because he somehow saw something in it that, I am told, everybody else would probably have discarded as insane nonsense.

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Agreed. :)

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Originally Posted by Paulclem

I guess it's about how much importance you give to Pound and his influence on the poem, which is important. In the end he advised Eliot with effect, but without Eliot's lines there would be no poem, not the other way around. If he had sat on it, Eliot would no doubt have crafted it and changed the message, as he changed his attitude into the twenties.

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A few weeks ago I bristled when JBI sasid that Pound added lines. That was wrong, but I do think as editor Pound greatly influenced the work. I don't think the work would be as solid without Pound. But essentially the work is the authors. Editorsd today have lots of inpact on writer's works, but then never get any credit. They make suggestions to the author. The author ultimately decides.

I still maintain that Pound added lines - reworking and changing the wording and breaking up of words to create something beyond the original purpose is clearly, in my opinion, adding lines - the fourth section is almost all Pound in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by JBI

I still maintain that Pound added lines - reworking and changing the wording and breaking up of words to create something beyond the original purpose is clearly, in my opinion, adding lines - the fourth section is almost all Pound in my opinion.

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I've never seen that claimed anywhere. Editing and structuring is not adding lines, though Pound has always been rightly credited for his input. It made a better poem than previously -there's no doubt about that.