The Waste Land Introduction
(taken from http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~sg5p/Class_notes_3.html)
It's not necessary to get them all, but you should know that the poem is full of allusions to older works. The method is a kind of pastiche, a series of quotes, of fragments. That, in itself, is interesting. What's the rhyme scheme? Who knows? It's irregular, fragmentary. The arrangement of words and sounds is more associative than a regular verse form would allow. (If, in other classes, you've come across "stream of consciousness" writing in a novel, you can make a useful comparison to that.) This style, at the time, was revolutionary--nothing Yeats ever did.
For our ways into "The Waste Land," a good point of departure is to talk more about the radical break that cut widely across cultural and intellectual fields around the turn of the twentieth century (when, by the way, the British Empire covered one-fourth of the earth's surface). From many directions, people had reason to feel "apocalyptic."
* Freud's theories of psychoanalysis emerged in the late 1800s (The Interpretation of Dreams, 1900; The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 1904). His research suggested that all of our outer actions and decisions are based in inner, primitive drives that center on the desire for pleasure. The pleasure principle, with its own independent associative logic, is at odds with the social world of the "reality," but at the same time the pleasure principle is the source of the dreams that make life bearable. In any event, the suggestion that outer realities of human interactions did not mirror inner realities was a deeply disturbing one.
* In science, the world of classical physics was being similarly uprooted. From the time of Newton till the late nineteenth century, scientists had assumed that every part of the universe, from tiny atoms to the stars, was capable of being observed, if only they had the right instruments; and, further, that, once observed properly, they would reveal a systematic and logical structure. But after the structure of the atom as a dense positively charged nucleus, surrounded by many negatively charged electrons, was discovered (1913), new lines of investigation began. Gradually scientists had to acknowledge that the old ways of describing physical activity at these minute levels did not work. For one thing, it seemed that the electrons jumped around the nucleus in ways that were not predictable. Observing an atom, a scientist could say what had happened inside it and could make some reasonably accurate predictions about what might happen in the future, but could not follow what was happening as it happened. Everything became just a matter of "probabilities." Niels Bohr was one scientist who was involved in this work early on; he eventually constructed the theory of "quantum mechanics." Meanwhile, in 1925 Werner Heisenberg came up with something called the "uncertainty principle," which held that two measurements were important--weight (the electronic particle) and speed (its radioactive wave)--but that when you measured one you could not measure the other. Therefore, you could never see the whole picture at once. Although Eliot was writing earlier than 1925, these theories were already being developed and talked about. The radical news that they brought was that ordinary language could not longer claim to represent, in plain terms, what was happening at the level of the atom. The long-held scientific hope of describing in logical linear terms how the universe was organized had to be given up. From now on, all was metaphor, language thinly strung across an abyss.
* The First World War (1914-18) was in itself a near-apocalyptic period. The first war in which all the world's major powers were thrown into conflict, it was also the first war to involve air power (though not sophisticated) and other very advanced technology, such as poison gas. The British lost some 800,000, which amounted to a whole generation of men. ("I had not thought death had undone so many.") No one had ever imagined destruction on this scale.
* With all of this in the background, it is little wonder that the voice of Eliot's poem is fragmented and desperate. The unifying principles of the poem (that is, if they really unify the poem, which is debatable) are ritual, art, and religion. "The Waste Land" is built around the ancient fertility rituals that are the basis for all major religions, including Christianity. It is a land waiting for rain, for spiritual renewal. After the failure of the project of the scientific/philosophical Enlightenment (the rupture in physics, the world war with its affront to rational political deliberation), Eliot seems to want to move forward by turning backward toward a combination ancient and Christian religion.
* Or perhaps he is proposing (think back to "Tradition and the Individual Talent") a science of art? I've been reading a book called Homo Aestheticus (translated: man, the aesthetic animal) that begins with a quote that seems relevant: "A science of art is therefore a far more urgent necessity in our own days than in times in which art as art sufficed by itself alone to give complete satisfaction."--G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art Religion, or art, or both, may provide a way out of the waste land. But Eliot's poem offers no guarantees. Here is a bare outline of "The Waste Land," based largely on the notes that you have in B. C. Southam's Guide to the Selected Poems of T. S. Eliot. This reading should not substitute for your own, but it might help.
"The Waste Land" is symbolic of the whole of western culture. The images are fragmentary, the logic associative--it is a highly suggestive poem. No voice intervenes to tell us where we are; there are only the recurring thematic developments assembled in the form of a collage to achieve a total effect. The works alluded to are in many cases great works of western literary culture--thus in one sense Eliot is demonstrating the way in which the whole culture has suddenly failed to cohere or make sense to itself. But often the allusions are to obscure works (works that would have been obscure even to contemporary audiences). Eliot may have done this as a way of reflecting the sense that the world is so complex that no one can suppose that any one body of readers will share the same cultural knowledge. Possibly the voice(s) of the poem is using deliberately obscure references a way of emphasizing each reader's isolation from the other.
I. The Burial of the Dead Why is April the cruellest month? In part this notion probably has to do with pagan fertility rites, the idea that nothing could be assured about the future until all the proper rituals were performed to bring on the spring. Thus, there would be some sense of trepidation until the spring had really arrived. Another reading is that the man who speaks this part of the poem is perhaps conscious of just how powerless or impotent he is, in this season of spring. Through snatches, we see just how impotent, barren, infertile the world is. The literal description of the waste land reveals that modern man has nothing left to worship. "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." Part I is kind of an overture (if we want to think in musical terms, as Eliot seems to want us to do) in which the themes are laid down. (Including the idea of the brown fog over London. These days when I think about the poem I think about disembodied voices arising out of this brown fog.) The fortune-teller, Madame Sosostris, lays out these themes. But she misses one: she does not see the "hanged man," the sacrificed god, Christ. She does see modern Europeans "walking around in a ring," though. The story of the fisher king, and the story of the quest for the holy grail (see Southam's notes), are both relevant from this point on.
II. A Game of Chess This passage begins and ends with Shakespeare. The woman in the chair like a "burnished throne" is Cleopatra . . . and at the end, the woman closing up the pub echoes a scene from Hamlet in which Ophelia has descended to madness and suicide, "Good night, ladies . . . ." In between, the focus is on the way in which romantic love has descended to an intricate game. The "sylvan scene" of the Cleopatra-like segment abruptly shifts to the story of Philomel, who was raped ("so rudely forced") by a "barbarous king." This allusion is to one of Ovid's Metamorphoses, a classical story about a king named Tereus who raped his sister-in-law and then cut out her tongue to keep her from talking. She was eventually turned into a nightinagle, thus escaping his punishment. But in Eliot's poem, even the pleasant "nightingale" ending is debased: "`Jug Jug' to dirty ears." Next the scene jumps to a contemporary couple, the woman with a case of "bad nerves." Again, sterility seems to be the name of this "game." They are waiting, but for what? Then to the pub scene. Another degenerated conception of love. And perhaps a degenerate form of religion too? the phrase "hurry up please it's time," intended merely to get customers out of the store, is repeated like a liturgy.
III. The Fire Sermon In Buddhist practice, the fire sermon is preached against "lust, anger, envy, and the other passions that consume men" (Southam). More broadly, fire is an ambiguous symbol because it can symbolize either a cleansing and purging or destruction. The nymphs of old are departed; nobody believes in them any more. The Thames is not the same as it was when Spenser wrote "Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song." In the pastiche of images leading up to a return to the Unreal City (which is London and all other great cities of Europe) there's another reference to the rape of Philomel, very abbreviated. Then Tiresias appears, at the "violet hour." (Note: "Prufrock" also takes place at the cocktail hour--a lot of Eliot's poems do. There's something about that transitional state, from day to night, from work day to personal life, that he wants to explore.) Tiresias, the blind prophet who has been both male and female (see Southam), tells a story of yet more devalued sexual relations, the typist's liaison. Note Eliot's poetic technique in this passage. To echo the mechanical way in which this scene unfolds, he uses very regular iambic pentameter--an unusual move for such an irregular poem. Then there's another shift back to fragmentary writing, to scenes that stand in contrast to Elizabethan times (Elizabeth and Leicester are Queen Elizabeth I and her favorite suitor, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester). Within the fragments of the ending there's another echo of the typist. And then the one word, "burning," standing all alone on the page.
IV. Death by Water This section tells of an ancient pagan merchant whose corpse has deteriorated in the sea. The current causing him to rise and fall implies possible regeneration, or hope, for humankind. There is also probably (see Southam) some allusion to Christian baptism, which is a symbolic "death" followed by rebirth.
V. What the Thunder Said Thunder promises rain, regeneration. Two specific symbols suggest Christian renewal: the allusion to Christ's appearance to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the scene of the cock crowing, which can be connected to the story Christ foretold about Peter's betrayal. More broadly (remember "The Dreaming of the Bones"), the cock is a symbol of the coming of morning, thus of hope. "These fragments I have shored against my ruins." Perhaps at the end we can find some order emerging out of the chaos. But that end is not the end, after all: it breaks down one more time ("Hieronymo's mad againe") before concluding. But then in another twist of the paradox, it does conclude with a combination prayer and blessing.
The Waste Land Overview II
(Note: I'm not sure of the source of this, but you may find it helpful.)
Eliot's The Waste Land, has become the poem of the twentieth century.
Although published in 1922, it still has not lost any of its power to
inspire, to intrigue, to puzzle and even to infuriate readers. There is no
doubting the difficulty of the poem, yet it repays continual rereading and
research. For what the poem offers is little short of an epochal insight
into the modern world, the waste land of the poem's title, a world in which
older certainties have disappeared, a world of urban blight, of death and
destruction, of meaningless relationships, and of a profound absence of
spiritual, cultural and social assurances. In the poem's passage through
this waste land we are shown various snapshots of a "dead" world, yet we are
also offered tantalising glimpses of both the "life before", and of the
possibility of restoring the world of the waste land once more to wholeness
and fertility.
The poem's difficulties and obscurities are intentional. To read it for the
first time is to be presented with a series of allusions, fragments of texts
and documents, and we struggle in vain for a "key" which will enable us to
see the poem as a whole, to make sense of the total picture. This was part
of Eliot's vision of the modern waste land. In the contemporary world we are
left only with cultural fragments, rubble and artefacts - imagine the scene
of the aftermath of a bombed library or museum. We are unable to reassemble
the pieces together to recreate a whole culture, and to see the rich and
vital relationship between culture and experience. Eliot wants us to
experience that sense of fragmentation for ourselves, and this is why the
poem uses a kind of collage technique - assembling chunks of texts together
in what seems a random and arbitrary way - to recreate this sense of
cultural rubble. Reading through the poem you find references to many of the
key writers in the Western cultural heritage - Shakespeare, Dante, Spenser,
Wagner, the Bible - coupled with occasional references to contemporary
popular culture - the 'Shakespherian Rag', or the 'Mrs. Porter' song in
Section III. There seems little to unify these pieces of textual rubble -
all appears arbitrary, random, disconnected.
However, despite the sense of fragmentation, there are ways in which the
poem is in no sense garbled or chaotic, there are glimpses of a sense of
underlying order and unity. There is, most importantly, Eliot's use of the
'Grail legend' and the story of the 'Fisher King'. In the 'Notes' to the
poem, ('Notes' which at times tend to obfuscate rather than clarify), Eliot
makes much of this, suggesting that the poem draws upon the powerful myth of
the wounded king who must be restored to health before his lands can be
returned to wholeness and fertility once more. In drawing upon this myth
Eliot is suggesting that, deep within the cultural unconscious of our modern
waste land, there are underlying patterns and, furthermore, a sense of
continuity with what has gone before. This is perhaps why the poem, in its
references to previous empires and cultures - Rome, Alexandria, Vienna -
suggests continuities between the contemporary "decline of the west" and the
histories and destinies of previous civilisations. Furthermore, in its use
of myth, the poem suggests that there are still grounds for belief and hope:
in the modern waste land there are no religious or spiritual certainties,
but there is still the possibility of sustaining kinds of religious or
spiritual faith. And ultimately Eliot's concern is spiritual and religious:
in the modern world of the waste land there seems to be little hope of
recovering that sense of deeply rooted faith and belief, yet there are
grounds for hope.
The poem, then, oscillates between despair and hope, and its final tone is
uncertain: we cannot be sure if the journey across the wasteland has been in
vain, or if we have been shown something profound and inspiring by the end.
The poem's final references to 'shantih', the "Peace which passeth
understanding" does suggest a basis for hope, but to get to this we have had
to pass through much which is bleak, despairing, fragmented and apparently
without meaning.
It is easy to understand, therefore, why the poem became so important in the
1920s and 30s: it reproduced, for this generation, a sense of a
shell-shocked culture struggling to rebuild itself after the 1914-18 War, a
"Brave New World" which had seen the emergence of communism in Russia and
China, and the creation of a new urban landscape, a world of anonymity and
alienation. Inter-War literature is packed with references to Eliot's poem,
whether in the literal rubble-strew waste land of The Great Gatsby, or the
mysterious 'ou-boum', the echoes of nothingness, which haunt the Marabar
Caves in Forster's A Passage to India. And, whilst it was profoundly
influential for writers of the 20s and 30s, its influence continues right up
to the present. In terms of its modernist technique it set an agenda which
subsequent poets have had to accept, whether willingly or not. For
contemporary readers also there is much to find in the poem, and it has
retained its hold on the cultural imagination.
The Waste Land was eventually published in October, 1922. As presented it
has five distinct sections or movements. It is important to note, however,
that the poem as originally conceived was two to three times longer, and its
was through the collaboration with the American poet Ezra Pound, between
January and October of 1922, that Eliot revised and reconstituted the final
poem. An examination of the facsimile edition of the poem is extremely
enlightening, because it reveals how much of a "scissors and paste" exercise
went into the final work, and also just how much of an influence Pound had
on the final publication: a number of satirical and comic passages were
excised, and the organisation much more tightly controlled than had been the
case in the original drafts. It is fitting, therefore, that the poem is
dedicated to Pound.
When first published the poem did not have the infuriating end notes which
now accompany published editions of the work: these were added at the
request of the American publisher, and Eliot was ambivalent about how useful
they would be to readers, suspecting that they might distract readers from
the poem itself. Eliot decided, on balance, that they should remain with the
published poem, and it is to these that most readers first turn when looking
for elusive "clues" to the poem's meaning. What the notes do show, however,
is the extent to which it draws upon a wealth of literary and cultural
references.