T.S. Eliot

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T.S. Eliots The Waste Land

• Melanie Czerwinski

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Background

• Eliot was influenced by World War I, which
  impacted themes of the poem
• The poem is split into five sections The Burial
  of the Dead, A Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon,
  Death by Water, and What the Thunder Said
• Does not follow epic poem
• structure exactly, but for a purpose

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._S._Eliot
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Plot

• No exact plot, unlike other epic poems
• The waste land is without water and is
  presented as barren, but people still live in it

http//www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/somme/newfoundlan
d.html
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Characters

• No main character
• Characters are presented in the poem mostly
  through vague conversations, and some are
  nameless
• Used to show what life in the waste land is like
• Controversial characters

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Characters - Tiresias

• Speaker in The Fire Sermon
• Blind prophet that appears in Greek tragedies
• Hermaphrodite

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias
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Epic Elements Begins in media res

• When the poem begins, the waste land itself is
  already established and is under brown fog
  (Eliot, 1922, p. 2671)
• The poem begins after World War I, and focuses on
  the aftermath
• However, it does not focus on a tale in this
  aftermath, like other epic poems

http//www.ww1battlefields.co.uk/images/mud.jpg
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Epic Elements Vast Setting

• The Waste Land references Europe as a whole, with
  focuses on England (specifically London) and
  Germany
• Through the perspectives of different speakers,
  the reader can never be sure of where they are,
  making the setting feel even larger

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Epic Elements Mythology References

• Many epic poems reference mythology in a more
  direct way than The Waste Land
• Mythological beings are present, are treated as
  if they once existed, or are seen through divine
  intervention
• Tiresias is the only figure of mythology that is
  truly present

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Epic Elements Mythology References

• Eliot uses mythology as a means of symbolism
• The Burial of the Dead
• You gave me hyacinths first a year ago
• They called me the hyacinth girl.
• Yet, when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth
  garden
• Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
• Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
• Living nor dead, and I knew nothing.
• (Eliot, 1922, p. 2616)

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Epic Elements Mythology References

• Hyacinth was the name of a young man loved and
  accidentally killed by Apollo in Greek mythology
  (Greenblatt, 2006, p. 2616)

http//sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyakinthos
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Epic Elements (Lack of) Epic Hero

• The Waste Land has no epic hero
• Absence of a hero in the poem is just as
  important as having a hero in a traditional epic
  poem
• Shows lack of hope
• Hero could not portray cultural values because
  there are no values in the waste land
• Hero could not descend because the waste land is
  so disconnected

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Deconstruction and Modernization

• Eliot neglecting or bending core elements of epic
  poetry is intentional
• Epics are an ancient genre of poetry
• Eliot, a modernist, took aspects of an epic and
  changed them to fit what he wanted to express
• More practical or realistic in comparison to
  traditional epics

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Themes

• Sexuality
• Tiresias forms bridge between man and woman
• Hyacinth girl
• In Burial of the Dead
• In the original text, the hyacinth girl was
  male (Miller, 1998) I remember The hyacinth
  garden. Those are pearls that were his eyes,
  yes!

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Themes

• Damage to Society/Humanity
• In context with World War I influences, the waste
  land came to be because of human action
• The waste land is an unreal city, under brown
  fog (Eliot, 1922, p. 2617)
• Humans are forced to live in
• the waste land, and
• characters act detached
• from their surroundings

http//fineartamerica.com/featured/world-war-i-bat
tlefield-granger.html
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Conclusion

• Eliot set to show the effects of World War I
  through a modern technique
• He took an old genre and renewed it to set it
  apart from the writing of other authors