“The Waste Land” is one of the most important and influential poems of the 20th century. Written by T.S. Eliot and published in 1922, the poem is noted for its fragmented, nonlinear narrative, extensive use of allusion, and exploration of a variety of themes, including disillusionment, despair, and the quest for redemption.
Thomas Stearns Eliot, T.S. Eliot
Here is an analysis of key elements of the poem:
Structure: “The Waste Land” is divided into five sections: “The Burial of the Dead,” “A Game of Chess,” “The Fire Sermon,” “Death by Water,” and “What the Thunder Said.” Each section presents a different scene and perspective, contributing to the overall sense of fragmentation and dislocation.
Allusions: The poem is filled with allusions to a wide range of literary, mythological, and religious texts, including the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Shakespeare’s “Antony and Cleopatra,” and the Hindu Upanishads. These allusions serve to create a dense tapestry of cultural references and underscore the poem’s themes of disillusionment and despair.
Language: Eliot’s language in “The Waste Land” is complex and multilingual, featuring phrases in several languages including English, Latin, Italian, German, and Sanskrit. This not only adds to the poem’s sense of fragmentation but also reflects the linguistic diversity and complexity of modern life.
Themes: One of the central themes of “The Waste Land” is the spiritual and cultural barrenness of the modern world, symbolized by the “waste land” of the title. Eliot presents a world that is drained of meaning, purpose, and vitality, a stark contrast to the richness and coherence of the classical and religious traditions alluded to throughout the poem. Yet despite this despair, the poem also suggests the possibility of redemption and rebirth, as seen in the final section’s references to rain and the Hindu god Shiva, who is associated with destruction and regeneration.
Context: “The Waste Land” reflects the disillusionment and trauma of the post-World War I era, a time marked by widespread social, cultural, and political upheaval. The war’s unprecedented violence and destruction led many to question long-held beliefs about progress, order, and meaning, a crisis of faith that Eliot explores in the poem.
“The Waste Land” is a challenging poem that requires careful reading and interpretation. Its use of allusion, fragmentation, and multiple perspectives makes it a key example of modernist literature and a seminal text in the study of 20th-century poetry.
Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: άποθανεîν θέλω.’
For Ezra Pound
il miglior fabbro.
I. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
‘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,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.
Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: ‘Stetson!
‘You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.
And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;
Departed, have left no addresses.
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . .
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
But at my back in a cold blast I hear
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.
A rat crept softly through the vegetation
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank
While I was fishing in the dull canal
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse
Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck
And on the king my father’s death before him.
White bodies naked on the low damp ground
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,
Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year.
But at my back from time to time I hear
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter
And on her daughter
They wash their feet in soda water
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!
Twit twit twit
Jug jug jug jug jug jug
So rudely forc’d.
Tereu
Unreal City
Under the brown fog of a winter noon
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
‘Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.’
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smooths her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.
‘This music crept by me upon the waters’
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.
O City city, I can sometimes hear
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,
The pleasant whining of a mandoline
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls
Of Magnus Martyr hold
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
The river sweats
Oil and tar
The barges drift
With the turning tide
Red sails
Wide
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.
The barges wash
Drifting logs
Down Greenwich reach
Past the Isle of Dogs.
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Elizabeth and Leicester
Beating oars
The stern was formed
A gilded shell
Red and gold
The brisk swell
Rippled both shores
Southwest wind
Carried down stream
The peal of bells
White towers
Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
‘Trams and dusty trees.
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.’
‘My feet are at Moorgate, and my heart
Under my feet. After the event
He wept. He promised a ‘new start.’
I made no comment. What should I resent?’
‘On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.
My people humble people who expect
Nothing.’
la la
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning
IV. Death by Water
Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
V. What the Thunder Said
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
If there were water
And no rock
If there were rock
And also water
And water
A spring
A pool among the rock
If there were the sound of water only
Not the cicada
And dry grass singing
But sound of water over a rock
Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
But there is no water
Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?
What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of maternal lamentation
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth
Ringed by the flat horizon only
What is the city over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air
Falling towers
Jerusalem Athens Alexandria
Vienna London
Unreal
A woman drew her long black hair out tight
And fiddled whisper music on those strings
And bats with baby faces in the violet light
Whistled, and beat their wings
And crawled head downward down a blackened wall
And upside down in air were towers
Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours
And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.
In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder
DA
Datta: what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider
Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor
In our empty rooms
DA
Dayadhvam: I have heard the key
Turn in the door once and turn once only
We think of the key, each in his prison
Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison
Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
DA
Damyata: The boat responded
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient
To controlling hands
I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih
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More detailed Analysis:
“The Waste Land” is a complex, challenging poem that offers a rich exploration of the disillusionment and despair of the modern world. Its innovative techniques and dense network of allusions make it a rewarding, though difficult, work to study and interpret. Lets see some more attributes:
Voices and Characters:
“The Waste Land” is composed of many different voices, including those of mythological characters like Tiresias, a blind prophet of Thebes who embodies both male and female perspectives, and contemporary figures like a despondent woman in a pub or a London clerk. The use of many disparate voices contributes to the fragmented nature of the poem, reflecting Eliot’s view of a modern world that lacks a unified, coherent perspective.
Modernist Techniques:
Eliot employs a number of modernist techniques in “The Waste Land,” such as stream of consciousness, radical juxtaposition, and allusion. These techniques serve to disrupt traditional narrative structures, mirroring the dislocation and uncertainty of the modern world.
Critique of Modern Society:
Through its vivid and often bleak imagery, “The Waste Land” offers a critique of modern society, which Eliot depicts as spiritually empty and morally bankrupt. The poem’s references to sexual dysfunction and failed relationships reflect Eliot’s view of a world that has lost its ability to connect meaningfully with others and with the divine.
Use of Myth:
Eliot draws on a range of mythological sources, including the myth of the Fisher King, an impotent ruler whose infertility has caused his kingdom to become a wasteland. This myth serves as a metaphor for the spiritual and cultural barrenness Eliot perceives in the modern world. At the same time, the myth’s promise of eventual renewal offers a glimmer of hope for redemption and rebirth.
Influence of Ezra Pound:
The poem’s final form was heavily influenced by Eliot’s friend and fellow poet Ezra Pound, who helped edit the manuscript. Pound’s editing led to a more fragmented and allusive work, contributing to the poem’s status as a defining text of modernist literature.
Innovative Form:
The fragmented structure and shifting perspectives of “The Waste Land” were groundbreaking at the time of its publication. The poem forgoes a single, linear narrative in favor of a collage of voices and scenes. This innovative form embodies the disintegration of traditional narratives and structures that Eliot saw in the modern world.
Epigraph:
The poem’s epigraph, which translates as “I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said, ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she replied ‘I want to die,'” sets the tone for the despair and longing for release that pervades the poem. The Sibyl, a figure from Greek mythology who was granted eternal life but not eternal youth, is a symbol of futile endurance and weariness.
Musicality:
Despite its fragmented structure and challenging content, “The Waste Land” is notable for its musical qualities. Eliot’s use of meter, rhyme, and alliteration gives the poem a rhythmic, melodic quality, lending a sense of coherence and unity to the disparate elements of the poem.
Vision of London:
In “The Fire Sermon,” Eliot presents a stark vision of modern London as a sterile, soulless place. His references to the River Thames and St. Magnus Martyr, among other landmarks, situate the poem in a specific urban landscape, while his allusion to the myth of the rape of Philomela adds a layer of sexual violence and exploitation to this bleak urban tableau.
Influence of Eastern Religions:
While “The Waste Land” draws heavily on Western literary and cultural traditions, it also reflects Eliot’s interest in Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism and Hinduism. The Buddha’s Fire Sermon, which advocates detachment from earthly desires, and the Hindu god Shiva, both destroyer and restorer, figure prominently in the poem.
Quest for Meaning:
Despite its bleakness, “The Waste Land” can be seen as a quest for meaning and wholeness in a broken world. Its final section, “What the Thunder Said,” ends with the Sanskrit word “Shantih,” or peace, suggesting the possibility of reconciliation and healing.
