Journal “The Waste Land”
This is one of T.S Eliot’s most famous works. I found this poem very difficult to read which may be due to Eliot’s use of allusions, language and reference to other works, but I will try to pull out some meaning that I get from it. The part I will generally concentrate on is the first - the burial of the dead. Almost every line in Part I has a cross-reference to either a biblical story, the season (lines 1, 18, 61)….
April is the cruellest month, breeding
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn
Vegetation (i.e. lines 1, 19, 35, and 71)…
April is the cruellest month, breeding
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden
or the time (and the passing of it; i.e. lines 1, 11, 18, 28, 29, 61, 67, 68)
April is the cruellest month, breeding
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
and many more such as memories (i.e. lines 3, 6, 13, 35, 70)…
Memory and desire, stirring
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
rain and royalty. An example of an allusion Eliot uses can be seen in line 49, “Here is Bellandonna, the Lady of the Rocks” which is likely an allusion to Mona Lisa.
Even the title of the poem suggests symbolism. The Waste Land encountered by the knights (from King Arthur’s court) on the quest for the Holy Grail is the wasteland of the past. Jessie L. Weston’s From Ritual to Romance was his source and inspiration for the poem. The wasteland of Eliot’s time was Post World War I. Literally, the battlefields of France where the war was fought. The French and the British against the Germans were there was a muddy wasteland, planted liberally with corpses. Figuratively, post WWI Europe is a spiritual and emotional Waste Land. Many people lost their faith in Christianity after the war because they couldn't reconcile the idea of a benevolent, loving god with mass slaughter. Emotionally, people were shattered: nothing in history had prepared them for the sight of so much death; the Industrial Revolution created armaments capable of killing masses in seconds.
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:rbdg0n5dH_QJ:ftp.ccccd.edu/andrade/britlit/eliot/waste1.html
April is the cruellest month, breeding
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn
Vegetation (i.e. lines 1, 19, 35, and 71)…
April is the cruellest month, breeding
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden
or the time (and the passing of it; i.e. lines 1, 11, 18, 28, 29, 61, 67, 68)
April is the cruellest month, breeding
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
and many more such as memories (i.e. lines 3, 6, 13, 35, 70)…
Memory and desire, stirring
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
rain and royalty. An example of an allusion Eliot uses can be seen in line 49, “Here is Bellandonna, the Lady of the Rocks” which is likely an allusion to Mona Lisa.
Even the title of the poem suggests symbolism. The Waste Land encountered by the knights (from King Arthur’s court) on the quest for the Holy Grail is the wasteland of the past. Jessie L. Weston’s From Ritual to Romance was his source and inspiration for the poem. The wasteland of Eliot’s time was Post World War I. Literally, the battlefields of France where the war was fought. The French and the British against the Germans were there was a muddy wasteland, planted liberally with corpses. Figuratively, post WWI Europe is a spiritual and emotional Waste Land. Many people lost their faith in Christianity after the war because they couldn't reconcile the idea of a benevolent, loving god with mass slaughter. Emotionally, people were shattered: nothing in history had prepared them for the sight of so much death; the Industrial Revolution created armaments capable of killing masses in seconds.
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:rbdg0n5dH_QJ:ftp.ccccd.edu/andrade/britlit/eliot/waste1.html