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Oct 12, 2022 · Read the full text of Eliot's modernist masterpiece, a poem that explores the spiritual and cultural wasteland of post-World War I Europe. The poem is divided into five sections, each with its own themes, images, and references.
The Waste Land is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important English-language poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry.
- T. S. Eliot
- 1922
A comprehensive guide to Eliot's modernist masterpiece, a dramatic monologue that explores the terror, futility, and alienation of modern life. Learn about the poem's themes, symbols, poetic devices, form, and context with LitCharts.
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It is difficult to tie one meaning to ‘The Waste Land‘. Ultimately, the poem itself is about culture: the celebration of culture, the death of culture, and the misery of being learned in a world that has largely forgotten its roots. Eliot wrote it as a eulogyto the culture that he considered to be dead; at a time when dancing, music, jazz, and othe...
Part One: Stanza One
Immediately, the poem starts with the recurring imagery of death: ‘April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain.’ Note the cadence of every –ing ending to the sentence, giving it a breathless, uneven sort of reading: when one reads it, there is a quick-slow paceto it that invites the reader to linger over the words. The use of the word ‘winter’ provides an oxymoronic idea: the idea that cold and death c...
Stanza Two
Here is another of Eliot’s allusions, ‘son of man/ you cannot say or guess’, which is directly lifted from The Call of Ezekiel in the ‘Book of Ezekiel’. The religious allusion could be considered a response to the vast technological advancements of the time, where science was taking great leaps; however, the spiritual and cultural sectors of the world were desolate. ‘A heap of broken images’ shows the fragmented nature of the world and the snapshots of what the world has become to further pin...
Stanza Three
Cleanth Brooks writes: “The fortune-telling of “The Burial of the Dead” will illustrate the general method very satisfactorily. On the surface of the poem the poet reproduces the patter of the charlatan, Madame Sosostris, and there is the surface irony: the contrast between the original use of the Tarot cards and the use made by Madame Sosostris. But each of the details (justified realistically in the palaver of the fortune-teller) assumes a new meaning in the general context of the poem. The...
From the Modernism Lab at Yale University: “Eliot’s Waste Land is I think the justification of the ‘movement,’ of our modern experiment, since 1900,” wrote Ezra Pound shortly after the poem was published in 1922. T.S. Eliot’s poem describes a mood of deep disillusionment stemming both from the collective experience of the first world war and from E...
A comprehensive guide to the modernist masterpiece by T.S. Eliot, with summary, themes, poetic form, and allusions. Learn how the poem explores the death of culture, the search for meaning, and the fragmented modern world.
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- 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.
- A Game of Chess. The Chair she sat in, like a burnished thone, Glowed on the marble, where the glass. Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines. From which a golden Cupidon peeped out.
- The Fire Sermon. The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf. Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind. Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.
- 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.
Learn about T. S. Eliot's epic poem The Waste Land, a modernist masterpiece that depicts the spiritual and cultural decay of post-World War I Europe. Explore the poem's structure, themes, symbols, and sources with SparkNotes.
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Text of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot with annotations, references, map, and Eliot's notes.
