Passions

Relationships are the basis of human happiness. Love in human relationships is suppose to fill us, and surround us. What happiness can we really have without loving relationships in our lives? Eliot references epic love tales to show his audience destruction, death, and the emptiness relationships cause. In the first section Eliot references Tristian and Isolde. The specific part that is referenced is when Tristian is dying waiting for his love Isolde, but there is no sign of her. Tristian is dying because of Isolde, yet alone awaiting her arrival. This scene shows the audience the destruction, and emptiness relationships can cause. In a dying Tristian is losing his life and Isolde is losing the love of her life to death. This scene is about the destruction and loss love can bring to us. In the next section of the poem Eliot again references epic love tales, myths, and legends. The first line is “The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne.” This line references the first meeting of Cleopatra and Antony. The epic tale of love that also ends in death, and the loss of love. Reading further in the section Eliot again references the legend of Dido, and Aeneas, using the sentence "Flung their smoke into laquearia," as well as referencing the myth of Philomela. This section tells of love stories that don't end happy. All the relationships referenced within the first two sections are full of destruction, loss, death, and sadness. Dido commits suicide, Philomela is raped by her husband's friend, and she also commits suicide. These stories don't hold love and happiness. Eliot portrays relationships that end in pain and sadness. Why portray relationships in this light? In the title of section three is "The Fire Sermon" this a sermon preached by Budda against passions, passions that consume people and prevent their regeneration. The title of the Waste Land's third section could give the audience some insight to why Eliot decides to references the love stories filled with destruction, death, and loss. The relationships Eliot references are full of passions; passions of lust, anger, and envy. These passions push the relationship to destruction, death, loss, and emptiness. Perhaps Eliot was showing his audience that passions do not always lead us down a road of love and happiness, but passions and desires without the guidance of religion can lead to a road of destruction and loss. 

Water, Water Everywhere

One of the images that stands out the most in The Waste Land is water - the lack thereof, the overabundance thereof, and even just as a backdrop to other scenes. If one were to pick out a single image that unites the many disparate pieces of The Waste Land, it would have to be water.

At the very beginning of the poem, water appears as the rain in April, the cruellest month. As discussed in class, Eliot approaches images of death breeding new life with disgust rather than hope, implying that water's life-giving power should not be used to to "[breed] lilacs out of the dead land" or "[stir] dull roots with spring rain." Already, the attitude of Eliot's speaker is complicated; water is passingly mentioned as a bringer of life, but the speaker clearly thinks that bringing life amid death is 'cruel.'

Section III begins with another piece of complicated imagery that includes water. The speaker describes "[wind crossing] the brown land, unheard," and notes several times that "the nymphs are departed," lamenting the decayed state of nature. This scene on the bank of the "Sweet Thames" seems to regard even a lack of pollution as a negative thing; "The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,/Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends,/Or other testimony of summer nights." It seems that, to the speaker, even trash by the riverside would be positive because it would indicate the presence of life. Without this evidence, the river runs on through the "brown land," with nobody stopping to enjoy it. In this post-apocalyptic scene, water seems 'cruel' because it persists among the destruction, reminding the speaker of what life used to be here.

Perhaps the most interesting combination of attitudes toward water appears in section IV and on into the beginning of section V. Picking up from where section I warned "fear death by water," section IV describes (and is titled after) exactly that, depicting Phlebas being picked clean by the sea and warning "you who turn the wheel and look windward" to consider this image. Here, the sea - water in abundance - is terrifying and powerful. In section V, there is "no water but only rock," immediately bringing the reader to just the opposite of section IV. The speaker here describes the lack of water as being so desperate that "one cannot stop or think," before descending into a flowing series of images of what it could be like if only there were water. "But there is no water." In section IV, water is cruel in abundance. In section V, water is cruel in its absence. Again, Eliot combines opposite images into an overall experience that is both confusing and horrifying.

Finally, at the end of the poem, the fisher king "[sits] upon the shore/Fishing, with the arid plain behind [him]," wondering "Shall I at least set my lands in order?" Water appears here at the end of The Waste Land as a backdrop to the fisher king's failed grail quest, there to give the king comfort even as he sits at the edge of a wasteland. The attitude of section III seems to come back in some measure, as the water shows evidence of life, but the life that is here is pathetic, impotent - a failure. The poem almost comes full circle as the water, which should by all means be a positive symbol, appears in this final scene to be very cruel.

The Waste Land

The Wasteland was a response to the fragmentation of Western culture after the end of World War I. After World War I, many European countries were in debt and spiritually exhausted. They thought themselves the pinnacle of civilization, and then they fought a war not for morals, not because one country sought to conquer another, but because of chaos and secrecy, resulting in millions of lives lost horrifically, and the environment destroyed by the war. This can be more clearly seen on page 1325, when Eliot goes on about a rock without water. Water in the Wasteland symbolized many things, from life and death, to spirituality and a necessity for the sustainment of life. Here, it has a more religious feeling as Eliot uses it describe how the spirituality of Western Culture had become dreary and almost in a dying state after World War I. The water can be a symbol for spirituality itself and Eliot makes sure to note in the footnotes that he was referencing a part in the Bible with in which water was referred to as spiritual life. Spirituality was still quite important to Europe back then, especially Britian with it's Church of England headed by their monarch. So the lack of spirituality would be a true dread to British to realize that they had fallen so far, which was perhaps Eliot's point to highlight how with the falling of spirituality in society, so would Western culture begin to collapse.

On page 1321, the bar patrons hold a conversation concerning one of the bar patron's husband coming back from the war and whether or not she had spent the money given to her properly. The whole conversation takes place while the bar is closing and the wife is told that her husband would leave her if he realizes how irresponsible and selfish she was with the money given to her. Her response was that she cared little. Another patron, all of them being friends, hinted at replacing her husband, but not in a devious way. The whole conversation maintains of dreary tone with out enthusiasm, as if the patrons had lost all interest in the conversation despite it pertaining to the husband of the wife and therefore one of their friends. Their dreary and empty conversation is due to the state of mentality that the war has placed the people, and therefore the culture, of Western civilization. Depressed by the war and horrible aftermath, especially debt, the people are beginning to let go of their morals, not out of fun or want, but out of depression. With the loss of morals, the state of mentality, and therefore the culture, of Western civilization will falter further than it already has in a downward spiral. This can be further seen as almost everywhere in the Wasteland, the characters are depressed, such as on the first page of the story, pertaining to the narrator's thoughts on how April is cruel month. These thoughts are a result of the narrators depression and how she wishes everything to be left covered up and not forced into life so that she not feel dead inside by the site of all the life around her while she maintains in depression.

Post-WWI "Waste land"

T.S. Eliot threw so many different fragments into The Waste Land its hard to pick the most prevalent theme. He references the Grail Quest, sterile relationships, and religious texts (as well as everything else) to ultimately progress his response to the fragmentation of Western culture proceeding WWI. 

Eliot frames his Waste Land in "April, the cruellest month" to symbolize the situation European nations were facing post WWI. The Western front- France, Belgium, and England were left in shambles and starting the process of regrowth. Eliot portrays an uncertain tone and questions how to rebuild London, the "Unreal City;" 

"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."

The narrator has a pessimistic view of the future. No shelter, no water, no relief; he is describing a wasteland not filled with life or certainty. One could say he is searching for the fertility of his Nation like a knight on his quest for the Grail. It's hard to connect them to much due to the constant pessimistic tone and the fragmented multi vocal narration but the constant allusions to the Grail Legend hint a search for something. Section III also starts off with lifeless living conditions; "The river's tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf/ Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind/ Crosses the brown land, unhead. The nymphs are departed." There is no life left, no vegetation, no people. Eliot continues to overemphasize the absence of water, life, and happiness. He is clearly referring to nations finding themselves after losing identity of who they are after the war. 


Looking at the last stanza the narrator is sitting "upon the shore Fishing." Fishing for the truth to try and make some kind of sense out of this fragmented time. "Shall I at least set my lands in order?/London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down" I took these lines pessimistically, should I just take care of myself because the society of the past is done. "These fragments I have shored against my ruins;" this line really sounds like a creed sandwiched between fragments. What I took from this was that his poem is fragmented like the world he lives in. Trying to rebuild and advance while also honoring and learning from those before us. I'm not to sure what to make of The Waste Land, but I do know one thing; I have no problem with Britain claiming Eliot as theirs. 

Europe Fragmented

   While every viewpoint concerning the meaning or underlying references in “The Wasteland” can be easily argued, I saw that the fragmentation of European culture as an important theme in T.S. Eliot’s allusive and confusing poem.

   The poem opens with a reference to Bloody April (April, 1917) stating that, “April is the cruellest month…” (1318, ln 1) While altering the first few lines of Canterbury Tales in the above mentioned passage, Eliot is directly subverting expectations of the norm of April and spring as a time of death rather than life. In the same stanza, Eliot brings up the idea of “Winter kept us warm,..” (1318, ln 5), proposing the notion that the winters of war kept the soldiers warm, with the underlying meaning being the soldiers were kept alive. This gives an overall idea into the unsettling concept of an incredibly destabilized and depressing mindset of all of Europe and Western culture. In the second stanza, Eliot states that, “A heap of broken images, where the sun beats…” and in that, he refers to London, and Europe itself, as fragmented and broken. This notion reflects the form in which “The Wasteland”: fragmented and very much broken. Later on in the first section, Eliot writes, “That corpse you planted last year in your garden/Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?” (1319, ln 71) This speaks to the perpetual decay across both London and Europe. The war planted death and unrest, and Eliot is just waiting for that to bring more and more decay onto Europe.

  All throughout the poem, Eliot continues a metaphor focusing on water, or lack thereof. Lines 19-24 in section one first mention, “no sound of water” and lines 331-359 in section 5 continue the them of a lack of water in stating, “What are mountains of rock without water, If there were water we should stop and drink.” Lines 345-357 relate to the constant imagery with a form that reminds the reader of actual water flowing. “The Wasteland” itself lacks water and in the poem, water promises and is a metaphor for rebirth. Europe, after WWI, is looking for rebirth. Looking for a rebirth of society, of culture, of love, of history, of religion and faith. But at the same time, water can bring about death. The fourth section talks about the Phoenician sailor and the decree that he should fear “death by water.” When there isn’t rain or water in a location for a period of time, things start cracking and decaying and dying. To Eliot, this was Europe itself. But at the end of “The Wasteland,” rain comes and suggests the cleansing of sins and misdeeds, bringing about the hope of a new start and a new future to Europe and the people who have been affected by the Great War. 

To Restore: Faith

There are a lot of references to evil and death in this poem, and it's about how something is not right in this land. “The Waste Land,” by T.S. Eliot, is about a devastation which needs to be cleaned and cleared by the sacred holy divine power of the ever illusive Holy Grail. The Holy Grail being refereed to as a salvation from this devastation, is what calls attention to the ever more sweet relief it contrasts to: the devastation. In the end, we're all looking forward to this all being healed and ended by the sweet revelation of hope and reason and understanding that there is way to bring peace to this land. Over the times of devastation, we also see pieces where there is uplifting hope and faith and inspiration for the glory that is: the holy grail: or at least something magic and healing in spirit: we can notice while reading that there are illusions to what he wants to find: such as with water over cracked earth and dry rock, or for a “murmur of maternal lamentation.” (T.S. Eliot, 1325). There are so many illusions to it, the music and the sound in high air, it's not even funny. We find even more where there is voice and moonlight: the beauty that is what holy light we wish to see despite all that is dark. “Tolling reminicient bells that kept the hours and voices singing out of the empty cisterns and exhausted wells.” (T.S. Eliot, 1326).

“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.” Eliot notes that “so many” was in reference to the underworld, where we're seeing his further reference to the theme: that there is something that needs healing. It is unreal because it's foggy. I found that along this journey that T.S. Eliot takes us on, we're finding that there are all sorts of intriguing secrets in the texts like this one where he is referring to death or the horrors of the underworld in his notes. In “The Fire Sermon,” we definitely get an even stronger suggestion that there is mischief afoot, and it is relating to evil (as in the relation earlier to the underworld). He's speaking here of Buddha's sermon against “passions” such as “lust anger, and envy,” which are also known as sins. He also speaks of this rat running around, and it's somewhat symbolic of crime. I'm sure that we're witnessing his further emphasis on the broken land being that it is wrought in crimes and he then further emphasizes more about death. “Musing upon the king my brother's wreck And on the king my father's death before him.” (T.S. Eliot, 1321).

In the end, we're faced with even more of the imagery of the “ruins,” where he states “These fragments I have shored against my ruins why then Ile fit you Hieronymo's mad againe. Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.Shantih shanti shanti.” T.S. Eliot ends his whole piece with this wishing for piece, however, just before this... there is an ever more interesting quest: to understand what he is referencing to... and why. Throughout the poem, T.S. Eliot references many scenes from plays, biblical quotes and even more intriguingly, he's quoting writers/ speakers from several different languages including, Latin, Greek, French and German. It's interesting how he includes reference to Buddhism, the bible, and Greek mythology. What I think T.S. Eliot was trying to do, was to make us all see that there is so much more to tall of this devastation in this land with all of the scenery, we need spirit and faith. Overall, his ending peace chant is notion for peace and especially understanding (where this was in great need), and also prior, he notes this passage from a Spanish play where there is meaning of accommodation. The ultimate quest and search for the holy grail in a land that needs faith and hope and nourishment the most, measures up to an incredible demonstration on how much there is to see, know, and think when it comes to finding hope for restoration, and in faith, despite devastation and darkness.

Life and Death in The Waste Land

I found a theme of “life and death” in section 1, lines 19 through 30, and section 2, lines 127 through 172 in The Waste Land. I noticed that the two passages made mention of a “dry stone no sound of water”, “fear in a handful of dust” and “Hurry up please it’s time!”, along with other references toward death and the fragility of life, such as biblical references and even a reference to Jesus himself as the “Son of man” in line 20 of the first section. The following is my own explanation of this theme.

As one gets older, death crops up more often, and you’re more vulnerable to it as a 70 year old than as a 20 year old. You eventually find a purpose with your life, and hopefully that purpose leads into a satisfying career. Without some sort of fulfillment in life, you’re just “wasting away” until death. In many ways, death itself can be referred to as a “waste land” in this sense. There’s nothing to add meaning to your life – all there is is just you going through the motions. But it's not just that.

Death doesn’t have to be just a physical death; it can be an emotional and spiritual death as well. When you have no purpose or fulfillment in life, it seems as if your spirit is empty, and you are searching for something to replace it. In a sense, the entire piece can be seen in this way: a person is searching for the meaning of life and death, and is trying to make meaning of their sufferings, only to find that this suffering is essentially part of life. Thus is the theme of “life and death” as present in The Waste Land.

Wasteland Blog Post

I decided to pick theme number 2 "The poem is about the sterility or emptiness of human relationships, including but not limited to romantic/sexual relationships." One of the passage I wanted to bring attention to is in passage 2 "A Game of Chess" lines 139-170.  That section talks about a conversation happening in a bar and specifically a woman who does not want to have anymore kids and tries to avoid sexual intercourse with her husband. I think this is a commentary on the theme because it's ironic that the theme is about sterility while we have a woman in the poem who can have kids but just chooses not to have kids and we have another character reference in the poem, the Fisher King, who cannot reproduce but wants to be able to. This relates to modern life due to the fact that there are unfortunate people who cannot have kids and want kids but there are those who are fortunate to have kids but does not want them and chooses methods like abortion. 
The other section I want to bring attention to that supports the theme are lines 249-256. The section talk about how a woman is glad that the sexual intercourse is over because she simply is doing it just to get it over with, but there's not a lot of love involved and we can agree that the relationship seems like a dull one. This really shows the emptiness of human relationships because the speaker of the quote "Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over" is not really connecting with the person she just slept with. It almost seems like a burden to the speaker. We can also make the conclusion that it was rape especially because the other lines in the poem keeps referencing Tereus, a character from another story, who raped Philomela. 

Religion in Waste Land

Reading TS Eliot’s “The Waste Land” has been very difficult for me due to its length and well as complexity of ideas. My group was assigned to represent the poem’s theme being about the fragmentation of Western Culture in the wake of World War 1. Thinking about how this was represented throughout the poem, I came to the conclusion that the poem in its entirety represents religion and the role it plays in life. He introduces the poem in a rather depressing manner, which I believe is a direct response to how he feels about the loss of religious importance in this new coming age.

“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.”

This introduction is striking to the reader because April is a month that is revered as welcoming to new life, the blooming of flowers, and the beginning of spring. He seems disgusted that the lilac’s foundation comes from the dead land. I would argue that he sees people in the society as the Lilacs planting their roots in the dead land. The land is dead because of the lack of religion and Eliot feels that any other foundation besides religion is inadequate for life to be brought about in. As a result, he would rather be in the wintertime, where he is isolated and isn’t forced to see such a disappointment in society.

I was able to find an excellent example of Eliot believing we need to rely on religion (which I originally selected to show the fragmentation of western culture), which was found in the section of the poem entitled “What the Thunder Said.” This passage can be interpreted in many different ways:

“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”

This portion of the poem in definitely my favorite because of how straightforward it was for me to understand. I love the way that Eliot uses the water as a metaphor for what I believe to be, about religion. Basically, what he is saying is that we need water in order to be properly functioning and successful. He attributes the water to life, and without it we are nothing. In this case, the water is representative of religion and God- Eliot is saying that without religion and a faith in god we are nothing. Essentially, this “water” is necessary for us to live whereas the rock will not sustain us. In many different religions God is representative of water, and this is no exception.

Eliot is arguing throughout the poem that we need something such as religion to be able to live a healthy and well-balanced life otherwise it is essentially a “waste land.”

The Waste Land

In groups, our class was assigned a theme to look for while reading T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. My group was assigned the theme of when love is lost, a waste land develops. As a group, we found several passages relating to sterility of man and land. The King Fisher tale is a story of a man who gets stabbed and becomes infertile due to his wound. Coincidentally, his land becomes infertile as well, so he has a knight go out in search of the Holy Grail in order to heal himself. The theme of infertility is present through images throughout the entire poem, where Eliot describes the landscape having brown fog, dried up water, infertile dirt, etc. I tried to understand why Eliot would write about this theme and the best explanation I could come up with was that the battlefields of World War 1 had become so polluted and chemically altered, that it became a wasteland not only geographically, but a wasteland for human life.

Frankly, after reading this poem I was so confused and frustrated from my lack of understanding that I tend to believe another take on it that I heard today. My professor asked the class if we thought that it was possible that T.S. Eliot wrote this poem as a joke, and its only intention was to force the reader to dive deeply into this extremely complex poem for no reason. Due to my lack of understanding, I naturally like and want to believe this take on the poem. I do think that Eliot had the ideas of loss of love, World War 1 and culture being destroyed and other serious themes in mind while writing it, but I think that he thought the whole situation was unfortunate so he wrote a satirical, nonsensical poem reflecting his thoughts on the issue. This theory that this poem is a joke is evident by the countless stories that are mentioned throughout the poem. No common person could possibly be so educated that they can understand Latin and be able to relate to and understand all of the different tales that he refers to. I think that he added his footnotes to make it so the reader has an idea of what Eliot is referring to, but I think that he included so many to make the poem so absurd that nobody would question the amount of work that he put into it. I could see a guy who thinks poorly of the great war writing a poem to his good friend, Ezra Pound, and collaborating on writing a great poem that will trump anyone who reads it. If T.S. Eliot's intentions were to write a poem so obscure that the readers would have such a difficult job understanding it, he accomplished his goal. I am so confused about this poem that I find it humorous that one of the most famous writers of the 20th century pulled a joke on me. If that were the case, I love this poem for its satirical intentions.

Spirituality in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

Spirituality in T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land

            One of the main themes in T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land is spirituality. This theme is most explicitly demonstrated in the first section of the poem, The Burial of the Dead. Eliot makes references to the Bible three times, in lines 20, 23, and 25. The references allude to passages in the Bible in which Ezekial is addressed by God, a preacher speaks about fearing old age, and the blessings of Christ’s kingdom are described (respectively). In the third section of the poem, The Fire Sermon, the biblical citations continue. Eliot writes, “By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept…” (182). This is a reference to Psalm 137, in which the Hebrews yearn to return to their homeland. Eliot includes this to describe how he feels about his current situation— he wishes he could go back to past times. In the last section, What the Thunder Said, Eliot makes a reference to Upanishad, from the Hindu religion. The line translates as “The Peace which passeth understanding”. Eliot is encouraging the reader to live life peacefully and through God. The fact that three sections of The Waste Land contain references to religious works helps to keep a consistent theme and bring the sections together. Even though the stories of each section are all distinct, the spiritual undertone in each one proves that religion is not only a major aspect of the poem, but also should be a major aspect of real life.

Just the description of the waste land itself, throughout the entire poem, can contribute to the theme of spirituality. With its desolate and lifeless appearance, the waste land represents a sort of hell in which man has no meaning; it symbolizes the decline of spirituality in the modern world. The Burial of the Dead contains descriptions of “lilacs out of the dead land” (2), “branches [growing] out of this stony rubbish” (19-20), and “the brown fog of a winter dawn” (61). These images are unappealing and unattractive; Eliot wants the reader to realize the desperate state that the world will be in without religion. This kind of imagery is continued in the The Fire Sermon. Eliot writes of “wind [crossing] the brown land, unheard” (174-175), “the rattle of bones” (186), “a rat creeping softly through the vegetation dragging its slimy belly on the bank” (187-188), and “the river [sweating] oil and tar” (266-267). He intertwines the first three of these images with one of a man crying to further depress the reader and make his point. Although there is slightly more life in these descriptions, the tone still remains hopeless, and Eliot’s goal in affecting the reader is the same. Finally, Eliot ends his poem with What the Thunder Said. In this section, two people are walking together in a stony landscape that contains no water— “Here is no water but only rock / Rock and no water and the sandy road” (131-132). The lack of water is most likely meant to represent an absence of life, because water is the substance that is necessary for all living things. We can attribute the theme of spirituality to this: without religion, there will be no life.