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The Waste Land Summary & Analysis. T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is considered one of the most important poems of the 20th century, as well as a modernist masterpiece. A dramatic monologue that changes speakers, locations, and times throughout, "The Waste Land" draws on a dizzying array of literary, musical, historical, and popular cultural ...
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- 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.
- II. A GAME OF CHESS. The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne, Glowed on the marble, where the glass. (…) Spread out in fiery points.
- III. THE FIRE SERMON. The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf. Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind. (…) But at my back in a cold blast I hear.
- IV. DEATH BY WATER. Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell. And the profit and loss.
The Waste Land, first published in 1922, is arguably the most important poem of the whole twentieth century. It remains a timely poem, even though its origins were very specifically the post-war Europe of 1918-22. Written by T. S. Eliot, who was then beginning to make a name for himself following the publication (and modest success) of his ...
Jul 4, 2020 · Mr. Eliot uses the Waste Land as the concrete image of a spiritual drouth. His poem takes place half in the real world—the world of contemporary London, and half in a haunted wilderness— the Waste Land of mediaeval legend; but the Waste Land is only the hero’s arid soul and the intolerable world about him.
Mar 6, 2024 · At its core, “The Waste Land” grapples with themes of disillusionment, spiritual emptiness, and cultural decay. Through motifs such as drought, death, and fragmentation, Eliot paints a bleak portrait of a civilization in decline. Yet, amidst the desolation, glimmers of hope and redemption emerge, offering glimpses of renewal and transcendence.
The point de repère, usually and conveniently taken as the starting-point of modern poetry, is the group denominated ‘imagists’ in London about 1910. ... Much of the power of The Waste Land ...
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Summary & Analysis. T. S. Eliot opens The Waste Land with an epigraph taken from a Latin novel by Petronius. The epigraph describes a woman with prophetic powers who has been blessed with long life, but who doesn’t stay eternally young. Facing a future of irreversible decrepitude, she proclaims her longing for death.
