Search results
A good place to start with an analysis of The Waste Land is to examine the importance of literary allusion. Eliot’s poem draws on a vast number of literary and religious texts and traditions. In addition to this, there is what is called the ‘mythic method’: Eliot’s use of a mythic narrative or structure.
Death in life/living death. From the poem’s epigraph onwards, the idea of a living death is established as one of the key themes of The Waste Land. The epigraph is from Petronius’ scurrilous Roman novel, Satyricon. The speaker sees the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a cage or bottle, and when he asks her what she wants, the Sibyl replies, ‘I ...
Sep 8, 2020 · Remove Ads. In 1922, T.S. Eliot, an American living in England, published The Waste Land, widely viewed as perhaps the greatest and most iconic poem of the 20th century. Virginia Woolf recognized its power immediately, praising it for its “great beauty and force of phrase: symmetry and tensity.”. And yet, as nearly a hundred years’ worth ...
- Female
- Poetry Analyst
- 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.
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.
Overview. By any measure—influence, scope, durability, reputation—T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” published in 1922, stands as the defining English-language poem of the 20th century. No other single poem is more widely read, more widely quoted, more widely imitated, or more widely interpreted. The poem itself—notoriously difficult ...
People also ask
Is the Waste Land a good book?
What is the theme of the Waste Land?
Is the Waste Land a defining English-language poem of the 20th century?
Why was the Waste Land a great poem?
Is the Waste Land a modernist poem?
Who wrote The Waste Land?
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 ...
