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Skip to content Menu * Poets * Explore the Best Poets * Poet A-Z * Poet Biographies * Poet Quotes * Glossary * Explore * PDF Learning Library * AI Poem Generator * Education * Explore the Best Poems * Poetry Archives * Poem Explorer * Poetry Explained * Support * About * Contact * Request a Poetry Analysis * Charity * Log in * Join Poetry+ I'm feeling unlucky More results... Menu * Poets * Explore the Best Poets * Poet A-Z * Poet Biographies * Poet Quotes * Glossary * Explore * PDF Learning Library * AI Poem Generator * Education * Explore the Best Poems * Poetry Archives * Poem Explorer * Poetry Explained * Support * About * Contact * Request a Poetry Analysis * Charity * Log in * Join Poetry+ THE WASTE LAND BY T.S. ELIOT ‘The Waste Land,’ epitomizing literary modernism, is one of the most important poems of the 20th century portraying its despondent mood in a new form. Read Poem Poetry+ Guide Share Cite ShareCopyXFacebookPinterestWhatsApp T.S. Eliot Nationality: American T.S. Eliot, originally American turned British citizen, is remembered today as a literary critic, poet, and editor. His poems have had a lasting influence on a generation of writers. KEY POEM INFORMATION Unlock more with Poetry+ Central Message: The search for meaning amidst the fragmented postwar modern world Themes: Death, Religion, Spirituality Speaker: Unknown Emotions Evoked: Anxiety, Hope, Hopelessness Poetic Form: Dramatic Monologue Time Period: 20th Century 'The Waste Land,' with its overarching complexity, fragmented structure, and vast allusions, is a masterpiece of literary modernism depicting the mood of its times, including the desolation and hopelessness of the modern human condition. View Poetry+ Review Corner Poem Analyzed by Elise Dalli B.A. Honors Degree in English and Communications T.S. Eliot was no stranger to classical literature. Drawing allusions from everything from the Fisher King to Buddhism, ‘The Waste Land‘ was published in 1922 and remains one of the most important Modernist texts to date. Modernist poetry, beginning in the early 20th century, advocated experimentation and break with traditional writing methods, especially elaborate and structured Victorian poetry. ‘The Waste Land‘ is considered defining poem of literary modernism as it employs experimentation in form while portraying the decadent contemporaneous time instead of Victorian idealism. T.S. Eliot in 90 Seconds: A Brief Dive into His World 0 seconds of 1 minute, 35 secondsVolume 0% Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts Keyboard ShortcutsEnabledDisabled Play/PauseSPACE Increase Volume↑ Decrease Volume↓ Seek Forward→ Seek Backward← Captions On/Offc Fullscreen/Exit Fullscreenf Mute/Unmutem Decrease Caption Size- Increase Caption Size+ or = Seek %0-9 Auto360p720p540p360p270p180p Live 00:00 01:35 01:35 ‘The Waste Land‘ has such vast and complex references that Eliot had to provide end notes to the poem. Some of the mythology used within the poem includes the Hindu Upanishads, Buddhist lore, and the Arthurian Legends woven throughout the narrative, bringing forth several different voices. EXPLORE THE WASTE LAND * 1 Summary * 2 Detailed Analysis * 3 Historical Background SUMMARY 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 eulogy to the culture that he considered to be dead; at a time when dancing, music, jazz, and other forms of popular culture took the place of literature and classics, it must have felt, to Eliot, as though he was shouting into the wind. However, ‘The Waste Land’s merit stems from the fact that it embodies so much knowledge within the poem itself. It serves as a living testimony to the enmeshed pattern of the human spirit and human culture. However, the fragmented writing that Eliot was famous for – see also ‘The Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock‘ – makes the poem a daunting one to analyze. It is split up into five sections, each of which has a different theme at the center of its writing, as well as addendums to the poem itself, which were published largely at the behest of the publisher himself, who wanted some reason to justify printing The Waste Land as a separate poem in its own book. Although not a part of the poem quoted below, the allusions start before that: the poem was originally preceded by Latin epigraphy from ‘The Satyricon’, a Latin fiction written by Gaius Petronius in the late 1st century AD about a narrator, Encolpius, and his hapless and unfaithful lover. The phrase reads, in English, ‘I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said to her, ‘Sibyl, what do you want?’ she replied, “I want to die.” Not a cheery way to start the poem: the oracle Sibyl is granted immortality by Apollo, but not eternal youth or health, and so she grows older and older and frailer and never dies. The meaninglessness of the oracle of Sibyl’s life is a testimony and an allusion to the meaninglessness of culture, according to Eliot; by putting that particular quotation from ‘The Satyricon’ at the start, he encapsulates the very sense of The Waste Land: culture has become meaningless, and dragged on for nothing. Following that quote, there is a dedication to Ezra Pound, “il miglior fabbro.” Originally, ‘The Waste Land‘ was supposed to be twice as long as it was – Pound took it and edited it down to the version that was later published. However, “il miglior fabbro” can also be considered to be an allusion to Dante’s ‘Purgatorio’ (‘the best smith’ writes Dante, about troubadour Arnaut Daniel), as well as Pound’s own ‘The Spirit of Romance’, a book of literary criticism where the second chapter is ‘Il Miglior Fabbro’, translated as ‘the better craftsman’. Although originally written in ink, later versions of the poem included the dedication to Pound as a part of the poem’s publication. In the end notes of ‘The Waste Land,’ Eliot talked about the influence of some texts on the poem stating, “Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the Grail legend: ‘From Ritual to Romance’ (Cambridge). Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston’s book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself ) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean ‘The Golden Bough’; I have used especially the two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.” Discover more T.S. Eliot poems. DETAILED ANALYSIS PART ONE: STANZA ONE > 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. > Winter kept us warm, covering > Earth in forgetful snow, feeding > A little life with dried tubers. > Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee > With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, > And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, > And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. > Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. > And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s, > My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, > And I was frightened. He said, Marie, > Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. > In the mountains, there you feel free. > I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter. 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 pace to 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 can somehow be warming – however, it isn’t the celebration of death, as it would be in other poems of the time, but a cold, hard fact. Winter is the time for normal life to hibernate, to become suspended, and thus the anxiety of change and of new life is avoided. At the time of writing, Eliot was suffering from an acute state of nerves, and it could well be the truth behind the poem that change was something he was actively avoiding. ‘Starnbergersee,’ and its shower of regenerating rain, refers to Countess Marie Louise Larisch’s native home of Munich. The reference to ‘Hofgarten’ also calls back to Munich; it is a garden in the center of Munich, located between the Residenz and the Englischer Garden, and she stands as a symbolic reference to old European values. Marie Louise Larisch’s presence in the poem can be put down for quite a few reasons – after the crushing misery of the First World War, Marie Louise Larisch was a symbol of Old-World Europe, the kind from before the war. The two experiences recounted here could also well be seen as the dualistic nature of the world. Before the war – Marie and her cousin went sledding, exuding a sense of excitement and adventure, ‘in the mountains, there you feel free,’ and then the reference to ‘drank coffee, and talked for an hour,’ which could stand for the post-war world – boring and sterile and emptied of all meaning and value, unlike the pre-war world. The separation of the two stanzas by the German language further emphasizes the idea that, while both are alike, the two worlds remain different from each other – ‘Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch’ means ‘I am not Russian at all, I come from Lithuania, I am a real German.’ This phrase further emphasizes the separation that the reader might also be feeling due to the disruption caused by a different language. STANZA TWO > What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow > Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, > (…) > Looking into the heart of light, the silence. > Oed’ und leer das Meer. 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 pinpoint the emptiness of a world without pillars of culture and religion – a world without meaning and spiritual belief. Eliot himself noted that this is from Ecclesiastes 12, a book within the Bible that discusses the meaning of life and the duty of man to appreciate his life. The references to shadows seem to imply that there is something larger and far greater than the reader skulking along beside the poem, lending it an air of menace and the narrator an air of omnipotence, of being everywhere at once. The German in the middle is from Tristan and Isolde, and it concerns the nature of love – love, like life, is something given by God, and humankind should appreciate it because it so very easily disappears. In Tristan and Isolde, the main idea behind the opera is that while death conquers all and unites grieving lovers, love itself only causes problems in the first place, and therefore it is death that should be celebrated, and not love. The use of it in Eliot’s poem adds to the idea of a welcomed death, of death, needing to appear. Another reference to tragic love and uniting death occurs in the use of the flower ‘hyacinth.’ Hyacinth was a young Spartan prince who caught the eye of Apollo, and in a tragic accident, Apollo killed him with his discus. Mourning his lover, Apollo turned the drops of blood into flowers and thus was born the flower Hyacinth. There are twofold reasons for the reference to Hyacinth: one, the legend itself is a miserable legend of death once more uniting thwarted lovers, and, two, the allusion to homosexuality would have, itself, been problematic. Homosexuality was not tolerated at the time of Eliot’s writing, so he could be attempting to give the silenced a voice by referencing Hyacinth, one of the most obvious homosexual Greek myths. However, to continue with the same theme in the poem, the evidence of love will be lost to death, and there will be nothing more existing. Additionally, the allusions to death also convey the idea of regeneration or rebirth in another form which happens after death (as evident in the case of the Spartan Prince whose death led to the birth of the flower Hyacinth). The stanza ends with another quote from Tristan and Isolde, this time meaning ‘empty and desolate sea.’ STANZA THREE > Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, > Had a bad cold, nevertheless > (…) > Tell her I bring the horoscope myself: > One must be so careful these days. 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. There is then, in addition to the surface irony, something of a Sophoclean irony too, and the “fortune-telling,” which is taken ironically by a twentieth-century audience, becomes true as the poem develops–true in a sense in which Madame Sosostris herself does not think it true. The surface irony is thus reversed and becomes an irony on a deeper level. The items of her speech have only one reference in terms of the context of her speech: the “man with three staves,” the “one-eyed merchant,” the “crowds of people, walking round in a ring,” etc. But transferred to other contexts, they become loaded with special meanings. To sum up, all the central symbols of the poem head up here; but here, in the only section in which they are explicitly bound together, the binding is slight and accidental. The deeper lines of association only emerge in terms of the total context as the poem develops–and this is, of course, exactly the effect which the poet intends.” The Phoenician sailor could be a reference to Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’; in this particular stanza, several images intermesh between water and rock, starting with the allusion to the tempest (water being the symbol used by Eliot for rejuvenation and regeneration) and then moving on to the idea of Belladonna, ‘the lady of the rocks’, i.e., the never-changing and desolate landscape of the Waste land itself. Once more, it moves to water – the ‘man with three staves’ being the representation of the Fisher King, who was wounded by his own Spear and is regenerated through water given to him from the Holy Grail. STANZA FOUR > Unreal City, > Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, > (…) > ‘Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! > ‘You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!” ‘Unreal City’ refers to Baudelaire’s ‘The Seven Old Men’, from Fleurs du Mal. It was written at the time when Paris was considered a decadent, overwrought paradise of science, technology, and innovation, but not very much culture; thus, Paris, in Baudelaire’s writing, takes on a nightmarish landscape. Here, Eliot uses it in much the same effect: a nightmarish landscape that is not quite Paris and is not quite London but is meant to stand in for several places at once. ‘Mylae’ is a symbol of warfare – it was a naval battle between the Romans and Carthage, and Eliot uses it here as a stand-in for the First World War to show that humanity has never changed, that war will never change and that death itself will never change. ‘Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men’ is a paraphrasing of a quote from John Webster’s ‘The White Devil’, a play about the Vittoria Accoramboni murder. In the play, a character named Marcello is murdered, and his mother tearfully implores Flamineo to keep ‘the wolf far thence, that’s foe to men / for with his nails he’ll dig them up again’. If he is dug up again, then his spirit will never find rest, and he will never be reborn – here, Eliot, capitalizing on the quote, changes it so that the attempt to disturb rebirth is seen as a good thing. After all, Eliot is implying, who would want to be reborn in a world without culture? PART TWO: STANZA ONE > 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 > Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. The second part moves on from the description of the landscape – the titular Waste Land – to three different settings and three more different characters. The title is taken from two plays by Thomas Middleton, wherein the idea of a game of chess is an exercise in seduction. Decadence and pre-war luxury abound in the first part of this stanza. The references to ‘throne’ could be attempting to pinpoint to Europe, or England, more specifically, but even without the remits of place, the idea is of pre-war Europe, the seductive and vicious Old World that American writers harped on about in their works. However, the luxury that is written about seems empty. The ‘golden Cupidon’ hides his face, and the reference to jewels, ivory, and glass seems to show an empty wealth – everything that is mentioned in the poem is a symbol of extravagance; however, the fact that it is glass and ivory and jewels seems to suggest a certain fragility in its wealth. Even the colors seem muted, and the light seems to be fading throughout the first stanza, shedding light only for a moment; as we read, the extravagance seems to be withering. ‘Laquearia’ is a type of paneling. The reference to ‘Paradise Lost’ – ‘sylvan scene / The change of Philomel, by the barbarous King’ – can allude to everything that the world has lost since the First World War: innocent soldiers, innocence in general, this sense of nothing every quite being right again. It can also stand for the violent death of culture, given away to the vapidity of the modern world. There is a sense of altogether failure in this section – the references to Cleopatra, Cupidon, Sylvan scenes, and Philomela are references to failed love and to the destruction of the status quo. The description of the woman moves from powerful and strong – her wealth is her shield – to weak, thereby showing again the difference between pre-war and post-war Europe, specifically pre-war and post-war England. Once a noble country, now it is old and doddering, crumbling (‘sad light / a carved dolphin swam’; ‘withered stump of time’). STANZA TWO > “My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me. > Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak. > What are you thinking of? What thinking? What? > I never know what you are thinking. Think.” Here we see the insanity of the woman, thereby symbolizing that all her wealth has not done a thing for her mind, lending the fragmented poem an even bigger sense of fragmentation and giving it a sense of loss, though the reader does not yet know what we have lost. As this was written at the height of spiritualism, one could imagine that it is trying to draw an allusion to those grief-maddened mothers and mistresses, and lovers who contacted spiritualists and mediums to try and come into contact with their loved ones. Alternatively, one can take it as the embodiment of England, trying to reach out to her dead. STANZA THREE > I think we are in rats’ alley > Where the dead men lost their bones. > (…) > And we shall play a game of chess, > Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door. ‘I think we are in rats’ alley/Where the dead men lost their bone’ – is a reference to the First World War again – the trenches were notorious for rats, and the use of this imagery further lends the poem a sense of decay and rot. The stanza causes further fragmentation of the poem, to the point where even the grammar seems to be suffering; ‘Shakespearian Rag’ was a renaming of the ‘Mysterious Rag’, and it is furthermore emphasizing the death of culture for popular, high society dances and popular culture in general. However, it is interesting to note that the poem mentions Shakespeare again – once more, the reader thinks of ‘The Tempest’, a play set on a little island beset by ferocious storms. The lack of purpose and lack of guidance can be considered to be one of the causes of madness and a further descent into fragmentation in the poem. There is a loose sense of time in this particular stanza – from ‘the hot water at ten./ And if it rains, a closed car at four. / And we shall play a game of chess, / Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door’. It lends the poem a sense of suspended animation, as it did in the beginning; however, here, the guideless manner of the people seems to be loosely defined by very small happenings – their days are structured through moments rather than planned out. STANZA FOUR > When Lil’s husband got demobbed, I said, > I didn’t mince my words, I said to her myself, > (…) > Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight. > Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. ‘Lil’ could be a reference to Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who was thrown out of Eden for being too dominant. However, in the poem, it could also be considered that Lil is merely a friend of the narrator’s – a woman who was unfaithful to her husband; here again is referenced the cloying and ultimately useless nature of love (‘And if you don’t give it to him, there’s others will, I said’). This seems to be built upon the idea of sex as the ultimate expression of manliness, a theme that Eliot enjoyed exploring in his works. The fact that the woman hints that there are ‘others who will’ implies that she herself is sleeping with her friend’s husband, however, we cannot be certain of this. This last part of the stanza seems to show the minutiae of the upper class in shoddy lighting – with a hard emphasis on the nature of womanhood and on the trials of womanhood. Lil is ‘only thirty-one’ but looks much older; she took pills to ‘bring it off,’ which we later understand is to induce abortions, and throughout the poem, the other woman attempts to give her advice; however, the irony is that the other woman is, as well, miserable, and wrapped up in her own misery to the point where her advice seems to be a little skewed. Peppered throughout the latter stanza of the poem is the phrase ‘hurry up please its time’ giving a sense of urgency to the poem that is at odds with the lackadaisical way that the woman is recounting her stories – it seems to be building up to an almost apocalyptic event, a dark tragedy, that she is completely unaware of. The last line references Ophelia, the drowned lover of Hamlet, who famously thought ‘a woman’s love is brief’. Therefore, we know for sure that this particular stanza of the poem is referencing sex – the ultimate pleasure for a man and the duty of a woman. Additionally, the poem alludes to the loveless, infertile, and sterile sexual relationships of the decayed modern world. The debased sexual relationships indicate the lack of genuine human connections emphasizing the meaninglessness and spiritual desolation of the postwar world. PART THREE: STANZA ONE > 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 > The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. The line ‘Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song’ is from Spenser’s ‘Prothalamion’, and it alludes to a marriage song. In Spenser’s work, water represents a joyous occasion, which is at odds with its usage in Eliot’s Waste Land. Here, the water once more represents the loss of life – although there is a sign of human living (indicating the possibility of rebirth), there are no humans around. The reference to ‘nymph’ could be a calling back to the overarching idea of sex. STANZA TWO > A rat crept softly through the vegetation > Dragging its slimy belly on the bank > (…) > They wash their feet in soda water > Et, O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole! There is no reason given, ultimately, for the wreckage of the Waste Land; however, following the idea of the Fisher King, we can assume that as the narrator suffers, so too does the world. The world, with the loss of culture, is now a barren Waste Land, and with the onset of wars, has only served to become even more ruined and destroyed. ‘Sweeney and Mrs Porter in the spring’ is a reference to the legend of Diana, the hunting goddess, and Actaeon. Actaeon spied on Diana in the bath, and Diana cursed him to become a stag, who was torn to pieces by his own hounds. Here, Eliot again presents the destruction caused by loveless but lustful sexual relationships. Et, O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole’ and ‘O those children’s voices singing in the dome’, – is French and from Verlaine’s Parsifal, about the noble virgin knight Percival, who can drink from the holy grail (Arthurian legend) due to his purity. It stands in this poem as a criticism of the contemporaneous debased sexuality. STANZA THREE > Twit twit twit > Jug jug jug jug jug jug > (…) > To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel > Followed by a week-end at the Metropole. ‘Mr. Eugenides’ has a dual meaning here – tying back to the merchant in Madame Sosostris’ tarot cards, as well as standing in for the behavior of soliciting gay men for affection. Canon Street Hotel and the Metropole were well known for this sort of behavior among homosexual men, and thus once more, Eliot paints the cheapest possible sight of love. STANZA FOUR > At the violet hour, when the eyes and back > Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits > (…) > Bestows one final patronizing kiss, > And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit… Tiresias is from Greek Mythology, and he was turned into a woman as a punishment by Hera for separating two copulating snakes. In the poem, it just serves, again, as a symbol of the cheapness of sex and affection. The scene that plays out illustrates Eliot’s idea about the death of higher beliefs, such as the idea of romance and love. Note the lack of intimacy evidenced in the description above. STANZA FIVE > She turns and looks a moment in the glass, > Hardly aware of her departed lover; > Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: > “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.” > When lovely woman stoops to folly and > Paces about her room again, alone, > She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, > And puts a record on the gramophone. Again, the stanza contains references to Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’. STANZA SIX > ‘This music crept by me upon the waters’ > And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. > O City City, I can sometimes hear > Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, > The pleasant whining of a mandoline > And a clatter and a chatter from within > Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls > Of Magnus Martyr hold > Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. > > The river sweats > Oil and tar > The barges drift > With the turning tide > Red sails > Wide > To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. > The barges wash > Drifting logs > Down Greenwich reach > Past the Isle of Dogs. > Weialala leia > Wallala leialala > Elizabeth and Leicester > Beating oars > The stern was formed > A gilded shell > Red and gold > The brisk swell > Rippled both shores > South-west wind > Carried down stream > The peal of bells > White towers > Weialala leia > Wallala leialala A reference to Elizabeth I and the First Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley, who were rumored to be having an affair. STANZA SEVEN > “Trams and dusty trees. > I made no comment. What should I resent?” > (…) > O Lord Thou pluckest me out > O Lord Thou pluckest > burning ‘To Carthage then I came’ references Augustine’s journey to overcome his secular and pagan lifestyle. Contrasting with the earlier part of the Fire Sermon, where Buddha was preaching about abstaining, here the poem turns to Western religion – however, regardless of their position, they’re written into the poem with a slightly mocking overtone. PART FOUR: STANZA ONE > 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. > A current under sea > Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell > He passed the stages of his age and youth > Entering the whirlpool. > Gentile or Jew > O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, > Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you. The cycle of rebirth and regeneration is shown: the drowned sailor returns to the water and will be reborn again in time as he has ‘entered the whirlpool’, and thus re-entered the cycle of life. PART FIVE: STANZA ONE > After the torch-light red on sweaty faces > After the frosty silence in the gardens > (…) > We who were living are now dying > With a little patience The final section of the poem opens up with a recounting of the events after Jesus was taken to prison in the garden of Gethsemane and after the crucifixion itself. Notice the almost apocalyptic language used in this part of the description, the way the language itself seems to emphasize the silence through the use of language words – ‘shouting’, ‘crying’, and ‘reverberation’ are all words of noise; however, this section of the poem brings about an almost deathly quiet, and an intermeshing of life and death that makes it difficult for the reader to tell whether the states exist separately or together. ‘He who was living is now dead’ also ties back to the idea of the rebirth sequence. STANZA TWO > Here is no water but only rock > Rock and no water and the sandy road > (…) > From doors of mud-cracked houses > If there were water The apocalyptic imagery continues in the following section of the stanza. Once more, the poem returns to its description of the rock: the barren, desolate Waste Land of life that calls back to the cultural Waste Land that Eliot is so scornful of, the lack of life that corroborates a lack of human faith. Water, the symbol of rebirth and regeneration, is surrounded on all sides by death. STANZA THREE > And no rock > If there were rock > (…) > Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop > But there is no water The stanza seems to have a longing for water and thus leaving the idea of rebirth ambiguous. STANZA FOUR > Who is the third who walks always beside you? > When I count, there are only you and I together > But when I look ahead up the white road > There is always another one walking beside you > Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded > I do not know whether a man or a woman > —But who is that on the other side of you? The hooded figure can be seen as some sort of guardian, an allusion to the Biblical passage where Jesus joins two disciples in walking to the tomb in Sepulchre and a guide through the chaotic mess of the world that is left behind. It is unclear if Eliot is implying that poetry should itself be the guiding principle that all people follow. STANZA FIVE > What is that sound high in the air > Murmur of maternal lamentation > (…) > Vienna London > Unreal Another reference to the total destruction rendered by war – ‘falling towers’ also called the Biblical imagery of the tower of Babylon. STANZA SIX > A woman drew her long black hair out tight > And fiddled whisper music on those strings > (…) > Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours > And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. The line ‘The woman drew her long black hair’ alludes to Medusa and the evil powers humans are attracted to. It again emphasizes sterile, infertile, and almost devilish sexual relationships and connections humans make in the modern world. STANZA SEVEN In this decayed hole among the mountains In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing (…) In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust Bringing rain The cock in the stanza refers to the Bible and specifically to the prelude to the crucifixion and the betrayal of Christ by Peter; the reference ultimately alludes to the underlying idea of rebirth and regeneration as it indicates Jesus’ resurrection. “Bringing rain” also alludes to the cyclic regeneration that nature follows; the stanza exudes subtle hope for the desolate Waste Land through the rebirth, which takes place only after death. STANZA EIGHT > Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves > Waited for rain, while the black clouds > (…) > Gaily, when invited, beating obedient > To controlling hands In this stanza, the landscape transforms from the European Waste Land to the lush jungles of India and the holy Ganges. Empty faith is once more symbolized explicitly by the ’empty chapel’. This can also reference the Chapel Perilous – the graveyard for those who have sought the Holy Grail and failed. STANZA NINE > I sat upon the shore > Fishing, with the arid plain behind me > (…) > Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe. > Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata. > > Shantih shantih shantih In the very last stanza, Eliot hints at the reason for the fragmentation of this poem: so that he could take us to different places and situations. Ruins, no matter where they are, are always ruins, and madness and death will never change, regardless of the difference in place. The imagery of the fisherman sitting on the shore – ‘with the arid plain behind me’ – is a direct allusion to the Fisher King and his barren land. ‘Shall I ate least set my lands in order?’ is a quote from the Bible, from the Book of Isaiah: “Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order: for thou shalt die, and not live”. Michael H. Levenson puts the last stanza into perspective from a linguistic point of view: The poem concludes with a rapid series of allusive literary fragments: seven of the last eight lines are quotations. But in the midst of these quotations is a line to which we must attach great importance: “These fragments I have shored against my ruins.” In the space of that line, the poem becomes conscious of itself. What had been a series of fragments of consciousness has become a consciousness of fragmentation: that may not be salvation, but it is a difference, for as Eliot writes, “To realize that a point of view is a point of view is already to have transcended it.” And to recognize fragments as fragments, to name them as fragments, is already to have transcended them not to a harmonious or final unity but to a somewhat higher, somewhat more inclusive, somewhat more conscious point of view. Considered in this way, the poem does not achieve a resolved coherence, but neither does it remain in a chaos of fragmentation. Rather it displays a series of more or less stable patterns, regions of coherence, and temporary principles of order; the poem not as a stable unity but engaged in what Eliot calls the “painful task of unifying.” HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 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 Eliot’s personal travails. Born in St. Louis, Eliot had studied at Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Oxford before moving to London, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on the philosopher F. H. Bradley. Because of the war, he was unable to return to the United States to receive his degree. He taught grammar school briefly and then took a job at Lloyds Bank, where he worked for eight years. Unhappily married, he suffered writer’s block and then a breakdown soon after the war and wrote most of The Waste Land while recovering in a sanatorium in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the age of 33. Eliot later described the poem as “the relief of a personal and wholly insignificant grouse against life…just a piece of rhythmical grumbling.” Yet the poem seemed to his contemporaries to transcend Eliot’s personal situation and represent a general crisis in western culture. One of its major themes is the barrenness of a post-war world in which human sexuality has been perverted from its normal course and the natural world too has become infertile. Eliot went on to convert to a High Church form of Anglicanism, become a naturalized British subject, and turn to conservative politics. In 1922, however, his anxieties about the modern world were still overwhelming. × POETRY+ REVIEW CORNER THE WASTE LAND Explore an expert's insights on this poem. Join Poetry+ to instantly unlock fully understanding the poem. Poet: T.S. Eliot (poems) 98 Period: 20th Century 99 Nationality: American 65 Themes: Death 65 Religion 75 Spirituality 88 Emotions: Anxiety 70 Hope 50 Hopelessness 90 Topics: Allusion 98 Culture 70 Loneliness 70 Longing 60 Nostalgia 65 Rebirth 65 Sexuality 70 World War One (WWI) 80 Form: Dramatic Monologue 60 T.S. ELIOT 98 'The Waste Land,' one of T.S. Eliot's best works, masterfully exemplifies its era, his unique poetic style, and literary theories. Renowned for its complexity and fragmented structure, it skillfully employs literary, cultural, historical, mythological, and religious allusions. This richly allusive poem vividly captures the alienated, spiritually barren, and culturally confused world of the post-war 20th Century, epitomizing Eliot's sophisticated approach to poetry, as discussed in his essay 'The Metaphysical Poets.' 20TH CENTURY 99 This piece is considered one of the best poems of the 20th Century and the epitome of literary modernism, which dominated the 20th-century literary scene, especially the period between the two wars. The poem deals with the concerns of its times, including the collapse of prewar values, postwar decadence, and the fragmented and alienated post-Darwinian world. 'The Waste Land' was published in 1922, which is critical to literary modernism as the year saw the publication of the most important and influential modernist texts, including James Joyce's 'Ulysses' along with Eliot's 'The Waste Land,' which is often considered a poetic counterpart to Joyce's 'Ulysses'. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ AMERICAN 65 The poem best reflects the mood of high art intellectuals and the postwar world in America and Europe. The poem was published in United Kingdom's 'The Criterion' in October 1922 and in the United States's 'The Dial' in November 1922. T.S. Eliot was an American when 'The Waste Land' was published but abandoned his American citizenship in 1927 for English. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ DEATH 65 Death and rebirth are central to the 'wasteland's' despair and hope, respectively. Right in the beginning, people living in the wasteland are metaphorically described as living dead, indicating that death would be better than living in such desolate conditions. However, to indicate regeneration, the idea of a rebirth that happens only after death is reinforced through various allusions from Shakespeare's The Tempest to the resurrection of Jesus, the God. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ RELIGION 75 Religion is often a central theme in Eliot's poetry; his poems often allude to religious texts and values. With rapid technological advancement, the post-Darwinian world witnessed a lack of faith in religion. With scientific developments, people were disillusioned with traditional religion without anything in its place to rely on. 'The Waste Land' deals with the absence of faith and divinity in a spiritually barren and culturally decayed world. The poem makes various religious allusions, from the grand church of Sir Christopher Wren, St. Magnus Martyr, to the story of Jesus's disciples on their way to Emmaus after Jesus's crucifixion and finally to resurrection. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ SPIRITUALITY 88 Spiritual desolation and meaninglessness of life are central to T.S. Eliot's Waste Land, which depicts the postwar world wherein people were disillusioned and in disbelief of previous moral ideas and values that could not stop World War 1. The poem's central symbol - Fisher King, a figure in Arthurian legends, continually reinforces the theme of spiritual barrenness. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ ANXIETY 70 The poem's portrayal of a bleak and hopeless future for the living dead people existing in the modern world, or the "Waste Land," creates a constant emotion of anxiety throughout the poem. The feelings of anxiety are exacerbated as the various characters anxiously talk past each other without responding to each other's questions. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ HOPE 50 The poem provides a subtle hope for humanity through the implicit idea of cyclic rebirth. Moreover, toward the end, the most famous line of the poem - "These fragments I have shored against my ruins," succeeded by the Sanskrit mantra - a symbol of salvation in the poem, and finally, in the end, the loosely translated Sanskrit line - "the peace which passeth understanding," suggest that the loss is not complete. And it is crucial to understand that only the fragments are left, and one must move on the right path with this understanding. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ HOPELESSNESS 90 'The Waste Land' with its visual descriptions of the barren and infertile modern world wherein nothing but only the seemingly incoherent fragments of culture and civilization are left, evokes an utter emotion of hopelessness for the future of humanity as it lingers in the 'wasteland' with disillusioned people engaged in meaningless and debased pursuits. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ ALLUSION 98 ‘The Waste Land’ alludes to various literary, cultural, and historical texts to the extent that almost every line of 'The Waste Land' can be considered an allusion to something. The allusions were so complex that Eliot provided some end notes to the poem. Some of the major allusions include Fisher King (Arthurian Legend), Tristan and Isolde (Celtic Legend), Shakespeare's 'The Tempest', 'Antony and Cleopatra', and 'Hamlet', Thomas Kyd's 'The Spanish Tragedy', Hindu scriptures, Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' (Book 6), Dante's 'Divine Comedy', Biblical myths, Charles Baudelaire's 'The Flowers of Evil', Andrew Marvel's 'To his Coy mistress,' and Petronius's 'The Satyricon', Jessie Weston's 'From Ritual to Romance' (1925), James George Frazer's 'The Golden Bough' (1890), etc. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ CULTURE 70 The spiritual and moral debasement of the disillusioned modern people is reflected through a sterile, degraded culture that bears nothing but "stony rubbish." With references to the prewar world, the cultural decadence of human civilization is emphasized throughout the poem. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ LONELINESS 70 The poem significantly deals with the alienation or loneliness of hopeless individuals in a fragmented and desolate modern world. The relations are loveless, and individuals talk past each other while conversing, unable to strike a connection To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ LONGING 60 With constant reference to the prewar world and classical allusions, the feelings of longing are evoked for a past that at least had hope and faith in the times of despair. The lost structures and values to rely on during a crisis are missed in the face of a desolate world. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ NOSTALGIA 65 Nostalgia for a lost past that no longer makes sense in the decayed and infertile present can be felt in the poem. The poet could only gather fragments from the coherent lost past wherein there were some pillars to rely on. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ REBIRTH 65 The idea of a rebirth that happens only after death is reinforced throughout the poem to indicate the possibility of regeneration. Eliot also calls out meaningless pursuits of alienated individuals while giving direction and hope through the idea of rebirth. He stated in 1931 that in 'The Waste Land' - "I may have expressed for them (the people) their own illusion of being disillusioned." To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ SEXUALITY 70 The poem depicts many sterile and unloving sexual relationships of the modern post-war world, symbolizing the meaninglessness of the wasteland. From the mechanized sexual encounter of the typist and clerk and gossip of women to the sexual allusion to brothels and, finally, to the story of Philomela and Medusa, the poem presents the debased and infertile loveless sexual relationships carried out by metaphorically dead dehumanized people of the wasteland. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ WORLD WAR ONE (WWI) 80 The poem indirectly alludes to World War 1 while reflecting on the lost past before the war. The devastation of the war ruined the post-war world, which is the wasteland wherein the living dead modern people pull through in cultural and spiritual decadence. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE 60 'The Waste Land' uses dramatic monologue in each section but with different speakers. It is difficult to classify 'The Waste Land' into a form as it employs fragmentation on the level of form through changing meters, rhymes, and diction. However, divided into five sections, it partially uses dramatic monologue as different speakers address the readers. To unlock content, login or join Poetry+ Comment Poetry+ PDF Guide Cite Comment Cite Poetry+ PDF Guide ShareCopyXFacebookPinterestWhatsApp Home » T.S. Eliot » The Waste Land ABOUT ELISE DALLI Elise has a B.A. Honors Degree in English and Communications, and analyzes poetry on Poem Analysis to create a great insight and understanding into poetry from the past and present. JOIN THE POETRY CHATTER AND COMMENT Exclusive to Poetry+ Members JOIN CONVERSATIONS Share your thoughts and be part of engaging discussions. EXPERT REPLIES Get personalized insights from our Qualified Poetry Experts. CONNECT WITH POETRY LOVERS Build connections with like-minded individuals. Log in to Comment Sign up to Poetry+ 9 Comments Inline Feedbacks View all comments Lucille Hull Most of your analysis is extremely helpful; however, I have to wonder why nothing is said in answer to “What the Thunder Said”, the title of Part V. You skip over that part completely. In line 399 the poem says: “Then spoke the thunder”, followed by answers in three voices, ending at line 422. This is from a Hindu myth in the Upanishads. 0 Editor Lee-James Bovey Reply to Lucille Hull Hi. Thanks for your feedback. When analysing larger poems it is always difficult to analyse with the sort of depth that we could if we were analysing, say for instance, a sonnet. That is why sometimes we summarise rather than delve too deeply. 0 Susan No such word as ‘irregardless’……regardless 0 Editor Lee-James Bovey Reply to Susan Amended. Thank you. 0 roy arkin clearly april is the cruelest month is the opposite of the opposite of the canterbury tales opening. also there are many references to the inferno. 0 devika thank you for your analysis 0 de_de_ii Thank you so much guys Have been having difficulties understanding this particular poem .I really appreciate this.Thanks so much again. 3 Kristen It’s The Waste Land, not The Wasteland. 2 Admin William Green Reply to Kristen Hello Kristen, thank you for pointing that out – the article has just been rectified to remove this poetry title error. 0 EXPERTS IN POETRY Our work is created by a team of talented poetry experts, to provide an in-depth look into poetry, like no other. About Poem Analysis Discover the Secrets to Poetry Learn from the experts Discover the best-kept secrets behind the greatest poetry Discover the Secrets CITE THIS PAGE Choose citation style: MLA Chicago APA MHRA Dalli, Elise. "The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot". 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