The Waste Land

'The Waste Land' background

In 'The Waste Land', Eliot uses the ‘voices’ of ordinary people, alongside heroes from myths and legends, and the great works of European literature and music. In the poem, we meet Madam Sosostris, a clairvoyant, Mr Eugenides a merchant from Smyrna, a female typist and her lover, a middle-class couple caught in a difficult marriage, a group of women in a pub, and a host of other characters.

Historical Context

The Victorian era had come to an abrupt end with the First World War. The stability which had appeared to dominate social life was found to be an illusion. In the place of tradition (social and aesthetic) came new uncertainties. The ideal of steady progression turned out to be empty. The technological advancements which were to bring improved living conditions and progress brought death and misery, as well as social isolation. Eliot's poem attempted to show that all that was left were fragments of the 'old'.

Literary Context

'The Waste land' is a poem in the Modernist tradition. In some ways, it can be said to have set the standard for the movement in poetry.

'The Waste Land' was important because it signified a turn away from older and more established forms of poetry (those especially known as Romanticism and Victorianism), and dealt with the banal and negative aspects of human experience. The opening line of the poem sets the poem’s course, evoking earlier literary tradition, something which Eliot had done in 'Prufrock' (1915) and would continue to do in later poems like 'Four Quartets' (1943). The poem begins with the words ‘April is the cruellest month…’. This is an echo of the open line of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales: (1387-1400) ‘Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote…’.

Eliot’s aim was to reimagine the literary canon, pulling together the fragments of culture left behind after WW1 into some kind of unity, and in doing so, to preserve Western civilisation. This overall aim is summarised in two of the last lines of the poem: the metaphorical 'fall' of London and the use of the poetic fragments of past tradition to recreate something new in 'The Waste Land':

And then, a few lines further down:

Aside from the wide range of sources from the English literary canon, Eliot drew on two main external sources for the poem. These were the book From Ritual to Romance (1920) by Jessie Weston and James Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1890). Apart from these, 'The Waste Land' contains many other sources, allusions and references to other works, both literary and musical. The poem was written shortly after WW1 and echoes of this traumatic period can be felt throughout the poem. Eliot wrote 'The Waste Land' because he wanted to explore British life in the post-war years.

'The Waste Land' structure

The poem has five parts:

1. The Burial of the Dead
2. A Game of Chess
3. The Fire Sermon
4. Death by Water
5. What the Thunder Said

Each of these parts is subdivided; each subsection is a study of one aspect of post-war England. 'The Waste Land' is written in free or open verse. There is no continuous rhyme scheme, although there are instances of rhyme, normally in couplets.

'The Waste Land' themes

Overall, it is difficult to say what 'The Waste Land' is about because it has multiple themes and offers multiple perspectives. It is about both decay and fertility; it is about mundane human existence and the effects of automation; it is about the city of London and Europe, as well as the mythical past; and it is about the hope of restoration.

The main themes of the poem are the shattering of Enlightenment rationalism. The themes are conveyed through the topography of the poem (the riverside, the desert, the city apartment, the foothills of the Himalayas) as well as in the characters who populate the poem, some real and some mythical or legendary. As for topography, along with places in and around London, there are references in the poem to several other important places, including Paris, Munich, Jerusalem, Athens, Alexandria, and Vienna. The final part of the poem is set in Northern India. These relate to the centres of European civilisation, philosophy and art, and to the spiritual sources of both western and eastern religions.

'The Waste Land' characters

There are two key characters in the poem who act as cyphers for the main themes. One of them is named and the other is only alluded to: Tiresias and the Fisher King.

Tiresius is a mythical Greek figure who could see into the future (a clairvoyant) and was also blind. He was changed into a woman for seven years (which is why Eliot refers to him as both blind and as having breasts). 'The Waste Land' is Eliot’s attempt to prophesy, like Tiresius, the downfall of his adopted country (Britain). Through Tiresius, the poem becomes a study of national decay.

The Fisher King comes from Arthurian legend. He is the guardian of the Holy grail and is wounded in the groin. He fishes in a small boat on a river. In the poem, Eliot has him doing exactly that, but on a canal:

Because the Fisher King has been wounded in the groin, he is infertile. Eliot uses him as a metaphor for the infertility of the country after the war.

TS Eliot and 'The Waste Land'

The Waste Land is a bleak poem. Some have said that this is because it is the result of a nervous disorder which Eliot experienced. He took three months off to recover from it and headed to the sea at Margate in Kent to do so. He wrote some of the poem there, and there are some lines about it in the third section, ‘The Fire Sermon’. Eliot’s nervous disorder (he called it a nervous breakdown) can be felt in the lines:

There is a feeling of depression in these lines, which some have said is autobiographical.

Eliot’s marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood was difficult, especially because Vivienne suffered from depression. The strain of their marriage may have influenced the second part of the poem, A Game of Chess:

'The Waste Land' quotes

'The Waste Land' is full of memorable quotes. The opening lines are perhaps the most quoted:

Other famous lines include:

And:

But perhaps the best-known line is:

The meaning of these lines is debated and uncertain. In fact, to help the reader understand the poem, Eliot provided end notes. It is likely that these end notes are there to flesh out the poem because it was too short to publish on its own, or perhaps as a kind of intellectual game. Books have been written about the purpose of the end notes, as they are uncommon in poetry.

Along with the allusions and references to European cities, Eliot uses a variety of languages. There are sections or lines in German, Russian, French, and Sanskrit. There is even a section in Cockney. The purpose of these is uncertain, but it is possible that, like the poem, they are meant to disorient the reader.

Eliot used a poetic technique called the objective correlative, designed to enable the reader to feel what was meant rather than simply to read about it. There’s a good example of this in these lines:

To describe the absence of water, Eliot describes water in several ways: the repetition of the word ‘water’, a reference to a songbird found near water, and the sound of water dripping. He ends with the words ‘But there is no water’. By using water imagery to describe the lack of water, Eliot evokes thirst or a longing for water in the reader. There is an ‘objective’ correlation between the words on the page and the feelings evoked by the words on the page.

The philosophy of 'The Waste Land'

Eliot's revolutionary poem says that life has fractured because of the war, technology, and the ensuing isolation of both. Modern life is a disaster, affecting social norms and traditions, communities, the landscape, and with no remedy in sight. There is a distant hope, but it does not materialise in the poem. It is the promise of rain, and of peace, symbolised by the spiritual statement at the end of the poem:

This is an incantation. It is not the realisation of peace, but the declaration that there should be peace and fertility in the land.