T.S.

Eliot
Works 1

The Waste Land

 First appeared in the United Kingdom in Eliot's The
Criterion (1922) and in the United States in The Dial (1922).
 434-line poem.
 Eliot originally considered entitling the poem He do the Police in
Different Voices ( taken from Charles Dickens' novel Our Mutual
Friend)
 He attributes the title The Waste Land to Jessie Weston's book
on the Grail legend, From Ritual to Romance. Madison
Cawein also published a poem under the same title in 1913.
 Allen Tate called the poem “a music of ideas” as it has
fragmented monologues strung together in a narrative
framework.
 Epigraph from chapter 48 of The Satyricon of Petronius (Roman
courtier):

For once I myself saw with my own eyes

the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a cage, and when the boys said,
"Sibyl, what do you want?" she replied "I want to die."

 A dedication follows (added in 1925 edition):

"For Ezra Pound: il miglior fabbro"

Or,
"the better craftsman"

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  Inspiration: Line 117 of Canto XXVI of Dante's Purgatorio
(Divine Comedy) and also Pound's title of chapter 2 of his The
Spirit of Romance (1910).
 The Waste Land expresses the disillusionment and disgust of
the post-World War I world. In a series of fragmentary images,
loosely linked by the legend of the Holy Grail, it portrays a
sterile world of unnerved fears and barren hopes and of human
beings waiting for some sign of redemption.
 The depiction of spiritual barrenness in the modern city is a
complex contrast with the heroic past of the bygone century.
The pervasive metaphor of dryness in the poem is read as
expressive of spiritual emptiness. The poem is a testament of a
timeless awareness of moral evil and spiritual decay in the
modern world.
 The 5 parts of the poem are as follows-

The Burial of the Dead

A Game of Chess

The Fire Sermon

Death by Water

What the Thunder Said

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  Rather than a single dramatic monologue, woven
throughout The Waste Land is a rich array of voices. This
includes numerous literary and cultural references:
 Homer
 Sophocles
 Petronius
 Virgil
 Ovid
 Saint Augustine of Hippo
 Dante Alighieri
 William Shakespeare
 Edmund Spenser
 Gérard de Nerval
 Thomas Kyd
 Geoffrey Chaucer
 Thomas Middleton
 John Webster
 Joseph Conrad
 John Milton
 Andrew Marvell
 Charles Baudelaire
 Richard Wagner
 Oliver Goldsmith
 Hermann Hesse
 Aldous Huxley
 Paul Verlaine
 Walt Whitman

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  Bram Stoker
 The Bible
 The Book of Common Prayer
 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
 The Buddha's Fire Sermon
 Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough
 Jessie Weston's From Ritual to Romance

 Major themes-

Decay & Relationships

Fragmentation & Sex War

 Famous allusions-
 UNREAL CITY- This is an allusion to a poem of Baudelaire,
“The Seven Old Men”, where this phrase refers to the city
of Paris.
 MADAME SOSOSTRIS- This character is borrowed
from Crome Yellow, a novel written by Aldous Huxley.
 CROWD FLOWED OVER LONDON BRIDGE- This is an
allusion to the famous work of Dante Inferno.
 THOSE ARE PEARLS THAT WERE HIS EYES- This line is
taken from The Tempest by Shakespeare.
 BELLADONNA- Belladonna is a famous painting of the
Virgin Mary made by Leonardo De Vinci.
 A GAME OF CHESS- This is the name of the second section
of the poem. It is borrowed from a play Women Beware
Women. This play is written by Thomas Middleton.

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  PHILOMEL- The episode in the poem, which involves the
character Philomel is an allusion to Ovid’s
Metamorphosis.
 WATER OF LEMAN- It is an allusion to Lake Leman.
 TIRESIAS- The character of Tiresias is borrowed from a
Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex.
 DATTA, DAYADHVAM, AND DAMYATA- These words are
taken from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Summary-
THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
At the start of this part, the speaker—an aristocratic lady—speaks of
her happy past days. She recollects the memory of the beautiful days
passed in Germany. She talks of her visit to her cousin and the fun
activities they had. Intermingled with these pleasant recollections,
there is a shadow of the infertility of modern times.

After this happy episode, a new speaker tells an unknown listener

about showing him/her a novel thing. Then he starts talking about
the inevitable death and the desiccation of humanity in modern
times. He gives the image of love in modern times, which is fixed
upon lust and physical needs only. It has no spirituality left in it.

The next shift in the scenes brings a card reader. She is named
Madame Sosostris. She foreshadows that water will bring death and
that the men should fear it. She also talks about how she is forced to
carry out her business in secret.

The scene changes again, and the speaker describes the condition of
ordinary men in modern times. He says that a lot of people are
walking in the streets of London, but they have lost their vitality.
They seem alive but are dead from the inside. The speaker, then,
recollects a meeting with a soldier during a war. One soldier asks the
other whether the corpse he buried in his garden has sprouted or

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not. Suddenly, the speaker turns his attention towards the readers
and accuses them that they are not innocents. They have an equal
share in the wrongs described in the poem.

A GAME OF CHESS
This section opens with the description of a well-to-do lady and the
room she is sitting in. The room is laden with a lot of beauty products
and perfumes. She is sitting on a burnished chair waiting for
someone. Scattered among the artificial objects of ornamentation,
there are a few glimpses of the past time.

When the person whom she is waiting for arrives, they indulge in a
meaningless dialogue. The person tells her that they are in “rats’
alley” and cannot do anything. They talk about how they are going to
pass their time and wait for the knock on the door.

The next part of this section discusses a meeting of two

underprivileged ladies sitting in a bar. They are talking about a
woman named Lil. They say that her husband is returning after a long
time serving in the army. They show their concerns about the
appearance of Lil as she has not treated her teeth and has lost her
charm. Therefore, they think that her husband will try to find
recompense in other women. One of the two ladies says that Lil
blames the abortion pills she has used for her bad teeth. While these
two women are talking, the keeper of the bar repeatedly tells them
to hurry up because the time is over. Towards the end, the two
women depart bidding good night several times.

FIRE SERMON
This section opens with the description of a dirty place by a riverside.
The river is filled with garbage, and rats are pushing themselves here
and there. The speaker tries to catch fish in this river and thinks
about his father and brother. He recalls how both of them died in the
same manner.

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With the shift in the setting, the speaker narrates as an event when
he was invited to homosexuality. He says that a merchant called
Eugenides gave him an offer to have dinner with him and then spend
the weekend with him in a notorious hotel.

Then, a speaker named Tiresias starts narrating the proceedings of a

hectic day of a female typist. She is a young lady and works till late.
She comes home after work, and the dirty dishes from breakfast wait
for her in her room. She cleans the mess and waits for her lover. The
lover, who is a dull young “carbuncular” guy, comes, and they
indulge in sexual activities. However, their actions have no warmth.
The typist shows no emotions when the deed is being done. She
even expresses her happiness when this activity ends.

At the end of this section, there are happier images of a church, a

bar, and the river Thames. The speaker recalls the love affair of Earl
of Leicester and Queen Elizabeth. The speaker says that Queen
Elizabeth only thought about her people and sacrificed her personal
likings for the interest of the people. Then, there is a confession of a
lady of modern times who talks about her affairs with many men.
She says that she was promised a new start, but she said nothing.

The last few lines of the section include a prayer to Lord where the
speaker asks for salvation and mercy as he is burning in fire.

DEATH BY WATER
This section concerns the drowning of Phlebas. The speaker says that
Phelabas has died by drowning in water and that his body has lost
connection with the outside world. In the same manner, the speaker
warns, the readers’ bodies will lose connection with the world, and
they will die. Therefore, they should remember their own deaths.

WHAT THE THUNDER SAID

At the start of this section, the speaker talks about the condition of
the modern man. He says that modern men move around in the
cities, but they have lost their human vitality. They are unreal human

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beings. They might walk and work like living humans but are dead
from the inside. Therefore, cities like London, Vienna, Athens,
Jerusalem, and Alexandria, where these unreal humans live, have
also become unreal. The speaker describes the condition of a chapel
and says that it is empty. There is no one inside it but wind.

Suddenly, there is a shift in the setting, and the speaker describes

the conditions of the east. He says that it is going to rain near the
Ganges. Here the three aspects of thunder, according to Hindu
mythology, are introduced. The first aspect of thunder is “Datta,”
which means “give.” The second aspect of thunder is “Dayadhvam,”
which means “sympathize.” The third aspect of thunder is
“Damyata,” which means “control.” The poem ends with the
repetition of the word “Shantih.”

To Give

To Sympathize

To
Control

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