In the twentieth century, T.S. Eliot transformed the traditional poetry form into a more modern style. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri on September 26, 1888. At the age of 25, Eliot moved to England where he began his career as a poet. Eliot greatly attracted the modernist movement, which was poetry written in the reaction of Victorian poetry. His first poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, was known as one of the most famous pieces of the Modernist movement. In his poetry, Eliot combines themes such as aridity, sexuality, and living death. He uses techniques such as narration, historical, literary, and mythic allusions. Using themes and techniques from his earlier work, Eliot publishes The Wasteland.
The Wasteland is a poem Eliot wrote after his divorce with his wife Vivienne Haighwood. Critics say the title of the poem, the wasteland, comes from his thoughts on his marriage. This poem is considered to be “one of the most difficult poems in a difficult literary period”. The Wasteland is a poem that is said to be of his most influential work. At first glance, critics considered the poem to be too modern but then opinions changed as they realized the poem reflected Eliot’s disillusionment with the moral decay of World War I in Europe. T.S. Eliot in The Wasteland combines theme, style, and symbolism to explore life and death.
The Wasteland was written in 1922 and is a long poem divided into five sections. The first section is called “Burial of the Dead” which is a reference to a burial service in a church. In the poem it says that April is the cruelest month, which is ironic because April is normally considered to be the month of renewal. In the beginning of the poem, the passing of seasons, symbolizes a natural c...
... middle of paper ...
...lore life and death in his poetry. He portrays significant themes of disillusionment and restoration. Eliot believes in restoring the bad having new beginnings. In conclusion, Eliot revolutionizes poetry to a new level and is one of the most prestigious poets to this day.
Works Cited
Childs, John Steven. "The Waste Land." Magill’s Survey of World Literature. Rev. ed. Salem, 2009 Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2014.
Conlon, John J. "The Waste Land." Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Rev. ed. Salem, 2006. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Jan. 2014.
Sullivan, James. "The Waste Land." Masterplots, 4th ed. Salem, 2010. Literary Reference Center. Web. 6 Jan. 2014.
“The Waste Land” Poetry for Students. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 246-266. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 6 Jan. 2014.
Updike, John. "A & P" Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.
Gardner, Judy. "Literature." Library Journal 15 May 1982: 997. EBSCOhost. Web. 21 Jan. 2014. .
Updike, John. "A & P" Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002.
Burden, Linnett Myers. “Teenage Wasteland.” Atlantic Monthly (10727825) 304.3 (2009): 26-28. Literary Reference Center. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Reilly, Edward C., and David W. Cole. Ken Kesey. N.p.: Salem, n.d. Literary Reference Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
The Modernist era of poetry, like all reactionary movements, was directed, influenced, and determined by the events preceding it. The gradual shift away from the romanticized writing of the Victorian Era served as a litmus test for the values, and the shape of poetry to come. Adopting this same idea, William Carlos Williams concentrated his poetry in redirecting the course of Modernist writing, continuing a break from the past in more ways than he saw being done, particularly by T.S. Eliot, an American born poet living abroad. Eliot’s monumental poem, The Waste Land, was a historically rooted, worldly conscious work that was brought on by the effects of World War One. The implementation of literary allusions versus imagination was one point that Williams attacked Eliot over, but was Williams completely in stride with his own guidelines? Looking closely at Williams’s reactionary poem to The Waste Land, Spring and All, we can question whether or not he followed the expectations he anticipated of Modernist work; the attempts to construct new art in the midst of a world undergoing sweeping changes.
Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman. Handbook to Literature. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1986.
Meyer, Michael. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 2189.
During T. S. Eliot’s time many of his contemporaries including himself were in the custom of alluding to classic works of poetry. They incorporated references to notable texts like Dante. Eliot especially is a main perpetrator of alluding. Eliot has the ability create a picture for the reader and provide historical context to his works. A contemporary of Eliot, Pound, once said you should try to “be influenced by as many great artists as [they] can” (Pound 95). Eliot is following what Pound said by incorporating allusions in his works.
Williamson, George. A Reader's Guide to T.S. Eliot; a Poem by Poem Analysis. New York:
The early poetry of T. S. Eliot, poems such as "The Wasteland" or "The Love Song
Death is the primary theme in TS Eliot’s The Wasteland. Written just four years after the conclusion of World War I, The Wasteland mirrors the despair felt by much of the post-war generation. The poem begins with a section titled "Burial of the Dead." In this section Eliot deems April "the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain." With these lines, Eliot suggests that springtime’s regeneration of life only causes people to remember what was lost in the past. Eliot again addresses death in the very next stanza:
T.S Eliot, widely considered to be one of the fathers of modern poetry, has written many great poems. Among the most well known of these are “The Waste Land, and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, which share similar messages, but are also quite different. In both poems, Eliot uses various poetic techniques to convey themes of repression, alienation, and a general breakdown in western society. Some of the best techniques to examine are ones such as theme, structure, imagery and language, which all figure prominently in his poetry. These techniques in particular are used by Eliot to both enhance and support the purpose of his poems.
Attitudes toward love and sex are one of the major themes of the poem. The introduction to "The Waste Land" in The Norton Anthology of English Literature states that "This is a poem about spiritual dryness," and much of this spiritual dryness relates to the nature of the modern sexual experience (although there are also other aspects of spiritual dryness the introduction also notes that major themes include a lack of a "regenerating belief" that gives "significance and value to people" and a type of death that "heralds no resurrection"). (Introduction 2146) Comparisons of different types between past and present are often used to highlight the nature of this modern sexual experience, which is pictured as empty, as lacking in both romance and passion, and as fruitless. Lil's rejection of her offspring (line 160) has already been mentioned; other examples abound throughout the poem. One example is furnished by the seduction of the typist by the "young man carbuncular," described by Tiresias in lines 230-256. This scene describes a seduction seemingly without any love or passion. The typist seems to have no desire for sex, but no desire to resist seduction, either -- the young man's "caresses are unreproved, if undesired." (lines 236-237) Her single emotion expressed in the passage is a vague relief when the episode ends. Eliot follows the scene of seduction with these lines:
T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land is an elaborate and mysterious montage of lines from other works, fleeting observations, conversations, scenery, and even languages. Though this approach seems to render the poem needlessly oblique, this style allows the poem to achieve multi-layered significance impossible in a more straightforward poetic style. Eliot’s use of fragmentation in The Waste Land operates on three levels: first, to parallel the broken society and relationships the poem portrays; second, to deconstruct the reader’s familiar context, creating an individualized sense of disconnection; and third, to challenge the reader to seek meaning in mere fragments, in this enigmatic poem as well as in a fractious world.