Fear and Loathing in the Creative Process
A student at Illinois Wesleyan University recently confessed to holding a morbid fear of parked cars. He said, “I’m terribly afraid one of them will roll right over me” (Hamel). The actual odds of a parked car suddenly rolling over him are extremely slim; however, that does not alleviate his fears. It takes this poor boy a great amount of personal will power just to walk across a street where there are parked cars.
As senseless as a fear of parked cars may be, people constantly allow their lives to be manipulated through fears. Political figures fret for days, sometimes weeks, over the wording of a tiny passage from their acceptance speech; poets spend decades of their lives search for that one word to give an infinite amount of meaning to a poem no one will ever read; and authors hold back some of their most inventive creations due to fear of public response. The key is that people must be willing to set aside public opinion and write of the things in their hearts.
Into the Waste Land
In 1922, T. S. Eliot published a poem that sent critics into a fury. Attacking everything from structure to meaning, the public response was a far cry from good. However, this poem went on to become regarded as the most influential English poem of the twentieth century. The poem was entitled “The Waste Land”.
Eliot was not without reservation in writing his poem, however. When first written, he was so displeased with the result that he scrapped the bulk of the poem. It wasn’t until several years later, not to mention several drafts later, that he was content enough to publish (Eliot, 35).
How would modern poetry be different had Eliot not released “The Waste Land”? What would poets today be writing if Eliot had let his fears of public rejection persuade him not publish? It is not as if Eliot couldn’t have known how his poem would be received. A variation upon a theme is accepted; total rewriting of the theme is not. Eliot did what few writers are ever able to, namely, publishing a piece that was radically different from anything the world had ever seen. Despite initial criticism, people soon saw the work as more than a failure; they began to see it as the beginning of a new poetic era.
"Dizzy Gillespie – Jazz and Blues Masters ." american jazz musician . b 1917 . d 1993.
Though Jelly Roll Morton began his career without formal training, he grew to live an influential life. His piano style, musical notations on paper, and creative compositions thrived in the 1910s and the 1920s and even weaved its way into the later eras as musicians used Morton’s music as the foundation for their own. Even past his death, Jelly Roll Morton remains a legendary figure. His works are meticulously preserved and displayed in the prestigious Smithsonian Museum and universities around the world continue his legacy by teaching students about Jelly Roll Morton and his influential career.
Thomas Stearns Eliot was perhaps one of the most critical writers in the English language’s history. Youngest of seven children and born to the owner of a Brick Company, he wasn’t exactly bathed in poverty at all. Once he graduated from Harvard, he went on to found the Unitarian church of St. Luis. Soon after, Eliot became more serious about literature. As previously stated, his literature works were possibly some of the most famous in history. Dr. Tim McGee of Worland High School said that he would be the richest writer in history if he was still alive, and I have no choice but to believe him. In the past week many of his works have been observed in my English literature class. Of Thomas Stearns Eliot’s poems Preludes, The Journey of the Magi, The Hollow Men, The Waste Land, and Four Quartets, I personally find his poem The Hollow men to be the most relatable because of its musical allusions, use of inclusive language, and his opinion on society.
Eliot, T.S. The wasteland. In The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume II. Edited by Paul Lauter et al. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991: 1447-1463.
Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land and Other Poems, New York, London, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1988
...e state of waste is not perpetual, we can find strength and hope for a better future. The ability to convey these messages with such strength along with the ability to powerfully effect his audience and have a tangible effect on the world is what sets T. S. Eliot and The Wasteland apart, and truly gives his poetry the power to change the world.
Throughout lecture 5-9b we get introduced to Social Inequalities and explore the opportunities and rewards that are disbursed to groups and individuals. Trying to understand inequality patterns based on different varieties of sources. Through these lectures we focus how sociologist define social class, gender, age, region, race, and ethnicity. We also began to learn about the variables that affect someone’s access to opportunities and resources. We have explored how those resources and available opportunities are closely connected to the theory Structural functionalist by looking at the privilege and power in a society. Another important aspect is the study of Social stratification, which is an understanding of how those patterns of inequalities are maintained and challenged. We should have a basic understanding of how societies differ based on inequalities that they show and different varieties of inequalities that come together and reinforce one another. By that, this section is dissect how race, classs, gender, and age come together through structure of a society. Throughout these we also take a look at deviance and conformity. We get up close to the sociological definition of deviance, and emphasizing the importance its social reaction in societies. We begin to understand what forces society to allow or even encourage breakdowns of social order and disorganization of socialization and social control. By that, this section is dissect how race, class, gender, and age come together through structure of a society. We have been taught to answer questions like: what actions are defined as actually threatening to social order or deviant and who get to be the judge? Also what sorts of things lead to individuals to “deviant actions” a...
T.S. Eliot’s "The Waste Land" is considered by many to be the most influential work in modern literature. First published in 1922, it captures the feelings and sentiments of modern culture after World War I. Line thirty of "The Waste Land," "I will show you fear in a handful of dust," is often viewed as a symbol of mankind’s fear of death and resulting love of life. Eliot’s masterpiece—with its revolutionary ideas—inspired writers of his era, and it continues to affect writers even today.
There are many definitions to theory. According to Akers, “theories are tentative answers to the commonly asked questions about events and behavior.” Theory is a set of interconnected statements that explain how two or more things are related, based upon a confirmed hypotheses and established multiple times by disconnected groups of researchers.
Ezra Pound, the most aggressively modern of these poets, made "Make it new!" his own battle cry. In London Pound encountered and encouraged his fellow friend in exile, T. S. Eliot, who wrote what is arguably the most famous poem of the twentieth century, "The Waste Land" using revolutionary techniques of composition, such as the collage. Both poets turned to untraditional sources for inspiration, Pound chose to turn to classical Chinese poetry and Eliot to the ironic poems of the 19th century French symbolist poet and then followed Pound to Europe and wrote poems which, in their extreme concision and precise visualization, most purely embodied his famous doctrine of Imagism.
Torrens, James S. “T. S. Eliot: 75 Years of ‘The Waste Land.’” America. 25 Oct 1997. 24-7.
Human resources will need to place emphasis on employee wellness my initiating programs that “include work-life balance processes, stress management, and therapy programs, and facilitating an open dialogue about mental health and illness to remove much of the stigma that plagues the conversation and ailments (Guppta, 2016).” By utilizing flexible work schedule options, demanding jobs with high-stress levels are possible because employees’ free time does not have to be sacrificed.
When T.S Eliot wrote “The Waste Land”, just four years after World War 1, he was deeply troubled by the true nature of the people around him. People seemed too willing to abandon their cultures and submit to a rule of the mob. This coupled with the nearly nine million causalities of the war caused Eliot and many other artists to rethink their ideas of art and literature. In the resulting influx of experimental styles in art, T.S Eliot created “The Waste Land” to express his disgust with the modern sea of stupid, violent, and worst of all, average people ("T.S. Eliot Biography."). In the first section of the “The Waste Land,” T.S Eliot’s use of inconstant narration and setting, fragments of foreign languages,
...to subjects relevant to today, such as religion.Eliot argues that without religion we are all lack direction and more importantly we lack substance in our lives. Without religion, we are superficial and it is due to this that we turn to pop culture. Pop culture is a filler for that which is intellectually rewarding. Eliot recognized this and for this reason he wrote “The Wasteland”. Eliot’s poem made bold statements about what was really happening in the modern world. Whether one argue with Eliot’s positions or not, his work joins the canon of the classic and ironically provides an opportunity for readers to plug into something greater.
2. In his preface to his notes on The Waste Land, Eliot writes, "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 . . . to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble" (68).