The symbolic literature is the earliest and most influential literary genre, it mainly focuses on poetry and drama. The symbolism uses vague insinuations to replace precise statements, and the subtle words would awaken emotions. The symbolism pursues a rich spiritual world in the reality. Thus, it can be says that if a literary work is lacking symbolism, then this work is not perfect. T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land is a milestone in modern British and American poetry. This poetry is the most representative work in symbolic literature and it is Eliot's most famous work. The Waste Land is dividing into five sections. It has more than 400 lines, the longer poems uses “Holy Grail” and “Fisher King” as basic framework. Also the mythology and anthropology provides a complete set of symbolic language to the poet. The poet has made a point of using the story of "Holy Grail" to show a despicable and miserable human hell. The work reveals a picture of the barren wasteland, the grey city, the gloomy prison and the intoxicate people to the readers. In this absurd world there is no idolatry and code of conduct, only the existence of empty life
Eliot is full of symbolism. This poem is different from the narrative poem of realism and the lyric poem of romanticism, but it is typical of symbolic poetry. The poem overall involves in some ancient mythology and shows the modern wasteland and people. The "Waste Land" is the symbol of the modern Europe, but also the symbol of modern people. Water is the oasis of life, but also the symbol of disaster. The hyacinth is a symbol of spring, and skeletons are a symbol of death, etc. The poet is good at using symbolism to put a series of disparate "pictures" together, combining many irrelevant images to form a subjective emotion. These five poems not only hint at the inevitable declining trend of western civilization and reflect the historical perspective, but also it has the realistic
“Modern critics agree… that the novel has unity that its subject is an exploration of human aspiration and fulfillment by individual and social influences…” as a lining for various themes that Eliot uses through imagery and language. (Doyle 118) Beginning wi...
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.
In T.S. Eliot’s Poem, The Waste Land, modernism is strewn across every page. In the time period it was composed, The Waste Land was a very unique poem that displayed many modern characteristics. Here, the concept behind modernism was to show the rejection away from society. Eliot was living during the period where the traditional norms of the 1800’s were cast aside and writers wrote more realistic and how life really was. The poem breaks traditional form by not having customary stanzas and lines; not to mention the random spurts of foreign language. Unlike the typical poems of its time, it did not use excessive imagery to paint a picture or rhyming. Eliot sought out a new type of poetry that used individual fragments to create a sense of desolation that he thought the world was suffering...
Williamson, George. A Reader's Guide to T.S. Eliot; a Poem by Poem Analysis. New York:
...In "The Waste Land," Eliot delivers an indictment against the self-serving, irresponsibility of modern society, but not without giving us, particularly the youth a message of hope at the end of the Thames River. And in "Ash Wednesday," Eliot finally describes an example of the small, graceful images God gives us as oases in the Waste Land of modern culture. Eliot constantly refers back, in unconsciously, to his childhood responsibilities of the missionary in an unholy world. It is only through close, diligent reading of his poetry that we can come to understand his faithful message of hope.
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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.
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go,” T.S. Eliot is basically trying to say that only people who push their limit can actually see how much they can really accomplish. T.S. Eliot made poetry that showed his negative views on life, people, and world. T.S. Eliot took poetry to another level by the way he writes and uses symbolism.
Different speakers in "The Waste Land" mirror the disjointedness of modern experience by presenting different viewpoints that the reader is forced to put together for himself. This is similar to the disassociation in modern life in that life has ceased to be a unified whole: various aspects of 20th-century life -- various academic disciplines, theory and practice, Church and State, and Eliot's "disassociation of sensibilities," or separation of heart and mind -- have become separated from each other, and a person who lives in this time period is forced to shore these fragments against his or her ruins, to borrow Eliot's phrase, to see a picture of an integrated whole.
There are a number of these images in the works. Many of Picasso's are fairly evident the burning man in the right corner for example or the severed head on the bottom. These show the devastation of the world, as we know it. Eliot has recurring images not unlike these in The Waste Land. Eliot continually refers to the unnatural lack of water in the wasteland or the meaningless broken sex in the society of his day.
Symbols have been used often in the history of our planet. Cultures such as Egyptians used literal symbols in their writing to represent objects such as animals and water. However, symbols don’t always mean a written figure. Often the word symbol means a metaphorical representation of something using something completely unrelated in literature or in speech. In fact, almost any work that has lasted all these years contains major symbolism in some way or another. William Butler Yeats, a great writer of the early twentieth century, wrote many incredibly symbolic and meaningful literate works. The following five poems of William Butler Yeats all have important symbols in them that are crucial to the poems, whether the symbols are personal or cultural: When You Are Old has a small symbol of the night sky; The Lake Isle of Innisfree uses the symbol of a log cabin; The Wild Swans at Coole uses the obvious symbol of swans; The Second Coming uses a beast as a symbol; and Sailing to Byzantium uses sailing.
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.
T.S Eliot’s poem, The Waste Land, is written in the mood of society after World War I. By using these allusions, The Waste Land reflects on mythical, historical, and literary events. The poem displays the deep disillusionment felt during this time period. In the after math of the great war, in an industrialized society that lacks the traditional structure of authority and belief, in the soil that may not be conductive to new growth (Lewis). Eliot used various allusions that connected to the time period and the effect of the war on society in his poem. Aided by Eliot’s own notes and comments, scholars have been able to identify allusions to: the Book of Common Prayer, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles-Louis Philippe, James Thomas, Guillaume Appollinaire, Countess Marie Larsich, Wyndham Lewis, nine books of the Bible, John Donne, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Richard Wagner, Sappho, Catullus, Lord Byron, Joseph Campbell, Aldous Huxley, J.G. Frazer, Jessie L. Weston, W.B. Yeats, Shakespeare, Walter Pater, Charles Baudelair, Dente, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and John Webster—all within the first section of 72 lines, about one allusion every two lines (Lewis). Using various allusions, Eliot was able to connect to the fact that he lived in a modern day waste land as a result of the destruction caused by World War I. Eliot used the allusions to show that death brings new beginnings and change, and love still flourishes.
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.
...required a reinvention of poetics and the very use and meaning of language. Since the modern period is said to extend to this day (it's debated whether it's post-modern or not, since both elements survive), any final say on the matter is difficult. What can be said is that Eliot's poetry, as misinterpreted, misread, and misunderstood as it may be, is a quintessential cornerstone in modernist thought, a fragment in the puzzle, which may yield an emergent whole, though it may not be fully grasped.