Dryness and Spiritual Decay in The Waste Land
T.S. Eliot peppers "The Waste Land," his apocalyptic poem, with images of modern aridity and inarticulacy that contrast with fertile allusions to previous times. Eliot's language details a brittle era, rife with wars physical and sexual, spiritually broken, culturally decaying, dry and dusty. His references to the Fisher King and mythical vegetation rituals imply that the 20th-century world is in need of a Quester to irrigate the land. "The Waste Land" refuses to provide a simple solution; the properties of the language serve to make for an ambiguous narrative and conclusion, one as confusing and fragmented as Eliot's era itself.
Eliot wastes no time drawing out the first irony of the poem. In the first lines of "The Burial of the Dead," the speaker comments on Jesus' crucifixion and Chaucer while using brutal sounds to relate his spiritual coldness in a warm environment. In "The General Prologue" to The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer poetically writes "Whan that April with his showres soote/ The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,/ And bathed every veine in swich licour,/ Of which vertu engrendred is the flowr" (Norton Anthology to English Literature, sixth edition, vol. 1, p.81). For "The Wasteland's" speaker, "April is the cruellest month, breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/ Memory and desire, stirring/ Dull roots with spring rain" (Norton Anthology of Poetry, fourth edition, p.1236, lines 1-4). The harsh "c's" and muted "d's" throughout point to the speaker's disenchantment with a world full of paradoxes and dichotomies. The "mixing" of "Memory and desire" only hurts him, as do all the verbs, which Eliot places at the ends of their lines to int...
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...o present ideas and to withhold personal interaction, it is difficult to read "The Wasteland" without questioning authorial intent. Is the Fisher King in the last stanza, written in the first person, possibly the poet himself, come to rescue us in Nietzschean Über-Mensch form? Though he would certainly argue against the validity of such a self-enlarging statement (or maybe not), Eliot must have written "The Wasteland" with some hopes that it would somehow end his land's drought. In this sense, then, the writer is a type of Fisher King, and the new ritual is not vegetable harvesting, but writing.
Works Cited:
Abrams et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, sixth edition, vol. 1. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
Ferguson et al. The Norton Anthology of Poetry, fourth edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996.
Abrams, M. H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York; W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
Abrams, M. H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
write an "educated" and "insightful" article by using not fact but conjecture to prove his
These memories become his "key" to awken the rest of us who are still pretending. The reader is left with two choices at the end of the poem. S/he can either forget about the poem, and go back to living in a waste land, or s/he can stop repressing pain and feeling and leave the waste land. Eliot ends the poem with a man (maybe himself?) sitting on a shore, "[f]ishing, with the arid plain behind me" and asking, "Shall I at least set my lands in order?" (425-36) The man here, by facing his pain, has left the waste land, and is able to move ahead.
M.H. Abrams, et al; ed., The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume I. W.W. Norton & Company, New York/London, 1993.
"How you have felt, O men of Athens, at hearing the speeches of my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that their persuasive words almost made me forget who I was – such was the effect of them; and yet they have hardly spoken a word of truth.” – Plato “The Apology”
Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher that was born in Athens, Greece around 470/469 BC. He served in the Athenian army and fought in many battles. When Socrates retired from fighting in the army, he began focusing on expressing his beliefs. He wasn’t the typical “teacher” or “preacher”; he was a very critical and analytical thinker that helped guide his students and the Athenians during his time. Through his teachings and beliefs, Socrates had positive and negative influence on the people during his time and modern time. Although he is credited as one of the founders of Western Philosophy, Political Philosophy, and Ethics, his teachings was in disagreement with the teachings of the democracy of Athens, which led to him being put to death. Along with his philosophical beliefs, Socrates’ great thinking led to the creation of the Socratic Method and the Socratic Paradoxes.
Abrams M. H, et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed. New York: W. Norton & Company, 2000.
Imagine the time just after the death of Socrates. The people of Athens were filled with questions about the final judgment of this well-known, long-time citizen of Athens. Socrates was accused at the end of his life of impiety and corruption of youth. Rumors, prejudices, and questions flew about the town. Plato experienced this situation when Socrates, his teacher and friend, accepted the ruling of death from an Athenian court. In The Last Days of Socrates, Plato uses Socrates’ own voice to explain the reasons that Socrates, though innocent in Plato’s view, was convicted and why Socrates did not escape his punishment as offered by the court. The writings, “Euthyphro,” “The Apology,” “Crito,” and “Pheado” not only helped the general population of Athens and the friends and followers of Socrates understand his death, but also showed Socrates in the best possible light. They are connected by their common theme of a memoriam to Socrates and the discussion of virtues. By studying these texts, researchers can see into the culture of Athens, but most important are the discussions about relationships in the book. The relationships between the religion and state and individual and society have impacted the past and are still concerns that are with us today.
In his defense, Socrates claims over and again that he is innocent and is not at all wise, “…for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great.” Throughout the rest of his oration he seems to act the opposite as if he is better than every man, and later he even claims that, “At any rate, the world has decided that Socrates is in some way superior to other men.” This seems to be his greatest mistake, claiming to be greater than even the jury.
When Socrates was sentenced to death, his friend Crito offers to help him escape, but he refuse to escape. He explains to Crito that if he were to escape he would be running away his whole life. He would stay at Athens and comply with the sentence as set by Athens law and die for his cause. Another reason that he gave Crito for not escaping was that he was already death alive and that he was too old to be running away .
Socrates lived such a private life that it lead to the most important revelation of his entire life. He would go about his life doing nothing but self-examination. In examining his life so strenuously others would come to him to be taught, or to have their children be taught by Socrates. They would offer him money and he would refuse. They would do whatever they could to learn anything Socrates had to teach. What they did not know is that Socrates was not teaching anyone he was simply going about his usual life and people just happened to learn from it. This was also why Socrates was put on trial. He was brought up on two charges, one of impiety and the other of corrupting the youth. These two charges set the course for the last month of his life.
Abrams, M. H. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
Socrates, according to Plato challenged the norms of society by questioning life and having others question it as well. He was labeled of “corrupting the youth” and for not believing in the Athenians gods. “Socrates is guilty of corrupting the young, and of not acknowledging the gods the city acknowledges, but new daimonic activities instead.” (The Apology, pp 654) Although, he was cast by being “corrupt”, Socrates had many followers that saw him as a wise man. Socrates trial was made up of thirty jurors, who were later known as “The Thirty.” The “Thirty” really wanted was to silence Socrates, rather than taking his life. However, Socrates did not want to disobey the laws, he did not want to be violated of his right to freedom of speech, nor did he did he want to be undermine his moral position. (The Apology, pp. 647) He stood against injustice acts several times while he was in counsel. “I was the sort...
Ceremonies are prevalent throughout T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. Eliot relies on literary contrasts to illustrate the specific values of meaningful, effectual rituals of primitive society in contrast to the meaningless, broken, sham rituals of the modern day. These contrasts serve to show how ceremonies can become broken when they are missing vital components, or they are overloaded with too many. Even the way language is used in the poem furthers the point of ceremonies, both broken and not. In section V of The Waste Land, Eliot writes,