Essay on Eco-Poetics Reading in The Wate Land by T.S. Eliot

T.S. full name is Thomas Stearns Eliot. He had written a total of 68 poems, dramas, etc. in total (Wikipedia). There are many influences, but I think that Vivienne Haigh-Wood, Eliot`s first wife, Ezra Pound, his mentor and religion are one of the biggest influences on T.S. Eliot.

Eaton presents both settings as hostile and daunting. The desert is depicted as being a dangerous prison from which escape is impossible as described as “Dry, thorny bushes formed a natural, almost impenetrable wall of spinifex.” (Pg.145) and Port Barren as described as “A hot, dusty, dry hole with flies.” (Pg.17) by Jamie. The reader is positioned to sympathize with Jamie’s predicament of being stuck in this unfriendly environment. Jamie’s relationship with the setting by the end as he is accepted by the locals and earns a sense of belonging. As a short extract from the story represents: “I meant to ask you, what do you reckon I am? Neither mate. You’re local.” (Pg.

Poetry can sometimes allow one to explore the unknown. However, in some works of poetry, one can realise that some known ideas or values remain relevant to current society. This is certainly applicable to T.S. Eliot’s poems, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Eliot’s manipulation of poetic techniques in both these poems allows the responder to realise that some ideas prevail in both modern and post-modern society. These poems explore the unknown phenomena of the obscurity regarding the purpose and meaning of life. This unknown phenomena causes the persona in both texts to resort to a sense of isolation or alienation. Eliot uses poetic techniques such as metaphors and personification to convey his ideas.

Kingsolver begins the novel with intense, vivid imagery, allowing the reader to fully engulfed in the environment, questioning where such a place exists. Kingsolver’s use of magical realism intertwines reality with fiction as she constructs the setting of the wild Congo. “Every space is filled with life: delicate, poisonous frogs war painted like skeletons, clutched in copulation, secreting their precious eggs onto dripping leaves” (1). Rich literature is woven into every sentence, loaded with foreshadowing and symbolism that the reader can only truly comprehend when the novel is over. The idiosyncratic character of the first opening pages continued to draw the reader back. Every time the opening is read again it had a different meaning depending on where the reader is in the book, and what connections have been are made.

Throughout both ‘Engleby’ and ‘Selected Poems’ there is a prevailing sense of ‘apprehension of the tenuousness of human existence’ which is evident in the protagonists’ confining inability to communicate with the world around them, as seen in Prufrock’s agonised call, ‘so how should I presume?’. ‘The Wasteland’ was written by Eliot to ‘address the fragmentation and alienation characteristic of [contemporary] culture’, questioning mankind’s ability to move forward into cohesiveness despite the ‘more pronounced sense of disillusionment and cynicism’ which came about as a ‘direct

T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land explores modernism, specifically focusing on the troubling of binaries and the breakdown of the traditional. The boundaries between life and death, wet and dry, male and female, and more are called into question in Eliot’s conception of modernity and the waste land. The blurring of gender boundaries—significantly through Tiresias and the hooded figure scene in “What the Thunder Said”— in the poem lends itself to Eliot’s suggestion that traditional masculinity breaks down and decays in the waste land. Traditional masculinity is further challenged through Eliot’s criticism of hyper-masculinity and heterosexual relations in the modern era through allusions to the myth of Philomela and the “young man carbuncular” scene in “The Fire Sermon.” Along with this, Eliot stages scenes charged with homoeroticism to further challenge ideas of traditional masculinity. Homoerotic scenes such as the “hyacinth girl” scene in “The Burial of the Dead” and the Mr. Eugenides scene in “The Fire Sermon” suggest an intensity and enticement towards male-male relations, while also offering a different depiction of masculinity than is laid out in the heterosexual romance scenes. Through scenes depicting queer desire and homosexual behavior, Eliot suggests that masculinity in the modern era does not need to be marked by aggression and

Karl Marx’s perspective thus pertinently illustrates the alienation of the modern individual from the self and their surroundings as a direct cause of their socio-economic circumstance. T.S Eliot’s poetry established him as one of the most eminent modernist poets; attempting to free himself from the constraints of the Victorian movement which pre-dated him, this is evident in the free verse and stream of consciousness narrative style of ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’. In doing so, Eliot turned his attention towards the plight of the individual, opting for the ambiguous protagonists in his poetry and exploring the often desolate and depressive urban landscape of the time through the inner workings of an individuals mind. Following on from this, throughout the poem, Eliot conveys a sense of the individual conscience as conditioned by society, through exploring the inner workings of the persona of J.Alfred Prufrock. Prufrock’s lack of identity and freedom in the face of society appears to be the predominant issue he faces, as he wanders the ‘half-deserted streets’, signifying scenes of decay and degradation to the reader, of which the most telling is the “sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells”, a stark contrasting comparison of the lower class, “sawdust” covered floors with the elitist imagery of an “oyster”.

The poem with enduring value. The fragmented structure and irregular rhyme scheme describes the fractured reality of metropolitan life. The opening images, personification of ‘winter evening settl[ing] down’ presents an impersonal city, as the melancholic connotation of ‘winter’ reveal the alienation and vacancy of its residents. This is reinforced through the use of enjambment ‘gusty showers/grimy craps/lonely cab-horse,’ illustrating the confused and tangled city that the persona inhabits. The ‘newspapers from vacant lots’ symbolically reflect upon the vacancy of the society to which Critic Jon Hanrahan adds Eliot’s protagnists struggle with spiritual insufficiency and a failure to make authentic connections with others’ An absence of affection and love bonds between humans is shown through the use of heavy sexual imagery and connoatations of a courtesan awating her clents as she laid upon her back and waited,’ reflecting on the ‘thosand sordid imges/of which her sol is constituted,’ the hyperbole reducing her soul into n entity of lust, sybollicallt manifesting her loneliness. As the pem concludes the revolving warth is compared to ‘ancient women’ metaphorically’ gathering fuel in cacant lots’, the paradoxical statement conveying the persuit for human warmth. Therefore my personal perception and

Message of Hope in Eliot's The Waste Land, Gerontion, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Cooperation is the key to human survival, and over time humans have been known to group together to survive. This strategy has allowed humans to develop massive cities and countries of immense power. Without the natural instinct to cling to one another, humans would not be as advanced as they are today, and may not have even made it out of the caves. Many authors display our natural instinct to cooperate in their works, allowing the characters to become more real to the readers.

T.S. Eliot in the twentieth-century wrote what is today widely-regarded as one of the most important text of modernist poems, “The Waste Land.” This poem evaluates many aspects of ancient and contemporary culture and customs, and how the contemporary culture has degraded into a wasteland. In “The Waste Land,” Eliot conjures, through allusions to multiple religions and works of literature in five separate sections, a fragmented and seemingly disjointed poem. Eliot repeatedly alludes to western and eastern cultural foundation blocks to illustrate the cultural degradation prevalent in the modern era of England. One specific eastern example is brought up in the third section of the poem, which T.S. Eliot names “Fire Sermon,” an allusion to

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.

In T.S. Eliot’s most famous poem The Wasteland, a bleak picture of post-war London civilization is illuminated. The inhabitants of Eliot’s wasteland are living in a morally bankrupt and spiritually lost society. Through fragmented narration, Eliot recalls tales of lost love, misplaced lust, forgone spirituality, fruitless pilgrimages, and the “living dead”- those who shuffle through life without a care. These tales are the personal attempts of each person to fulfill the desires which plague them, though none ever stop to consider that what they want may not be what they need, nor do they consider why it is they feel they must do these things. Through studies in Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic perspective

Judith Wright extensively uses the structure of her poems to convey many ideas and themes. The structure of a poem is crucial to delivering its key message as it determines both the tone and how the poem is read. She shows the reader throughout the poem how the dust, which is symbolic of the barren emptiness that has “overtaken… dreams” of beauty and comfort as well as financial dependence, will consume the earth if the current environment is not conserved and protected. Wright’s use of title emphasizes this point in the clearest way she can and re-enforces her major concept to the audience. Another example of how structure is used in this poem is juxtaposition. The first and second stanzas are strategically placed next to each other because of their greatly opposing descriptions. In stanza one, the new world of dust and wind, many negative adjectives are used, such as “harsh”, “grief” and “steel-shocked”. Stanza two, which talks about the past, contains a wide range of positive adjectives such as “good”, “kinder” and “beautiful”.

The Waste Land, written by T.S. Eliot, is poem portraying the lack and/or the corruption of culture in England during the post WWI period. Eliot uses a form of symbolism, in which he uses small pieces from popular literary works, to deliver his message. He begins by saying that culture during the post WWI period is a “barren wasteland.” Eliot goes on to support this claim by saying that people in England are in a sort of shock from the violence of World War I. Eliot believes that the lack of culture open doors for immorality to grow among the populace.