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 …show more content…
In order to suppress the suffering one must put out the fire. Perhaps the corpse in order to bloom will need water, for that water will extinguish the flames that keep the corpse dead and prevent it from sprouting. The symbol of water will often be mentioned and it will even simultaneously bring about a partial cause of suffering and a source of relief. Imagery of fire is revisited once again in the second section of the poem titled,“A Game of Chess,” in which Eliot remarks on the standing of what seems like an aristocratic woman. The flames are beginning to influence their surroundings. “Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra/ Reflecting light across the table as / The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it” (82-84) is a signal of the flames beginning to take their prey, in this case specifically the inanimate. The fire from the “sevenbranched candelabra” (82) illuminates the room, then the light reflects “across the table” onto her “glitter...jewels” in order to highlight the woman’s materialism. The fire literally sheds light on the materials. A no-no according to Buddhist teaching, because the “learned and noble disciple… conceives an aversion for form” (Clarke 351). The aristocratic woman fails to acknowledge the flame, which is unproductive if one is trying to rid themselves
Elliot’s “The Waste Land.” Each author highlights the meaning of rivers; Crane begins with the East River, which then grows into the Hudson and onto the Mississippi and Eliot with the River Thames. To each author the river has a distinct meaning. To Eliot, the River Thames is symbolic of the collapse of western civilization, which doesn’t factor into Crane’s piece. In “The Waste Land,” Eliot-like most British poets-immortalize the Thames. Despite how he depicts this, in the modern world it is just a dirty river. Eliot’s background causes him to symbolize the Thames differently than a reader would in the U.S. Similarly, a reader outside of the U.S. will symbolize the East, Hudson, and Mississippi Rivers completely different than Crane and other Americans. Foster believes that the connection in how one interprets a symbol, and their personal background goes hand in hand. Otherwise, everyone would connect the Thames to Eliot’s beliefs, or the Mississippi and Hudson according to Crane’s ideas. Rather Foster believes that it is important for a reader to have the freedom to interpret the text
By looking through a critical lens at T Stearns Eliot’s poetry in light of his 20th century, modernist context, much is revealed about his personal and the rapidly evolving societal beliefs of that era. Through his repeating motif of time and fragmentation throughout his poems, Eliot reveals the prevalent feelings of isolation while in society along with the need to hide one’s feelings and emotions in this degrading society. His exploration of the use of ambiguity and stream of consciousness by Eliot, which is a characteristic of modernist artists, allows his work to resound over decades while being interpreted and differently understood by every audience that encounters them.
Fire represents a lot of the things in this novel. A woman name Mrs. Schachter was howling, pointing through the window. “Look! Look at this fire! This terrible fire! Have mercy on me!” (pg 25) Elie said him and the other saw a real fire this time. “This time we saw flames rising from a tall chimney into a black sky.” (pg. 28) Elie said they stared at the flames, “We stared at the flames in the darknes, A wretched stench floated in the air.” (pg. 28) And in front of them the the flaming smoke was the smell of burning flesh.
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
The fire in this book is a reoccurring symbol often times in this novel the fire shows something greater than what it actually is. An example is in this book the some if the boys are focused on trying to get off the island. They think that with this fire it can signal a boat or a plane. But when a boat finally goes by and is in distance of being able to see them if the fire is up it goes out. All of the boys start to loose hope and get tremendously sad because of this. The fire is symbolizing that they start to loose hope in surviving and some start to not care anymore and focus
The symbolic meaning of fire is demonstrated throughout the book in many different fashions but mainly it is portrayed as a symbol of life and social order. If
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
Eliot is not solely criticising modern life in the poem, it also serves as a reflection of Eliot’s social context and his own life, a product of its time.
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.
Beyond the poetry he wrote, Eliot drove the world to modernist views through essays and other means of literature. Containing stories, news, and opinions of both T.S. Eliot and others who wrote about him, The Letters of T.S. Eliot offer an inside perspective on Eliot’s life (Eliot and Haffenden). In Volume 1 of the revised edition of the letters Patrick Query describes how T.S. Eliot felt so much passion for culture and how it must improve (Letters, Volume 1). In the volume, the writer states Eliot started a movement to modernize literature all on his own. Eliot contained such a strong passion for making the world a better place, that as society generally acted apathetically towards life, Eliot strived for a culture where people actually inserted energy and passion into life (Poetry Foundation). Also, in John Worthen’s biography of T.S. Eliot, the author believes Eliot focused the entire masterpiece of Four Quartets on illustrating to his audience despite painful times in life, people must focus more on the beauty of life (Worthen). After addressing the aspects of society he believed needed to improve, Eliot wrote several poems on each topic which showed the beauty of his opinion and a more joyful culture. The Waste Land helps describe how to improve the war stricken world, and other poems such as Four Quartets and The Sacred Wood deal with other cultural characteristics Eliot strived to improve. Devoting much of his literature career to impacting
In this discussion of Eliot’s poem I will examine the content through the optic of eco-poetics. Eco- poetics is a literary theory which favours the rhizomatic over the arborescent approach to critical analysis. The characteristics of the rhizome will provide the overarching structure for this essay. Firstly rhizomes can map in any direction from any starting point. This will guide the study of significant motifs in ‘The Waste Land.’ Secondly they grow and spread, via experimentation within a context. This will be reflected in the study of the voice and the language with which the poem opens. Thirdly rhizomes grow and spread regardless of breakage. This will allow for an
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
The early poetry of T. S. Eliot, poems such as "The Wasteland" or "The Love Song
All words, phrases and sentences (or just simply images) which make up this poem seem to, in Levi-Strauss’ words, “be a valeur symbolique zero [and the signifier] can take on any value required ”, meaning that the images Eliot uses do not have one fixed signification and consequently conjure up thought-provoking ideas that need to be studied (qtd. in