Considered to be a seminal Modernist work, The Waste Land was written in the aftermath of the First World War by American-born poet, playwright and literary critic Thomas Stearns Eliot. A 434-line poem divided into five parts, it addresses themes of death, loss and confusion. While The Waste Land is intentionally hard to decipher, lines and expressions evoke visceral images that can be universally understood.
MODERNISM
Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1888, T.S. Eliot moved to England in 1914 and renounced his US citizenship in 1927. He became the most influential voice of the Modernist literary movement, arguing that, in modern times, “the poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language to his meaning.” Eliot’s poem The Waste Land is filled with allusions and references to other literary works, and in addition was heavily edited by his friend and fellow poet Ezra Pound. However, it has been so much referenced itself that parts may chime with those who have not read the poem. Take the opener as an example:
“April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers”
“Abril es el mes más cruel, hace brotar
lilas en tierra muerta, mezcla
memoria y deseo, remueve
lentas raíces con lluvia primaveral.
El invierno nos tuvo cobijados, cubriendo
de nieve olvidadiza la tierra, alimentando
un pequeña vida con tubérculos secos”.
TUNING IN
Different voices come and go throughout the poem without explanation, as if the reader is tuning a radio (by the 1920s, regular radio broadcasts were being made the norm both in the UK and elsewhere in the world.) Among the many characters and voices in Eliot’s poem, named and anonymous, there is a clairvoyant called Madame Sosostris; two working-class women who discuss false teeth; a blind Theban prophet from Greek mythology; a female typist who has an unpleasant sexual encounter; and a man who sees an acquaintance in the street, and asks him a strange question:
“‘That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
‘Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
‘Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?”
“Aquel cadáver que plantaste el año pasado en tu jardín,
¿ha comenzado a retoñar? ¿Florecerá este año?
¿O malogró su lecho la repentina escarcha?”.
HANDFUL OF DUST
Some expressions from Eliot’s poem have been used in the titles of other books. For example, Evelyn Waugh’s 1934 novel A Handful of Dust takes its title from the line: “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” Perhaps the best-known lines of The Waste Land have been referenced many times; they are typically oblique and comfortless.
“Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.”
“Ciudad irreal,
bajo la parda niebla de un amanecer de invierno,
sobre el Puente de Londres la multitud fluía;
nunca hubiera creído que la muerte deshiciera a tantos”.
NOTHING?
Without imposing a clear narrative or moral message, Eliot brings together fragments from different myths, religious traditions, languages, locations, time periods, and texts to create a verbal collage. By the end of the poem he has alluded to texts ranging from the Bible and Shakespeare to Dante’s Inferno, Sappho, Baudelaire, the Buddha’s Fire Sermon, texts on folklore, and many more, some of them quite obscure. He even added five pages of explanatory notes, although the reader is left to draw their own conclusions about what parts of the poem might mean.
The following lines, which Eliot tells us were inspired by the 17th-century play The Devil’s Law Case by John Webster, express disorientation in their meaning and their arrangement on the page.
“‘What is that noise?’
The wind under the door.
‘What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?’
Nothing again nothing.
‘Do
‘You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
‘Nothing?’”
“«¿Qué es ese ruido?»
El viento bajo la puerta.
«¿Qué ruido es ese ahora? ¿Qué hace el viento?»
Nada nuevamente nada.
«¿No
sabes nada? ¿No ves nada? ¿Tú no recuerdas nada?»”.
peace...
In the final lines of the poem the voices appear to dissipate altogether, yet ultimately unite in the Sanskrit word for ‘peace’. This enigmatic ending is also a reference to the Hindu texts the Upanishads.
“London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih”
“Se cae el Puente de Londres, se cae, se cae
Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam uti chelidon—Oh golonrina golondrina
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie
estos fragmentos he orillado contra mi ruina.
Pues entonces os obligaré. Jerónimo vuelve a estar loco.
Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
Shantih shantih shantih.”
Beautiful and devastating, The Waste Land had a major impact on poetry both in English and in other languages. Eliot went on to write more influential works, including the 1935 play Murder in the Cathedral and a set of meditations called Four Quartets (1943). In 1948 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
