“The Wasteland” (1922) Originally titled: “He Do the Police in Different Voices”

 Written under the influence of and is dedicated to the American poet, Ezra Pound.
1. Eliot calls Pound ‘Il Miglior Fabbro’ meaning ‘the better poet’, which is taken from how
Dante Alighieri mentions his inspiration, Virgil, in his “Divine Comedy”.

CERTAIN KEYWORDS AND PHRASES WHICH CAN BE USED TO DESCRIBE THE

POEM:

1. Loss:

2. , despair, boredom, decay, incomprehensibility and memory.

3. ‘Pieces saved and stored from a shipwreck/ the ruins of time’ (gives off an
idea that the modern world is a wreck, a collage of broken, fragmented
pieces of the world it used to be--> hence the poem reflects that image. The
poem does not have a holistic fullness.)

 The poem has five parts: Burial of the Dead, A Game of Chess, The Fire Sermon, Death by Water,
What the Thunder said.
 Burial of the Dead :
1. References for the name:
 From the Book of Common Prayer (Anglican prayer book): Adam and Eve’s son,
Cane who murdered Abel (because God preferred Abel over Cain) and about the
burial of the body.
 From Sophocles’ Antigone, where both of Antigone’s brothers are dead, but
only Eteocles could be buried since he sided with the king. Polynices was not to
be buried, but Antigone buries his body due to a sense of responsibility.
2. There is a common referencing of fertility rites and related customs throughout this
part, which probably shows a kind of weird bouncing back from the cruelty of the war
that the world seems to do without much thought. Even if the land is a wasteland after
the war, nature and humankind seems to continue after “burying their dead”. Images of
sacrifice also show how the world needs an “outlet” for the excess energy it builds up
after a long period of being stationary.
3. The poem has an erratic flow, with disconnected images, like a collage picked out of
random sources. Adjacent lines may have no connections, but it is like “picking out
souvenirs/resources from a shipwreck and presenting them”.
4. starts with the lines “April is the cruelest month, /breeding lilacs out of the dead/ land,
mixing memory and desire, / stirring dull roots with spring rain.” (the general idea of the
first four lines: how does all things happen just as it used to after all this violence and
bloodshed {during the world war})
 April is called the cruelest month as:
 It is the start of beautiful spring. It is surprising as spring rolls around so
naturally after something so horrendous happened to the world.
  It is when people bury their dead after the snow has thawed and the
ground is soft. It is a sad situation, but flowers still bloom regardless.
 The mention of lilacs can refer to the “cruel” flowers that bloom or a nod to
Walt Whitman (whose work When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom’d was an
elegy to the American president Abraham Lincoln)
 The mixture of “memory” and “desire” is a deadly cocktail, but one that makes
“dull roots stri with spring rain” ( a reference to how people repopulate the
earth after the world war, and fertility rites as well: just as nature goes on, so
does humans- Cycle of Life)
 “Winter kept us warm”- is a quotation
5. Lines from 8-18 talks about Marie and her cousin, who was the Archduke of Austria
(whose death set off the first world war). Marie recollects her memories with the
Archduke, and is a symbol of the world before the war. She had a great time with her
cousin before the war. (“Bin gar keine…echt Deutsch”  “We are not Russian
(slavsslaves?), we’re from Lithuania, we’re German.”)
6. From line 19:
 19 - 24: what can come out of this wasteland? Even if it’s spring? (“Son of Man”
is a reference to the Bible, it means humans) Human, your existence itself has
been shattered, everything is in shambles, there’s nothing that gives hope.
(“And the dead tree gives no shelter, cricket no relief..” is also a quotation from
the old testament : Ecclesiastes 12:5 “also when they shall be afraid of that
which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish,
and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fall: because man goeth
to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets”. This can be a symbol
that the dead have been buried, but they won’t be fulfilled as what happened to
the world was so tragic.)
 25-29: the red rock is a reference to the rock on which Jesus was crucified,
Golgotha. The symbolism of Christ is an image of rebirth/resurrection of the
world after the war. The shadow is again a reference to fertility rites.
 Important: Annotation of lines 26-30: These lines are an allusion to two
legends: The legend of King Arthur: The King had grown weak, and so with him
the land. So his knights (Percival, Galahad, Bors) tried to find the holy grail
(which is the cup/platter used by Jesus at the last supper, is said to have
miraculous healing powers), so that the land does not become a wasteland. The
knights find the grail from The Fisher King, who safeguarded the Holy Grail( he
was a powerful king, but was wounded in his manhood which rendered him
useless to march into battle. He then lived as a fisherman, and his land became
a barren wasteland (a symbolism of how his lack of “fertility” affected the land
as well?) He was healed by Arthur’s knights, and the Holy Grail was retrieved as
well)- again, symbols of fertility, loss, barren wastelands, etc.
7. 31-34: Direct quotation from a folk song, Tristan and Iseult/Isolde: (Celtic/Irish)
 Translation: Fresh wind is blowing/from the motherland/my Irish child/where
are you?
  Tristan is a Cornish knight who falls in love with Isolde, an Irish princess, after
she saved his life after battle. Isolde is forced to marry Tristan’s father/uncle but
their affair continues. Isolde is executed (?) after people find out about the
adultery. Tristan tries to save her by winning a battle for his uncle/father, but
even though he wins, he dies on the battlefield, and the lines are his dying
thoughts. But the hope is useless, as Isolde is already dead.
8. Lines 35-42: the hyacinth girl is someone whom Eliot fell in love with during his
adolescence. But they eventually drifted apart (?), and thus the love was futile.
 Oed’ und leer das Meer: There is nothing but the empty sea/desolate and empty
is the sea. (From Wagner’s German ‘Tristan und Isolde’, what the dying Tristan
says as he waits for Isolde). An image of helplessness and futile hope.
9. From 43: a clairvoyant is someone who has the power of clairvoyance, to see someone’s
future through various means. The imagery of cards (tarot cards) can be taken as a
symbol of fertility rites, as the images used in the cards are often related to the rites.
(Eliot was interested in Mysticism and the Occult).
 Sosostris a common public figure of the early 1900s, around the time Eliot
was composing ‘the Wasteland’. The Times of London reported several cases of
astrologers and fortune tellers, most of whom were fake. Hence, Eliot says “one
must be careful these days”
 Phoenician sailor: Lebanese sailors, who were strong. They are often seen as
fertility symbols.
 “those are pearls that were his eyes” In Shakespeare’s Tempest, the spirit
Ariel tells Ferdinand of his father’s death (a lie)
 Belladona In Italian, beautiful woman.
 Lady of the rocks a reference to Da Vinci’s famous painting, Madonna of the
Rocks, a picture of the Virgin Mary, Christ, John the Baptist and an Angel.
 Hanged Man A tarot card symbol, associated with the Hanged God described
in George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, is the symbol of a fertility god who is
killed so as to bring resurrection/fertility to the land and the people.
 Wheel wheel of time, shows the improvement of technology, and the passage
of time.
 Blank card, forbidden to see  an allusion to the man who can see without his
eyes.
 The images seem disconnected, but become meaningful in the context of the
text and as it is literature.
10. From line 60: Unreal city London (From Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil where he speaks
about Paris)
 The image the crowd “flowing over London Bridge” looking as though they were
“undone by death”
 Fog symbolises darkness, confusion, etc.
 Is an allusion to Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, where in
Purgatory, the spirits of the dead move as though it were a water body.
  The people were so unenergetic, spiritless after the war that they
seemed dead. The living seemed dead, death was everywhere. They
don’t even communicate or interact with others.
 Saint Mary Woolnoth: a church with a clock tower. The bell of the clock makes a
sound that is “dead”. The bell from the church can also be a fertility symbol, as
in olden days, the bell was rung to signify birth of a child. It is a symbol of death
as well.
Final stroke of nine: Also symbolises the time when Jesus was crucified, start of
office time.
 The narrator calling out “Stetson”
 A reference to the hats named after the man who designed them
(Stetson hats) that everyone wore. Representative of humanity.
 An allusion to Dante calling out people in Purgatory (in his Divine
Comedy)
 Mylae: the place (Libya) where the locals protested against the Roman
Occupation (The Battle of Mylae, the first naval battle between the Carthage
and the Roman Republic in 260 BC).
11. Lines 71-76:
 Gore imagery of someone dead being buried and treated like a seed that was
left to sprout (the nonchalance of burying someone dead, as it has become so
common).
 Corpse being planted: fertility rites
 O keep the Dog…dig it up again!  Referencing the Jacobean Tragedy The
Duchess of Malfi by John Webster.
“But keep the wolf far thence, that’s for you men,
For with his nails he’ll dig them again”
(Said by Cornelia whose son Marcello is refused a burial as he died in a quarrel)
Or
The aforementioned lines are also a reference to Antigone burying his dead
brother so that the body won’t be dragged by animals.
Or
Pagan vegetation ceremony: a burial outside the church where the body is
covered only by flowers and leaves, and left vulnerable to predation
 Dog star guides us: Constellation
 “nails”: claws of the animals  the seed won’t be able to sprout
Or
Nails used for crucifixion  signifies resurrection
 You! Hypocrite lecture!- mon semblable,-mon frere!
 Translation: You! Hypocrite reader! My fellow! My brother!
 A direct line from Charles Baudelaire (who is considered the founder of
Modernism: he made ugliness in art fashionable) Flowers of Evil
 The fourth-wall is broken, and Eliot addresses the reader, asking if
they’re satisfied with the Gore that he described in the poem; much like
how the audience would be asked if they’re satisfied after the death of
someone in a bloody Gladiator fight. The readers are part of the
Wasteland.