Sr B, T S Eliot's The Waste Land, B

interpretive reading actually it's a recitation of the wasteland he has memorized the entire poem and he will perform it for you and it's a brilliant performance but the thing emphasizes and I am excited about the fact that when he introduces this poem this is actually where he begins as well with the title he emphasizes the fact that there's all these places that are sassoon din this poem this can be very confusing if you pick up this poem and just start reading it if you don't know what you're looking for you can become incredibly frustrated by all the different voices that are a part of this poem number two let's say it this way TS Eliot has read a lot he is influenced by this reading none more than the French symbolist poets especially I believe the poet boat later boat layer he has this collection of poems called flowers of evil and his opening of poem is a poem called to the reader now I'm gonna read this poem to you we're not gonna annotate it or anything at our three levels of reading I just want to read this poem to you it is a poem can I say this out loud this is a poem that usually will never end up in a high school anthology for reasons that will become self-evident once I start reading the poem out loud to you okay this is a disturbing poem and while I read it I want you to pay attention to two things so write it down again this is called to the reader you can go online by the way and find us I'm going to be reading the Sandlin Koons could it's a translation but you can find this translator in a number of places two things I want you to focus on as I read this poem out loud to you one is this is his view of the human condition and I'm going to tell you out loud it's pretty depressing number two he's going to talk about a French word because he is a French writer only which usually is translated for him but you know it actually sousou's a lot more than just boredom it's that feeling you're talking to your pal how's it coming in here pal does this hmm students do this often dummy right right in other words it's like boredom depression not not sure well let's let's just listen to the way vote layer plays the game to the reader ignorance error cupidity and sin possess our souls and exercise our flesh habitually we cultivate remorse as beggars entertain and nurse their lice our sins are stubborn cowards when contrite we overpay confession with our pains and when we're back again in human mire vaio tears we think we'll wash away our stains thrice potent Satan in our cursive bed lulls us to sleep our spirit over kissed until the precious metal of our mill is vaporized that cunning alchemist who what the devil pulls our waking strings admonitions Loras to their side each day we take another step to hell descending through the stage unhorse on like an exhausted rape who mouths and choose the martyrized breast of an old withered we steal in passing whatever joys we can squeezing the driest orange all the more packed in our brains incestuous 'as worms our demons celebrate in drunken games and when we breathe that hollow rasp is death sliding and visibly down endure lumps if the dome canvas of our wretched life is unembellished with such pretty where as knives or poison pyromania rape it's because our souls too weak to bear but in this den of jackals monkeys curves scorpions buzzards snakes this paradise of filthy beasts that screech pow grovel front in this menagerie of mankind's vice there's one supremely hideous and impure soft-spoken not the type to cause a scene he willingly make rubble of the earth and swallow up creation and yard I mean Anhui hooman is who cut dreams produces Haman and real tears together how well you know this fastidious monster reader hypocrite reader you might double my brother in the French you hypocrite Lecter and somewhat more thread you hypocrite reader my double my brother well just for a moment point out this is the way of the hollow man We Are The Hollow Men we are the stuffed men let's put it in our notes right away from beau Blair I believe that Elliot learned this speaking directly to the reader but including himself as a poetic voice in the statement that is to say we're all in this together and what is it that takes all of us down ennui boredom nothing to do incredibly the other poem that I will share with you quickly is the poem the albatross I'm going to read the Cape Flores translation and this is TS Eliot I think I think Elliot was very influenced by this poem as well by the way just to just to finish that you hypocrite victim of someone on flight that that line will be the final line of the first section first part of the poem The Waste Land it will be one but when Elliot quotes that line he doesn't quoted in translation he quotes it in the original French well what happens if you can't read French Elliot would argue what's wrong with you you can't read French you're not much of an educated person if you can't read French that's that elitism of Eliot by the way that's one of the reasons why he fell out of favor I think in the late 20th century that elitism that he possess the albatross is an interesting word picture and I've used this one before and my lecture on James Joyce's portrait of the artist as a young and this one is a fascinating little ditty look at this one I would trust huge birds you can think for example of what we say in our Rime of the Ancient Mariner comments right we've got that one posted on very strong you haven't seen that one off times for division I'm sorry off times for day version seafaring men capture albatross those bass birds of the Seas that a company at Langer space-boats plying their way through bitter straits having scarce been taken abroad these kings of the blue awkward and shy piteously their great white wings let true like oars of their size this wing at Voyager how clumsy he is a week he just now so lovely how comic and ugly one with a stubby pipe teases his beak another mimics limping the who could fly the poet resembles this prince of the clouds who laughs at hunters and haunts the stores exiles in the ground amid the jeering pack his giant wings will not let him walk well I think that this one makes a lot of sense to me to understand as well in terms of what's going on first of all I have said already that I think James Joyce here is obviously influenced as well by this poem and by the glare of the stream of consciousness writing of course of choice is going to influence as well what TS Eliot will do but I think here for a nose what we learned from this albatross text is the idea that Elliott will believe that the poet is rejected as the Prophet as the philosopher will be remember our comments about how a prophet is rejected in our study of Plato's Republic right in in the cave allegory the way that pugnac philosopher will go down into the cave and everybody will just make fun of them or whatever I think TS Eliot very much has this in the back of his mind the idea that the poetic speaker the voice of the Prophet here at about Hera divinity tigresses is marginalized misunderstood treated poorly and for that I think Eliot yes serious problems by the way if you want to make sure that you know this you still with us go home this evening walk up to your folks and say hey I decided I know what I'm gonna major it in college it's not going to be pre-med it's not going to be engineering I've decided I'm going to go to college and major in poetry and they just watch their face because most parents will say poetry is nice and I like poetry just like everyone else but what are they going to get around to you right away right now obviously the question is why if you go a major and engineer you gotta make a lot of money if you made your own poetry everybody don't look at you like you you know something's wrong with you I think Elliot was on to something I think he realized that poetry was about to become marginalized like you know albatross teased marginalized not not considered taken seriously or significant his response was the right way slam baby finally and I think most importantly if you're gonna if you're really gonna study this poem you have to know about that classic character from Greek mythology Tiresias so let's talk about him for a moment we will meet Tiresias and Tim Elliot himself said this was the most important single most important voice of the text will meet him in part three the fire sermon we're gonna read we're gonna meet her in LA around like 218 and halfway through the poem alright but we're gonna point out that he's been there the whole time all the way along well who is he well Elliot said he's the most important personage uniting all the rest of the voices of the poem from Ovid's metamorphoses we're told the story there was this guy named Tiresias as he walking along the road he sees two snakes in the middle of the road that are copulating States and he's grossed out by it so he takes us thinking he watched the snakes to make him knock it off Queen goddess Hera is very upset and for him doing this she punishes him by turning him into a woman for seven years so Tiresias leaves first the life of a man then for seven years the life of a woman the way the story gets better after he is transformed back into a man so that now he knows what it's like to be both a guy as well as a girl Hera and Zeus have a debate about who enjoys sex more men or women well sue says let's bring in tiresias I mean he's enjoyed both he's been a guy he's been a girl so let's ask him Tiresias who enjoys sex more guys or girls Hera assumes that he's going to say guys and guess what he says he says all women enjoy sex way more than guys era is so offended by this she immediately blinds for the rest of his life he's blonde talked about and you know the wrong answer it up so he's blind we're not done Zeus feeling badly for tie races is he's been jacked by Hera zoo says I tell you what I'll do I'll do two things for you one I'm gonna give you seven lifetimes to I'm going to give you the power to see the future that is to say you can see the future alright even though the irony even though you're blind you can see you can't see with your physical sight you can see of course but that other kind of sight now we know that Tiger easy since up in all kinds of pathologies we heard about him of course in the story of The Odyssey when he's visited by Odysseus in the underworld we hear about him of course in the stories of Oedipus Oedipus the King so that is the Tyrese's I think that it's significantly important that in our Pope Tiresias is always going to be there okay so we're going to hear from Tiger eazy-e's as we get into this poem ah now briefly let's just review our three levels of reading and our learning theory we are working of course with three levels of reading as we read this text what does the text say level one summarizing what does it text mean level two we subdivide throughout to a themes messages to be rhetoric not what Elliot says about how Elliot says it put a start on this one in your notes at level 2b that's where we're going to spend quite a bit of time you have to you have to I mean if you pick up this point when you start reading you come to the first German line and you know I do what's up with that or for example these references these allusions to all these other titles if you don't know all these other titles you're going to have to use some kind of help - yes Elliot provided notes okay when he published the poem a second time he provided notes but some of those note scholars have pointed out are just as obscure as the poem itself you have lots and lots of help online so I would definitely challenge you to find that help online write that kyushu's some insight as to exactly what's going on at level 3 we don't ask that one may ask what does the text say at level two what is the text mean at level three how can we relate to the text at 3a relate to other titles and to the world we're going to do a lot of that because Elliot loves his illusions 8 now tell us iowans not illusions as in the magician made the elephant as you know disappeared that's that's a different that's Aiello ALL references to other titles TS Eliot as we've already said at least 30 different texts and more many have many have just spent their time just trying to find all the different illusions okay and then finally at 3 B and most importantly for us because of learning theory how can I really personally to a text like this why because our learning theory just to remind is that capacity to connect new information to old information now there's gonna be some irony about me saying that because I'm about to study a poem where nothing connects to nothing we're going to hear a line like that in this bone all right but our challenge is to simply answer it this way can I find I would write this one down as a good question to start this poem study with me can I find one idea that I can use that has some meaning to me my job is to kind of help you find those ideas all right and of course it isn't obscured and is a difficult poem so there has to be some explaining that goes along no question about speaking of then let's turn for a brief overview now Oklahoma so unless I'm gonna tell you kind of generally what the poem is about you're going to take a few notes here we've got five sections so you want to write this down and as I go and once you've kind of got this down and I deaf recommend that you've got this in your nose and once you've got this down you'll use this as kind of a ski motto you'll use this as kind of like the spine to build everything else around in your study of the poem so let me help you do that today first of all let's just say this there's a huge debate after the poem is published and that Holl all this stuff fits together okay a simple one-liner let me just do it this way for you you'll maybe remember that I said that the great American philosopher Ken Wilber says in his marriage of sins and soul that modernity is understood as good news bad news right the idea that there are some good things that happen with modernity kind of selling shots for example the cure to polio for example that's good news and then there's some bad news like for example well we learned how to split the atom but then of course we learned how to make terrible weapons of mass destruction good news bad news let's just say it out loud for TS Eliot there is no good news about modernity everything pretty much is bad news and we're going to see that bad news exemplified in our study of the wasteland all right if I were to name this lecture if I were to give it a title I would call it from April to shanthi the the two words that begin and in the poem April is the cruelest month and then the last words of the poem shopping shanthi shanthi in between all of those words right we're going to ask about the questions that will Sassoon this poem about spiritual deprivation the possibility of any hope Shanti means peace at the end of the poem some say that by 1925 right think of it 1922 is their waistline 1925 as the Holliman that three years later that when he publishes the Holliman TS Eliot is completely done with any chance of hope remember how that poem ends this is the way the world ends this is the way the world ends this is the way the world ends not with a bang but a whimper that's how that poem is all hope pretty much gone you'll remember the multi foliat rows of desks while a kingdom the hope only of empty men we're gonna see so many comparisons as we study so relationships between the two well let's go ahead and put on our notes if you need a single line just say what the wasteland is about it's really about spiritual death it's really about loss it's really about the modern world is jacked right TS Eliot what he does in this poem is he provides all kinds of voices to show that I would have to land the words show it's not that he's going to tell you that the world is checked he's gonna do that great thing all Creative Writing two instructors will tell their young students please in this poem Dom towel me show me right we hear that all the time you're gonna hear that in this poem only can they hear it through voices there you know all these different voices that are gonna be talking now Eliot never steps in and says hey hey this is the voice of an old woman talking hey hey this is the voice of an old man talk no no no he just literally is going to provide you with words you have to read the poem to kind of understand what's going on my job is maybe to help set that up for you so I'm going to give you a few signposts along the way to kind of help you okay that's why I say them this poem needs to be experimented and I just read so let's review now briefly the five sections and then we're going to study experience the poem actually together and by the way again I'll give this apology I've given it already but I'll give it again I can't cover this entire poem word-for-word I'm sorry I just don't have the time I invite you though to begin to become curious about the poem all right let's go to work section one burial of the dead I'm hoping that you have a copy of the poem in front of you I'm hoping that you're annotating that copy of the poem in front of you I'm hoping that if you don't have a copy of the poem in front of you that you go and inquire okay so that way we can work good together section one burial of the dead the first seventy-six lines you may want to write that down lines one through seventy six we start in April which of course is the spring you would normally think that would be a celebration yay right spring no we're told that April is the cruelest month why because it stirs bad memories and unfulfilled desires oh by the way let's just point out the words unreal and the words nothing are going to end up again and makes us think of course of Shakespeare's King Lear doesn't it nothing comes from nothing so we're gonna be talking a lot about nothing which is of course going to be ironic right from the start right we're gonna meet the first voice or rage she's a woman she's gonna tell us about some of her childhood memories she's going to remember a land that no longer grows anything and that she's gonna remember a land once where there was stuff that grew now there's a land that doesn't grow anything were they gonna meet a woman an old woman Madame the sorceress she is actually a real person that Elliot was aware of she's a clairvoyant that is to say she's a medium she tries to read the future and she does it through Tehran cars for those of you that know anything about the tarot cards we're gonna have a few tarot cards that actually are real turret carts that are going to end up in this poem but the quest is to try and find out about the future right and of course let's say that I allow in many ways this is a poem about trying to figure out what is the future what does it look like I mean think about that 1922 so we finished the First World War and as I've said it brought other lectures do they didn't call it the first world war you don't call a war the first you only call it the first world war once you have a second world war right it was actually called the Great War and after that war so devastating to Europe there are a lot of people kind of standing around going do what's left with this world that's all jacked up finally the first section will end with zombies walking over London Bridge oh they're not actually zombies they're just normal people but they're coming home from work and the way they walk they pretty much look like zombies next time you go to a mall just sit and watch people carrying their bags going out of the ball to their car and ask the question how are they any different from the zombies that I'm shooting in a video game that I play I make these comments already at an earlier lecture on the Holliman that TS Eliot was very interested in the idea that as modernity came about we became increasingly less human less active less ball by him and for the Wally fans in the house ended up sitting on chairs and drinking ourselves to death hmm TS Eliot was already pointing towards all of this and will see it at the end of the sûreté of the first of the first section as we've already said we're going to finish with those famous lines from both layer section to game of chess these are wines 77 to 175 there 95 lines here we're going to meet another woman interestingly all the speakers in the pub up to this point will have been women and she's talking with her guy it's actually the first guy to talk well the first woman actually is in this beautiful room this luxurious room we're gonna hear about Phil about which is of going to be a disturbing reference because Phil Amell if you know your mythology she was raped by King Terrace and then she had her come to her tongue cut out and then finally she was turned into a nightingale this will be also

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Published: Fri Jun 08 2018