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

the lines again it lines 35 through 42 and especially the German lines waste and empty is the scene again back to this notion of lost love and the idea that water is going to be important by the way we should point out this there's an apostrophe here in these lines of 35.42 where she's talking to another person as if we expect that other person and would understand that other person to be there in lines 43 we meet Madame sorceress she was actually also a person that Elliot Elliot knew up with a wicked pack of Tarrant cards right the quest again to see to know the future there those are pearls that were his eyes is from Shakespeare's Tempest and the we're going to have of course in Section 4 death by water in other words this is the first introduction to fleebus the position of the Phoenicians who is going to drown later in the poem let's point out we got a lot of Dante reference this year line 56 those crowds of people walking around and arraigned as well as the whole notion of the sign that goes on for those of you that have studied your Dante's Inferno you know that one of the rings of Dante's Inferno is in fact people who all they do for eternity is walk around and they sigh of course that term is going to be rendered at home and as the word alas as we talk about it than that other lecture they sigh why because they never could make up their mind what they were going to do there much like of course hem like in that famous to be or not to be speech thus conscience makes cowards of us all remember those lines right they goes our pearls that were his eyes as well as kind of a frightening idea of being at the bottom of the ocean and the eyes have turned into kind of like poles or stone I had not thought death in and done so many as a direct line from Dante it's one of the first things Dante the pilgrim says when he ends up in hell I mean if everybody who's ever lived goes to hell to go to hell for donde that's a lot of people and when he shows up there he's like well there's a lot of people here I had not death I did I had not thought that it death had it done so many is is the line and it works here notice again the zombie image of people just kind of walking across the bridge and they don't have any reason to be excited about anything I've often said and I said they're my home in lecture as well when the bell rings and you go out into the halls of oil in high school just look at the students walking from one holding pen to the next holding pen and watch the body language and they look a lot like zombies and you'll play the game here as well right by like 69 you've got Stetson who has apparently been in the war and you've got some speaker talking to him and he asks some interesting questions about the corpse that you planted in the garden so we got all kinds of growth themes type sites of things happening here oh keep the dog far hence that's friend two men with his nails so to get up again and then that you Hippocrene that door well someone welfare to take us back to the boat lair to a reader in other words the first section will end with an indictment that goes directly to the reader you don't get to stand outside this palm and say yeah you're right lots of people are really jacked up and don't have a legitimate life movie this is a poem that says we're all in this one together because we're all moderns of course today we read the poem is post moments or maybe even post post matters at two-way of course let's say we're all in this together that's obviously one of the major messages here we're all going down together notice the notion of going down right that to be let's pay attention to the opening lines really quickly and in gentleman that's what we call this thing of running on just read it with me and jam it means that you keep reading the line read the opening lines with you April is the cruelest month that's a farm breeding lilacs out of the dead land that's a thought mixing memory and desire that's a thought stirring doldrums with spring rain that's a thought so why break the line at the breathing mixing stirring do you got me by the way if you know your iambic pentameter you also will pay attention that you've got it April is the cruelest month that's for right I am breeding thank you to your fifth so in others let's put it in our notes we have I am big fat ammeter I mean look at the next one lilacs out of the dead land that's for I am a bomb pop bombing pop um but then mixing what's going on here well scholars have pointed out right from the beginning Elliott wanted to make a point the ancient way of again Milton Paradise Lost of working light Shakespeare with iambic pentameter kind of put you in a place of if you know your poetics this is a place I know but Elliott is going to break the rhythms with this enjambment game of breathing and then he hits the line and then he goes to the next line lilacs out of the dead land mixie and then hits the line again that's what we call it gentlemen in other words if you rate the line is this way and so some early readers of poetry as we've talked about in other lectures they will sometimes read the line instead of the thought so they will go April is the cruelest month breeding lilacs out of the dead land mixing memory and desire stirring and then they go this doesn't make any sense well no because if you understand enchantment you will keep reading April is the cruelest month breeding lilacs out of the dead land for a note to yourself when you read any poetry you have to pay attention of course to your punctuation the old forms are getting jacked is another way to say this at 3a well we have so many illusions going in here so many languages of course Dante is so important you can see my Holloman lecture for more of that at 3b here's a question for you are you me sad that things change or are you excited right how about this one for a question do you want to know the future okay I'll play this game with you I love to play this game with students in 303 right imagine if in our building there's a room with only a computer on a table and a chair all in the computer screen is a line you can click anywhere on that bar and you will see live video of your life let's just begin with your birth and not your conception so we don't traumatize you so if you click at the very beginning of that bar you will see the moment of your birth anything in between you're going to see the video of exactly what was happening in your life at the end of the bar is the last breath you take question hey would you want to go in that room so that I think computer and click on that bar and see your life B where would you go on that bar would you go to the beginning would you go back to a moment in your past that you can watch one more time how many of you would go to the very end of the bar so that you can click on it to know right how much time do I have left that is to say what will the it look like the future do you want to know the future is it a good idea to want to know the future this poem of course will ask those questions all right let's quickly go down to section 2 game of chess by the way the title of this one comes from a Thomas Milton play and the title that play he wrote to the game adjust but he also wrote women beware women and hear this this one's important you gotta kind of know bit as an allusion to rep him to appreciate what happens at section two in the play you've got a young girl who is sitting in a room she's being seduced by the man her mother-in-law should be watching her but her mother-in-law is busy playing a game of chess in the adjacent room so in other words she's not paying attention while a young girl is going to be seduced all right here we go section two again I challenge you conquer monkey money and just read along just experience the text all right follow along here we go the chair she sat in like a burnished throne glowed on the marble where the glass held up by standards brought with fruited vines from which a golden Cupidon peeped out another hit his eyes behind his winged double the flames of seven-branched candelabra reflecting light upon the table as the glitter of her jewels rose to meet it from set in cases poured in rich profusion in vials of ivory and colored glass Sun stopped and left her strange synthetic perfumes and went powdered or liquid troubled confused and drowned the sentient odors stirred by the air that freshmen from the window these are similar in fattening the prolonged candle flames from their smoke into the lackey area Stirling the pattern on the coffered ceiling huge she would fed with copper burn green and orange framed by the colored stone in which they'd like to carve it dolphin swam above the antique mantel was displayed as though kundo give upon the Sylvan scene the change of by the barbers King so rudely forced if there the nightingale filmed all the desert with inviolable voice and still she cried and still the world pursues jug jug to 30 years and other withered stumps of time were told upon the walls staring forms leaned out leaning hushing the wrong then closed footsteps shuffled on the stair under the firelight under the brush her hair spread out in fiery points blowed into words then would be savagely still my nerves are bad tonight yes bad stay with me speak to me why do you never speak speak what do you thinking on what thinking what I never know what you're thinking think I think we're in rats alley where the dead men lost their bones what is that noise the wind under the door what is that noise now what is the wind doing nothing again nothing you see nothing do you remember nothing I remember those are pearls that where his eyes I will live Allah is there nothing in your head oh that Shakespearean rag it's so elegant so intelligent what should I don't know what should I do I shall rush out as I am and walk the street was my hair done so why should we do tomorrow what should we ever do the hot water 210 and if it rains the closed car at 4 and we should play a game of chess pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door when lilz husband got Demark i said i didn't mince my words I said to her myself I up please it's time now Albert's coming back make yourself a bit smart you want to know what you done with that money he gave you to get yourself some teeth endured I was there you have them all out little and get a nice suit he said I swear I can't bear to look at you and no more can't I I said and think of poor Albert he's been in the Army for years he wants a good time and if you don't give it to him there's others will I said oh is there she said something of that I said then I'll know who to thank she said and give me a straight look it up please it's time if you don't like it you can get on with it I said others can pick and choose if you can the development makes off it won't be for lack of telling you ought to be ashamed I said to look so antique and her only 31 I can't have sense pulling a long face it's then Perez I took to bring it off she said she's had five already nearly died of young George and Terry said it would be alright but I've never been the same you are a proper fool I said well if Albert won't leave you alone then it is I said what you get married for if you don't want children hurry up please it's time will that Sunday Albert was home and they had a hot gammon and they asked me to dinner to get the beauty of it hot hurry up please it's time I don't please it's time good night bill and I know good night May good night Tata good night good night the night ladies good night sweet ladies good night goodnight alright let's pause now go back and take a look at the at the opening lines here of section two a game of chess first of all the description of a beautiful luxurious room so bright put that in your notes right away luxurious room with all these drawings all over the place but one of the drawings is the drawings of the famous story of filament who's this beautiful girl who is raped by this king and then to try and keep her from telling anybody he cuts out her tongue and then she's turned into a ninety deal so right away let's put it in our notes this will be TS Eliot's attempts try to resurrect the theme of sex and violence we're going to see more of this as we go notice in line eighty nine the use of the word drowned the sense in odors right notice trouble confused and drowned the sense of order this assist insignificant that Elliott wants us to continue to remember this word of course the line 103 the withered stumps of time I like that term I would circle that one the withered stumps of time in other words this is what history often is is the study of the withered stumps of time it does beg the question of TS Eliot's poem The Waste Land has become just another withered stump of time right by the way that line about leading out the leaning out leaning at line 105 makes us think about the Prufrock line right oh then leaning out of windows in shirtsleeves um the conversation now at lying 111 right my nerves she says are bad too not yes bad and then she says stay with me speak to why do you never speak what are you thinking what thing what I never know what we're thinking think that students would say wow this is the first time in the poem that I feel totally at home because this sounds like a conversation on the other had with my mom dad or it's a conversation I've had with somebody who's acting to me or whatever a pal of mine and I just don't want to talk of course let's remind ourselves it's prufrock who says it right in the left side of geography it's impossible to say just what I mean so this inability to communicate right she says what are you doing why don't you think these questions are coming like a mirage right notices responses I think we're in rats alley where the dead men lost their bones now this notion of rats I would circulate we're going to come back to it along with bats by the very end of the poem right and then the noise what is the noise right the wind under the door what is the noise now what is the noise doing and again knows the use of the word nothing again nothing and then again she comes back do you know nothing do you see nothing we're back to these questions do you remember nothing and again I'll say I remember those are pearls that were his eyes and then I've had some students that circle the next line as the significant line again I'm going to ask you what is your favorite line from this poem some students have said the next line is that line for them are you alive or not is there nothing in your head and then the Shakespearean drag line of course this one is a challenging line right again this notion of ennui the board nothing left to do we're back to boat glare again in his in his to the reader lines that we read at Lyon's 139 we got an interesting barroom sing let's talk about that one for just a few minutes there's some students who are really confused by this until they get a couple of pieces of information and then it makes total sense to them you can go back and read these lines and it will make total sense to you once you have a couple of pieces of information what we've got we're looking we're just looking in on a borrow scene or you've got a woman who is talking in a bar but she keeps being interrupted by the barman the tender of the bar who keeps saying hurry up please it's time hurry up please it's time in other words he wants to shut up the bar it's time for them all to leave by the way to make a note at to be did you notice the spelling of the word is there's no apostrophe now this is a genius public who edits this poem heavily do you think you forgot the apostrophe hurry up please it is time or hurry up please it's time I'll just leave that one to you to kind of start to think about what is going on there now what is it that we're talking about well we've got an exchange going on they got a soldier coming back from the war Albert and the woman is telling the other woman you need to fix yourself up look at you your teeth disgusting what is going on with you she has to admit that her problem is that she's had children and her last child she aborted the child by taking a pill that was given by a chemist and inject her Alma so again you've got these notions of suicide and our infant side and death happening as well in this poem and then again with this hurry up please it's time thing going on notice all the repetitions as well to be known as I said I mean you just go through this in circle and later for yourself how many times I said I said I said the hurry up please of course repetitions as well and then finally the last lines good night ladies good night sweet ladies good night for those of us who have studied him let me know those are the words that were spoken by Ophelia who remember she has flowers in her hand as she is leaving to go out to do what commits suicide why does Ophelia commit suicide remember the play Hamlet is a play that sells slaughter you can go back and look at our lectures on weren't strong yet about this write a play about selves want to be or not to be that is the question whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms weapon against the sea of troubles and by opposing in them in other words Hamlet is music on suicide in the act 3 speech and of course the irony of that play Hamlet is that the only suicide that actually takes place is the suicide of Hamlet's lover o philia there is a reading that play as we've said in a lecture on Hamlin that in fact Ophelia kills herself because she knows she's pregnant with how much job which would play right into this whole important thing as well the Chilton lover obviously storyline is here as well and the notion again must put it in our notes that sex is something that's done but not something that's enjoy we're gonna give to this and we said this in our copy in our conversation about Holloman it was TS Eliot who pointed out along with a lot of other thinkers that after the first world war when sexual prohibitions begin to decrease that the 20th century would see more sex in the history of the world the message army everybody's hooking up but nobody seems to enjoy very much in other words more sex less love certainly TS Eliot was onto something in that regards alright let's jump to two angrily quickly notice in this is a brilliantly constructed section we go from Phil amel who was the girl who was raped had a tongue cut out and turned into a nightingale right to the nervous woman to finally of course the lady in the bar notice the number of evil voices that are a part of this poem and that takes us back to the Civil at the beginning of the poem right finally a to be notice again all of the all of the references the refrains here right hurry up please it's time hurry up please it's time it almost leads to kind of like a hurry feeling when we're reading it and of course a feeling as well a kind of desperation I've got to get everything said before they finally kick us out of the bar whatever at three a well obviously we've got the Greek Mets here going down right but the Phil amel thing we've got sex and violence happening together you can take a look at my lectures on Hamilton's mythology if you want us hear more about that notion of why is it the case that in Greek mythology we got so much of sexual violence happening perpetrated by usually it of course is males towards females does it's not always that way they almost always that way at 3b

Channel: tim mcgee

Views: 1,189

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: PCQsj8dF0YM

Length: 22min 1sec (1321 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 08 2018