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

down to the bottom of the ocean it's taken a while to get there and then at the very bottom of the ocean what's it look like in your mind's eye as it's kind of rocking gently back and forth with that picture in your mind's eye let's go ahead now and play the game of section 4 death by water flea baths the Phoenicians a fourth night did for that the cry of gulls and the deep sea swell and the profit and loss a government under sea picked his bones in whispers as he rose and fell he passed the stages of his age and youth entering the whirlpool Gentile or Jew oh you who turned the wheel and looked winland consider Philebus who was once handsome and tall as you okay let's play the game of this one notice we begin with fleetness when we hear the Phoenicians and we know that the title of the section is death by water we're back to the drowned sailor of Madame sorceress and her pack of cards with her tarot cards right and all of that notice this Phoenicians who was a great sailor right a great great warrior they were a great sailors right notice he's now been dead for 14 days which is of course ironic fortnight dead 14 days because of course in these Phoenician he's been dead for a whole lot longer than that right notice the word for God you might Circle it you might start it and in fact this is really a poem about forgiving isn't it it's a poem about the inability to remember but it's also a poem about forgetting where did he forget well all the things he knew in his life the cry of gulls the deep sea swell the profit and loss in other words when you're dead you don't care this is our Scrooge story isn't it you don't care about the money once you're at the moment of your death notice the fun of the word profit think about that when you read it you know that the word profit here means gain when you hear the word profit you immediately think of Tiresias the blind prophet the genius of the genius of Eliot right a current under C picked his bones and whispers this notion of whispering comes from the hollow man right when we whispered together quiet and meaningless as heroes and felling pass through the stages of his age and youth the notion that your life is a series of stages in other words right before you die you have a tendency to kind of relive your whole life and here it is for him he's entering the whirlpool we think about gates in his Shire from both Second Coming as well as selling totes a link to Byzantium you can look at those texts obviously on our strong as well and then finally Gentile or two which by the way encapsulate all people okay Gentiles you just simply means all people oh you noticed the personal point of this poem now at this section who turned the wheel and look to windward in other words all of us that kind of have a tendency to look towards the future with some kind of expectation consider fleebus he's kind of like a working model right who was once handsome and tall as you well let's play the game really quickly of what's going on here you've got obviously the it's very beautiful poetry it's easier maybe more accessible some might say right that notion of death has undone so many we come back to and now at 280 no one gets out of this critique right all of us are included as we have often said in 303 you ain't met no 200 year old people right which is a significant realization the only difference between you and a fly is you know about fly swatters think about that right in other words you know that at some point this is gonna come for you and here it is nobody gets out of this and death right we won't care about profit and loss what will we care right about that to be here all the rhymes did you hear for example swell fell there all the way through this reading it's a it's a beautiful rating for that well at 3a we've mentioned Yeates you know again vauclair and Whitman and Thoreau come to mind those poets that kind of reach out and speak to you yeah right go back to that vogue layer to the reader you hypocrite you I'm you you you're just like me I'm just like you well 3b we've said this often in our study of Plato's Republic we said it right Socrates's insight that at the moment of death remember he said that the unexamined life is not worth living right the unexamined life is not worth living you'll remember that he makes the observation at the moment of death all humans pretty much think the same thing back to our study of fado the words are all the same we all speak the same word the words are oh my god the only question is the inflection of the boys what a Scrooge tell us the ghost takes into his past not interested takes them to his present to the present time really gets more mad not interested that third ghost shows up in Scrooge story at the Christmas Carol Dickens Christmas crow though the third ghost shows up doesn't say anything dressed all in black who's the third goes lights death where's he taken great yard what's he showing his own tombstone fascinating it's at that moment the multi-billionaire of Scrooge is ready to just simply fall down on his knees and beg for one more day why well he comes to the moment his death he says the words oh my god it's the inflection oh my god what am I going with my life like you just have another moment here you have that same game being played right so when we talk about three B obviously the question is what are your thoughts about me what can you what can you maybe start to think about right we think about Keats's poem and I have fears that I may cease to be we've talked about about that how do you come to terms with the fact that you have an amenity to people how do you come to terms with the fact that when you were a child they taught you when you were swinging at the park that you had to go to the van I don't want to go to the van no no you don't get to swing in the park forever man you got to stay at the park for just a short period of time then you got to go to the van everybody goes to the van it's got to happen sooner or later how do you deal with that can you learn anything from fleebus and consider fleeing this who is once handsome and tall as you well now we come to the end of the poem we start to put it all together we're in Section five what the Thunderer said and as we get ready to study this I'll just share with you what TS Eliot's said in a note about this final in this fifth part in this I'm quoting now in this first part of part five three themes are employed so you may want to write this down the journey took meas after the resurrection of Christ there's a story in the Gospel account about how Jesus Christ is he meets a couple of his disciples on this journey on a road to meas buddy Debby he's not recognized as such the approach to the chapel perilous and here he references miss Weston's book that I've that I've already referenced with you as well and the present-day decay of Eastern Europe that that's the one you really want to write down the decay of your the wasteland alright here we go well now turn what the Thunderer said and again we're back to that notion of those three sanskrit words so i i have had students that say i can start to read this a little bit better now by the fifth section because i'm starting to figure out how to read this let's see how well you do follow along that's the block here we go what Thunder said part five after the torch light written on sweaty faces after the frosty silence and the guy after the agony and stony places the shouting and the crying prison and palace reverberation of thunder spring / distant mountains he who was living is now dead we who were living on are dying with a little patience here is no water but only rock rock and no water and the sandy Road the road winding above among the mountains which are mountains of rock without water if there were water we should stop and drink amongst the rock one cannot stop or think switch is dry and feature in the sand if there were only water amongst the rock dead mountain mouth of carries teeth that cannot spit here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit that is not even silence in the mountains but dry sterile Thunder without rain that is not even solitude in the margins but a red sullen faces sneer and smile from doors of mud cracked houses if there were water and no rock if they were rock and also water and water a spring a pool among the rock if there were the son of water only not the Secada and dry grass singing the sound of water over a rock where the hermit thrush sings in the pine trees drip drop drip drop drop drop drop but there is no water where's the third who walks always beside you when I can't there are only you and I together but when I look a hand up the white road there is always another one walking beside you riding wrapped in a brown mantle hooded I do not know whether a man or woman but who is that on the other side of the hall what is that Sun high in the air murmur of maternal lamentation over those hooded hordes swarming over endless plains stumbling in cracked earth ringed by the flat horizon only what is the city over the mountains cracks and reforms and bursts and the violet air falling tires Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London unreal a woman through her long black hair a typed and fiddled whisper music on those strings and that's with baby faces in the violet light whistles and beats their wings and crawled head downward down a blackened wall and upside down in air were towers tolling reminiscent bells that kept the hours and voices singing out of empty systems and exhausted wells in this decayed hole among the mountains in the faint moonlight the grass is singing over the tumble graves about the chapel there is the empty Chapel only the winds home it has no windows and the door swings dry bones bahama were only aqaq stood on the roof tree Kakariko Kakariko in a flash of lightning then a damn gust bringing rain Ganga was sunken and the limp leaves waited for a while the black clouds gathered far distant over him abandoned the jungle crouched humped in silence when the Thunder spoke da doctor what have we given my friend blood shaking my heart the awful daring of a moment's surrender which in the age of prudence can never retract by this this only we have existed which is not to be found in our obituaries or in memories draped by the Magnificent spider or under seals broken by the lean solicitor in our empty rooms da diadem I've heard the key turn in the door once and turn once only we think of the key each in his prison thinking of the key each confirms a prison only at nightfall his serial rumors revived for a moment a broken Coriolanus da da Matta the boats responded gaily to the hand expert with sail and all the sea was calm your heart would have responded gaily when invited meeting obedient to controlling hands I said it on the show fishing with the errand plane behind me shall I at least set my lands in order London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down four aces cozy nel foco KD athena quando fear booty kelly dole who swallows one province Tahiti - Emily these fragments I have shown against my ruins why then I'll fit you here on Evo's mad again data diagram damn shanti shanti shanti all right let's now turn and to this last and final section let's see how well we can maybe spend some time here nope right away at the very beginning of this last section note the repetition of the word after after after you say it three times we get it's going to be an important refrain for us right notice the mention of the mountains right several times mentioned here at least four times mentioned the mountains only these are distant mountains there's a winding road we'll get to that one in a second and then mountains of rock and finally dead mountain notice how different this is from the opening line in the first section in the mountains there you feel free and reading much of the 90 go south for the winter this idea of a winding road right the winding road above the mountains some have said this is a very useful kind of repetition here of an idea then this is a poem that's kind of winding and of course what do we think of as winding in nature rivers of course come to mind don't they right point out as well in line for line 325 you've got repetition of those ing words right the shouting the crying the gerron's their notice we've got the whitening right taking us back to the opening lines of the of the poem as well who he who is living is is of course is now that we are dying with a little patience we're talking here about Christ the resurrected Christ notice though we are dying with a little patience we're back again to this notion that slowly all life is really about is dying from the moment of your birth it's all headed towards that experience which can be kind of understood as a really good sad observation like notice here where we are only rock everything is sterile there's no right the notion of fear death by water can mean two things it can be drowning but can also mean going without water dying of thirst right notice it mind 346 that there's this word if if there were water in a rock if there was dissent in other words this notion of I wish I had something I didn't have on week and we're back again to code layer and his poem to the reader ennui is not just about boredom it's about wishing that there was something which probably never can actually come known as the dry grass reminds us at mine three 4354 of the dry grass of Hollow Men you can go back to that lecture this notion of who is the third Christ is not recognized and I think this is part of that Inhofe in Holloman it's the multi fully arose of Dante that notion that if Christ were to come we think of DAF Jes keys from Brothers Karamazov in that notion of when in the grand inquisitor chapter when Christ shows up and nobody recognizes Christ writing for Dutch died his he's walking he's walking through the streets the Inquisition and nobody recognizes Christ at all right on the road to anyways he's not recognized Lyon 368 Europe is in chaos right for TS Eliot we're back to women's here again the long black hair right hey by the way notice this one lining three four three forty four and following the the faces sneer and snarl we've got cluttering clatter and clutter earlier and then notice the swarming and the stumbling these repetitions of these words all of these all of these words have this tendency of a certain kind of feeling so if we were to ask for your notes into ed to be what is the mood of this poem I jot that one down what is the this poll with all these really heavy kind of sad words right the woman's hair takes us back again to the observation and I think probably that TSLA was influenced by a study of Paradise Lost the importance of hair all the way through the poem notice we go from rats to now bats right and both of these animals are portrayed then in the worst imaginable legs right they live in the dark they're kind of seen as gross and frightening and yet those are the animals that end up here by the way let's do point out that notice how many times the word violent gets used in this poem and all the other colors red and white which takes us back to our comments on Conrad's heart of darkness and the use of and the use of color we've got the chapel which is going to have something to do with the Grail quest and the idea of the Grail is significant with the Fisher King now let's we haven't said much about that one so let's put that one in our notes really quickly the idea from the Arthurian motif assembly you can go back to my lectures on King Arthur to see more of this right here more of this King Arthur is dying the only thing that can help to save him isn't a drink from the grape but the krail can't be found so the Knights have to go out and search for the grave and when they finally find it and of course the only one I could find it is the greatest of the purest of the Knights personal and he'll bring it back and then and only then can you drink the water that's drunk from the Grail for those of you who know your Indiana Jones and the third film of course when he drinks from the cup you know Christ when you drink then from this Holy Grail then you have water that will restore you not drown you but restore you in some way and we're clearly there then there's a flash oh I'm sorry we want to make a comment about the that stood on the rooftop remember of course that you have a chicken or rooster remember the crowing is very important in Christian story about the denial of Christ by the great Peter right right as the crows three times so we're playing all kinds of games are being played here at the conclusion of our of our poem right we've got empty voices we've got exhausted wells and then finally we've got the river the gunga river the river of India by the waters of Lehmann were earlier mentioned and of course that took us to Psalm 137 by the waters of Babylon there we sat down and wept playing very similar games and then finally we've got the theophany now theophany again coming here from the Upanishads 5:1 the theophany again is significant right because it's the it's when God speaks out of the thunderstorm or out of the whirlwind in this case out of the Thunder and again just to be clear da means to give diantha means to be compassionate sympathize and die I'm not to control right so you've got this game that's being played here the awful daring of a moment surrender takes us back to proof rocket is do I dare disturb the universe notice the line here about the empty rows we think of the key each in his prison thinking of the key each confirms a prison only the nightfall ethereal murmurs the idea that we live our lives somehow separate from everyone else you know

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Published: Fri Jun 08 2018