"The Waste Land" - The Burial of the Dead (part 1 of 2)

we begin our discussion of TS Eliot's most celebrated poem The Waste Land published in the very important literary year of 1922 the same year James Joyce published Ulysses a couple of years after the close of World War one the generation that Eliot was living in at the time felt the malaise disillusionment discontentment of post-war Western civilization and he spoke to through this poem a generation that desperately needed definition there was a purposelessness a meaninglessness that was widely felt a rise in youth culture that celebrated eating drinking and being merry right at the heart of the Jazz Age the rise of the Jazz Age here three years before f scott Fitzgerald publishes The Great Gatsby that Elliot was speaking to a group of people that had suffered several losses loss of identity a loss of purpose religious an absence of religious purpose religious meaning and so the wasteland was the right poem at the right time and was remarkable then is remarkable now and is often considered the most important poem in the 20th century speaks to a crisis of belief a crisis of culture shock loss of relationships and depth and intimacy and all sorts of things in just five brief fragmented sections of this poem before we get into the first section the burial of the dead it's helpful to discuss a few things on the outset and that is the title particularly Eliot chose the wasteland ultimately but his first title in the original title was he do the police in different voices which is a quotation from a novel by Dickens where a young boy reads the newspaper columns and newspaper reports and does the police dialog the police quotations in different voices different accents and his caretaker takes great pride in his ability to do that but what Elliot was looking to do there with that title it seems is highlight the multiplicity of voices and the multiplicity of meanings that pop up in the wasteland throughout that as we go forward through the poem you'll notice a sort of Babel a Tower of Babel quality to it with interruptions allusions references to other languages other voices without any real demarcation as to when we're shifting or any real translation Elliot just seems to be incorporating a multiplicity of voices thoughts ideas changes in scenery changes in time and it never really comes with any clear direction that we are just given the statements given the voices without the definitions or without any follow up and that might lead to an understanding of how Elliot's Elliot's odds generation that here we all are a generation of disconnected detached voices all speaking on top of each other trying to come up with intimacy and communion with one another and real genuine meaning in our relationships and our existences that just might not be there any longer again this is written a couple of years after World War one the war to end all wars the Great War that that conflict and the ambiguity of it the massive destruction of it marked a real tangible shift in how people viewed themselves viewed each other and view their lives the three great the three great questions of where do I come from why am I here and where am I going all suddenly became unanswerable in this life and in this reality so we start then with the epigraph here which if you'll notice just in in looking at it already we have four different languages represented so this bigness speaks to the different voices that his original hinted at that already just in the dedication here we have the quote and then the dedication to Ezra Pound there are four languages represented you have Latin Greek English and Italian it's already the jumbling fragmented confusing nature challenging nature in the poem is presented it's helpful to know what the epigraph is asking us to see as far as setting the tone for the poem the epigraph can be loosely translated he says the quote says now I now I myself with my own eyes saw the Sibyl of cue my hanging in a jar and when the boys said to her what do you want she replied I want to die now this is an important mythological illusion here the Sibyl of kamae was a seer a prophetess that was presented with a request a wish so to speak and what she wished for was eternal life so she wishes for eternal life and is granted it but she neglected to request for eternal youth so what you have is the Sibyl who is given eternal life but is condemned or cursed with eternal aging so after years and years and years of life in eternal age she has shriveled she has become decayed and she has become antiquated to the point where she shriveled and she's hanging in a jar and these boys come in and ask her what she wants and her replies that she wants to die and that presents a tone to the poem that is worth picking up and that is the prospect of death as something to be desired that in this wasteland that we live in with no real truth no real purpose no real meaning perhaps death is desirable perhaps death presents the one way out of all of this pain and emptiness and barrenness that the wasteland presents that that is the only real hope for peace for comfort for silence amid all the multiple voices all of the white noise all of the emptiness of our relationships and our careers and our ultimate existences that she has eternal life something that looks desirable that looks wonderful but she does not have eternal youth that her life had this eternal life she's been granted really is just a steady decline into further corruption decay corroding and aging and so we begin with the poem first section is titled the burial of the dead and there are five sections in the wasteland and you'll note in each section that Eliot hints at a major element to that coincides with each of the sections you have earth air fire water and then spirit being that fifth element that is rather undefinable but felt but knowable and so the burial of the dead here presents that first element of Earth the burial of the dead of course describing entering dead bodies into the earth into the soil the soil from which we were generated the dust to dust concept from Genesis that we are dust that we were scooped up as a handful of dust by God breathed into with the breath of life and then we return to dust when we die that central element pops up throughout this first section it's worth noting but the burial of the dead the phrase itself comes from the Book of Common Prayer which is a book a sacred book use in most Anglican churches that describes the ceremony the order of service for the right proper bearing love of dead Saints and the Book of Common Prayer specifically references a passage from John from John 11 that describes the reality of death but also the prospect of life after death or eternal life or in this sense a rebirth that Christians are given a proper burial that we are given life we move into death but then we have the prospect of a rebirth or life after death that we look to that we look forward to it's our final hope is in Christ and that passage from John 11 Jesus is speaking and he says I am the resurrection and the life that one who believes in Me will live even though they die and whoever lives by believing in me will never die and so Jesus presents the concept that all all sinners all Saints must die but then there's a resurrection that if you die in Christ you are resurrected in Christ if you die outside of Christ there is no prospect of renewal or rebirth or resurrection and and that presents itself in a sort of irony as we see in the wasteland itself that what if there is no prospect of rebirth what if there is no fertile soil from which anything that is buried could be regrown you think of the image of a seed that is sown into the ground that it is buried it is sown into the soil into the earth but it's sown into the earth with the prospect of renewal and the hope of rebirth or resurrection that something more glorious something better we'll rise out of the soil Eliot takes that point to say well what if it ends simply in a burial what if the dead simply go into the earth and there is no prospect of renewal there is no prospect of rebirth so now we go into the poem proper Eliot says April is the cruelest month breeding lilacs out of the dead land mixing memory and desire stirring dull roots with spring rain this is first sentence and already we have a reference to another work of literature from centuries before the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is alluded to here in this opening line when Eliot says April is the cruelest month now that's unusual because April typically refers to the myth or even the archetype of spring and reawakening or renewal if we tend to see the same thing that we have the season of winter which is cold barren stark the season of death where all things die hibernate are enclosed for the cold months and then April brings about the mating season the season of renewal and reawakening where the the air gets warm again the flowers bloom the grass grows April and spring itself presents a reawakening from the death imagery of the death archetype that winter brings so April ought not to be the cruelest month it ought to be the month of most hope and optimism yet Eliot says April is the cruelest month so already we're operating with a pretty heavy sense of irony here but the allusion to the Canterbury Tales the reference here the Canterbury Tales was one of the most profound significant works of the Middle Ages in England and it presents a pilgrimage that several different citizens of England take toward a holy place in Canterbury toward the Archbishop in Canterbury and the way the Canterbury Tales begins is with a similar description of April yet what Chaucer writes in The Canterbury Tales is he begins saying when April with its sweet showers has pierced the drought of March and he goes on and ultimately concludes a sentence saying then the people longed to go on pilgrimages so in Chaucer he sees April as the time when sweet showers pierced the drought the April brings the rain and and the great seasoning the right temperatures for the dead things to grow again that it pierces the drought of March and it's in that season that people longed to go on pilgrimages people longed to go back outside and to go on quests and to go on adventures yet Eliot says April is the cruelest month and here's why he says it's the cruelest month April breeds lilacs out of dead land which is not really possible there's a paradox there he says April breeds lilacs out of dead land there's something going on there he says April mixes memory and desire stirring dull roots with spring rain so there's our reference to Chaucer again that spring rain does come but the problem is in the wasteland that we live in all routes are dull all land is dead and nothing can grow from it there is no prospect of rebirth any longer we have an absence of God an absence of religious meaning an absence of purpose brought on by several different factors of modern life that modern life does not present any real prospect of resurrection any more that people are simply people they are dust to dust they will simply be buried and in this dead wasteland that we live in in the spring rain that does come mixes and braids and stirs dull roots so it comes but there's nothing really it can do to awaken anything any longer and Eliot presents two key features here memory and desire that are meant which is interesting memories a memory of a better time what we might call nostalgia a longing for the way things were a longing for a time when things were simpler when when death had a prospect of rebirth when faith and religion and the imagination and our hearts hopes taught us that there was something that we would be awaken to there was an ultimate glory we could look forward to so memory of those better times mixes with desire which is a forward-looking idea the desire for something better to come which ironically will not happen in the wasteland we live in that the memory of a time before the desolation we live in now perhaps a pre-war era a time when things were simpler a time when perhaps childhood or the purity of innocence was not lost so that memory of those better times mixes with the desire for something better to come perhaps even a homecoming a time when we could return to the way things were yet Eliot says those things are mixed and stirred and bred by the rain that comes but it only lands on dull roots and dead lands so thus April is a cruel month it brings the rain it brings the warmth it brings all of the conditions for growth rebirth resurrection without the real prospect of it and that's the tantalizing idea here that we live constantly as human beings in the wasteland with a desire for rebirth a desire for heaven a desire for an eternal prospect of glory and beauty and the memory of a time when those things answered our questions when those ideas satisfy and yet in this wasteland there are only dole roots there is only dead land there is nothing that could present us any real possibility that what we thought could happen or what we think can happen actually will he says winter kept us warm continuing that period after that paradox winter kept us warm covering earth in forgetful snow a sort of numbing agent or paralyzing agent causing forgetfulness that winter was warm it covered everything with forgetful snow it's spring that's cruel spring that strips away all of the cold comfort we had all of the things that kept us from remembering what rebirth and growth looked like and felt like that is in winter that we could paralyze and numb any feelings of memory and desire and just simply exist but it's April that strips away those numbing agents it strips away forgetful snow and exposes the wasteland for what it truly is a desolate land with no prospect of growth feeding a little life with dried tubers and then more paradoxical language how can drive tubers feed a little life it doesn't that all it does is feed the dream of something occurring that in reality cannot occur but here this line we have our voice shift here that this first grouping of lines seems to be a philosophical intellectual study of the wasteland the modern era we live in now we have a much more descriptive much more specific memory a much more specific scene and it seems like we have a female voice here from later lines it seems to be the voice of nobility probably a princess of some kind princess marie as we see here and this may be a time you see the past tense already some are surprised us we move from April is the cruelest month to summer surprised us a look at the the past here this might be a memory of a pre-war time of innocence loveliness order sensibility before all of the disruption and chaos of war and the resulting aftermath in the wasteland but she says some are surprised us coming over the Starnberg as a River in Germany with a shower of rain so here we have the rain coming again yet this time it's not presented in any irony it's coming with the summer months the height of youth and the height of loveliness a shower of rain we stopped so there we have two people together and not the loneliness and isolation we see all throughout the wasteland but now we have camaraderie and friendship we stopped in the colonnade and went on in sunlight into the hoff garden and drank coffee and talked for an hour now this language is fundamentally different this looks like communion human communion and interaction joy innocence look what's described summer in a shower of rain we stopped in the colonnade and went on in sunlight not dull grayness but in sunlight into the hoff garden to drink coffee and talk for an hour seems to be even an intimate interaction and notice this next line here's that multiplicity of voices right we have a German interruption that basically translates to say I'm not a Russian I'm a Lithuanian a true German it seems to be an interrupting voice that is overheard at this discussion in the Hrothgar miss communion between these two people talking and drinking coffee and and then out of nowhere we have this abrupt jarring disrupting intrusion of a separate voice and a separate language so again that tower Babel concept that we can't stay on a fixed memory until another voice interrupts in Jars our line of thinking and notice what the line says it's a statement of identity and validation I am NOT this I am this a true German I'm not Russian I'm a true German spoken in German so even that one sentence as intruding on Marie's memory is itself a statement for assurance that I am this I truly am it a true German we pick back up with Marie's narrative here and when we were children in the innocence of childhood as something that has been lost it's the memory that it's the memories all she has and when we were children staying at the Archduke's my cousin's the hint that she is perhaps of royalty or nobility herself her cousin is an Archduke he took me out on a sled and I was frightened he said Marie Marie hold on tight and down we went now that's important because this memory provides an emotional tone that we of course we haven't seen yet that really brings about an idea of safety security assurance confidence that we just don't have anymore in the wasteland this memory Morini is going down on a sled and is frightened so she tells us that she's nervous and anxious about the road ahead the adventure ahead perhaps even life itself that she's frightened as she should be it's a downward slope yet for her she was not alone as so many in the wasteland as we come to see it will be she's not isolated she's not alone there is a man to go down with her to comfort her and he does comfort her he says Marie Marie hold on tight he gives her something to hold on to and down we went again the we there that she has somebody to go through life together both its joys laughing and drinking coffee in the Hrothgar Dhin and it's frights going down the slope on sled high speeds danger ahead obstacles ahead he assures her hold on tight and down we went so here's that memory again of the way things were the kind of life they had without any real prospect of having it any longer in the mountains there you feel free and yet now she says I read back to the present tense much of the night perhaps a sense of insomnia I read much of the night and go south in the winter the escape from winter hinted at a game that winter brings danger and harshness and we must try to escape from that but notice to at the end of this she's alone again she doesn't spend her nights in a warm bed with a husband that she's not in communion any longer her voice ends here with her saying I in solitude read much of the night though no peaceful sleep no comfort nobody to share it with and she goes south in the winter so now we shift back to that beginning voice the more detached intellectual philosophical voice and it reads what are the roots that clutch what branches grow out of this stony rubbish and we need to pause here because we have some biblical references going on Jesus himself is described in Isaiah in prophecy as the root out of dry ground and here the speaker is saying what are the routes that can clutch where are the routes that can grab hold to something in this dead land and grow what branches grow out of this stony rubbish again Jesus is referred to as the branch in the New Testament she have an Old Testament and a New Testament reference to Christ as the root out of dry ground and the branch in John 15 he says I am the vine you are the branches all hinting at this idea of growth through a savior growth through a messiah figure someone who can assure us there's nothing to fear someone whom we can hold on tight to yet the speaker is saying what are the roots that clutch what branches groan and stony rubbish and there's no answer there is no root there is no branch that can grow out of the wasteland son of man it says you cannot say or guess and we need to pause here the phrase son of man is often a phrase that refers to Christ himself in the New Testament that he is called the son of man but it's also a phrase out of Ezekiel that were first to simply the Prophet that God calls Ezekiel son of man in Ezekiel 36 and 37 Ezekiel 2 he uses that sort of language to refer to the Prophet himself it's interesting here that we have the address to a prophet son of man comma yet the statement seems entirely contrary to the role of the Prophet son of man you cannot say or guess so those we once trusted to be able to tell us or at least I assume for us what the roots are that can clutch what is the truth as Pilate would ask what is truth what are the roots that clutch here we have our response you cannot say or guess for you know only a heap of broken images and there's a motif that Elliott we weaves throughout these five sections of fragmentation itself we have the fragmentation of voices where there's no clear sustained narrative we just have a jumble of different voices speaking at different times through the poem itself is fragmented into five sections and here all we know is a heap of broken images a pile of drunkenness it seems to remind of Ezekiel 37 where God brings Ezekiel to the valley of dry bones just this valley of deadness and broken images piled on top of each other this is the wasteland in which we live there is no sustained meaning there is no water there's nothing that can bring life to this dead land it's simply a heap of broken images where the Sun beats and the dead tree gives no shelter the cricket no relief no sweetness music shelter or shade we are exposed for what we truly are without any real hope for comfort or shelter or growth and the dry stone no sound of water in the music there note not even an echo not even a hope of water only is that repetition again and this this word at the end of the line here this is what we know a heap of broken images and he says only there is shadow under this red rock come in under the shadow of this writer knock the Elliot and the speaker and this poem presents the one real comfort in the present a contrast them from both the past in the future he says I will show you something different something modern something altogether new different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you the past shadow it morning behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you future evening he says I will show you something altogether different he says I will show you fear in a handful of dust so the present is where we must reside because the past is memory of a better time which you cannot repeat you cannot go back to and the future is desire for a time that may yet come yet is not guaranteed or even hoped for with any sense of reality he says I will show you fear what stands between memory and desire fear in a handful of dust this is the burial of the dead it's dust to dust he says I will not show you anything in the past that you can return to there is nothing in the past that can provide any comfort and there's nothing in the future that can provide any comfort all of it is in shadow your shadow at morning your shadow at evening he says I will show you fear and a handful of dust as Shakespeare mentioned in Hamlet man is a quintessence of dust that you see a reduction and possibly even a trivializing of humanity and all of its complexity the matters of the soul that the ideas of faith and an afterlife and the image of God being born and all men the stark reality the only thing we know there is no route that can clutch there is no Brants that can grow the only thing we know that broken images we know is the shadow in our past the shadow in our future and a handful of dust that defines our existence in the present

Channel: Mr. Huff's Literature Class

Views: 89,465

Rating: 4.8962965 out of 5

Keywords: The Waste Land (Poem)

Id: SsmHarT70MY

Length: 33min 9sec (1989 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 03 2015