Understanding Poetry | The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot

my nerves are bad tonight yes bad stay with me speak to me why do you never speak speak what are you thinking of what thinking what I never know what you are 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 nothing do you know nothing do you see nothing do you remember nothing I remember those are pearls that were his eyes the wasteland by TS Eliot is a series of fragments like the one we just saw in the span of four hundred and thirty four lines Eliot makes over 60 different allusions to over 40 different writers from all walks of life some from the east some from the west some modern and some ancient it is bits and pieces of a culture which Eliot thought had once given each of us a universal point of reference the voice is spilling and piling on top of each other in the wasteland are the echoes the last remnants of this shared culture that was now shattered in the midst of the roaring 20s TS Eliot rose to prominence as part of the Lost Generation a term coined to describe the disoriented wandering and directionless feeling of those who had lived through the most destructive war the world had ever seen Eliot's like so many others was trying to make sense of the chaos and violence of his time initially he looks for this order not in religion but within literature and mythology Eliot says not only the title but a good deal of the symbolism of the poem were suggested by miss Jessie L Weston's book on the legend of the Holy Grail the Holy Grail is the cup from which Jesus drank at the Last Supper and was used to collect his blood after the crucifixion in Grail legends the Fisher King the guardian of the Holy Grail lies dying in his castle wounded in need of a knight to complete the quest for the Grail so he can heal the recovery of the King is the only thing that can rescue the kingdom the knight must face numerous obstacles and near the end of his journey passes through the perilous chapel a nightmarish place that represents his biggest challenge when he finds the Grail it restores the king in his kingdom and it restores vitality and life to the barren wasteland this idea of a sick land in desperate need of rebirth is the essence of Europe after World War one the people of Elliott's time were suffering with no sign of relief but despite the poems desperation Eliot still leaves us with a sense of how hope can be restored Eliot refers to figures surrounding the holy chalice the impotent King the wasteland the rejoicing of the restored Kingdom but rarely to the cup itself in Eliot's solution the Grail is of vital importance but it does not magically appear in the final stanzas to rescue us instead he felt it is up to mankind to construct our own salvation April is the cruelest month breeding lilacs out of the dead land mixing memory and desire stirring dull roots with spring rain winter kept us warm covering earth and forgetful snow feeding a little life with dried tubers the first lines are written in almost perfect I am Baqir think of meter as a poems underlying structure the rhythm beneath the words in each line and I am is made up of an unstressed and stressed syllable and its use in a poem typically gives the reader a sense of stability but Eliot's use of enjambment the way he carries each phrase over the line breaks keeps making them unstable every thought seems unfinished by the final three lines the IMS have begun to break down and each unfinished thought increasingly undermines our sense of certainty most of us think of April in spring is a time of joy winner has left in flowers bloom life begins to emerge as the bitter cold passes away but we used to give us meaning no longer speaks to us a time of year which used to bring new life now only stirs dole roots in the next line we get another inversion of values if this desire to reclaim the innocence of a pre-war Europe is never going to be realized then the only thing that could truly comfort us is forgetting snow acts as that numbing agent allowing us to forget springtime is cruel because it strips away those numbing agents and leaves us with the harsh reality that perhaps no life will ever grow from that dead soil perhaps there is no hope for salvation resurrection or rebirth unreal city under the brown fog of a winter dawn a crowd flowed over London Bridge so many I had not thought death had undone so many sighs short and infrequent were exhaled and each man fixed his eyes before his feet flowed up the hill and down King William Street - where's Aunt Mary will not kept the eyes with a dead son on the final stroke of nine the crowd flowing under London Bridge is a stream of commuters heading to the financial district where Elliott worked as an investment banker the line I had not thought death hadn't done so many is taken directly from Dante's Inferno Dante says this about a crowd of people waiting outside the gates of Hell Elliott is saying it about commuters heading to work an Eliot's view these people go about their lives suspended between living and dying and their mass inertia is seen as a continuous escape and evasion of reality this allusion to Dante allows Elliott to suggest one of the main ideas of the wasteland old stories lie beneath modern streets in his lecture on the wasteland Nick mount says that London is wrong London is Athens London is Dante's hell the difference is those old stories and places were meaningful real and authentic but the new versions of these old stories have become Hollow and drained of that meaning all these allusions are not meant to help the reader in fact they make the poem much harder to understand Eliot does this very purposefully because he knows that if you can understand him if you get the references then you feel what he feels and you can't help but mourn the death of the shared culture along with him part two of the wasteland is called a game of chess but chess is mentioned only once in the entire section instead Elli discusses marriage and this becomes the arena in which the game is played chess is a cerebral game involving strategy and scheming matters of the heart and soul have become so degraded that they have been reduced to each person trying to outwit and outmaneuver the other the chair she sat in like a burnished throne glowed on the marble in vials of ivory and colored glass unstop it lurked her strange synthetic perfumes unguent powdered or liquid troubled confused and drowned the sense in odors Eliot paints us a picture of a Cleopatra type woman surrounded by all the wealth and sophistication we could imagine this is the image of the Queen cold and independent who outwits and now matches everyone she meets the queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess she is winning the game because she has drowned the senses and successfully subdued her opponent her husband the king when the husband got demobbed I said I didn't mince my words I said to her myself sorry oh please it's time now Albert's coming back make yourself a bit smart you'll want to know what you've done with that money he gave you to get yourself some teeth he did I was there you have them all out lil and get a nice set he said I swear I can't bear to look at you and no more can't 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 him there's Arthur's will I said hurry up please it's time you ought to be ashamed I said to look so antique and there are only 31 I can't help it she said pulling a long face is them pills I took to bring it off she said she's had five already and nearly died of young George the chemist said it would be all right but I've never been the same you are a proper fool I said hurry up please it's time hurry up please it's time good night bill cannot lose good night my good eye tada good night good night good night ladies good night sweet ladies good night good night the scene has shifted again and now we are overhearing gossip in a pub a woman is describing a conversation she had with her friend lil Lil's husband is coming back from the war and her speaker is telling her to look nice for him maybe get some new teeth the couple we saw earlier could not communicate but here we have an aggressive and belittling marriage sex is being used as a threat it is simply another move on the chess board if you don't make yourself attractive Albert has the right to seek it elsewhere over this conversation we hear the words hurry up please it's time this is the traditional last call of the English bartender telling them it is closing time it is time to go but it also suggests something else too women gossiping in a bar with a voice telling them it's time there is something they must do it can be thought of as the ancient poetic call of carpe diem seize the day you get this urge to seize the present moment is drown out by the gossip of the pub it is a call that seems to fall death on modern ears good night Boca not Luca not my good eye finally everyone gives their goodbyes and we are left with a final voice saying good night ladies good night sweet ladies good night goodnight these are the final words spoken by Ophelia and Shakespeare's Hamlet just before she dies o filius parting words one of the most beautiful scenes in Western literature are now words overheard in a bar in a conversation about false teeth more fragments yet another old story beneath modern life everything that once had meaning is now lost as for lo she seems to be left with two options she can either become the queen on the chessboard outwitting and outmaneuvering her husband in order to dominate him or she can collapse like Ophelia and simply bow out and fade away [Music] Eliott describes section 5 as the approach to the perilous Chapel where the Grail is held in the original Grail legend the site of the empty Chapel is the final test the knight must pass before drinking from the Grail the knight confronts the greatest test of all the possibility that there is no God it is only after finding the empty chapel and continuing forward that the knight can know true immortality in Christ 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 if there were water and no rock if there were rock and also water and water a spring a pool among the rock if there were the sound of water only where the hermit thrush sings in the pine trees drip drop drip drop drop drop drop but there is no water our speaker is desperately seeking water in the wasteland the water from the Grail offers eternal life holding the promise for resurrection redemption and rebirth but there is no water no hope no salvation and then in a blessed life then event Gus bringing rain at the chapel it finally rains water is returned to the wasteland when it rains Thunder comes and the Thunder speaks it says one word this section is inspired by a story from the Upanishads which talks about how the gods men and demons of India asked their father how they should live the father answered each of them with the sound of thunder which was heard as dung but each group interprets this in different ways the gods hear it as data to give men hear it as diad vom to sympathise and the demons hear it as da matta control da is the answer it is the holy grail it is the meaning missing from the poem and from the world it holds the promise of restoring life to the wasteland but no one quite knows what it means guitar what have we given the awful daring of a moment's surrender which an age of prudence can never retract earlier in the poem a speaker sits by the River Thames and weeps for the nymphs have departed the nymphs for the young lovers who used to gather around the river but now they are gone and have been replaced by those who leave no addresses those who meet only to fulfill a momentary desire never to speak to each other again by this and this only we have existed this lack of intimacy has become our final legacy brief meaningless encounters are all we have left to give ah diet van I have 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 day Advan means to sympathize but we cannot sympathize with each other while trapped in our own prison if you remember earlier in the poem each man fixed his eyes before his feet we are isolated and fixated on our own self-preservation and are unable to recognize who holds the key because we cannot look beyond our selfish concerns Don yatta the boat responded gaily to the hand expert with sail and oar the sea was calm your heart would have responded gaily when invited beating obedient to controlling hands damn yatta means control but Elliott speaks not of seizing but with Link wishing of control man cannot leave the wasteland on our own we are trapped and must give sail in or over to controlling hands to something greater than ourselves data to give as selfish and corrupt lovers we must learn to give something meaningful lasting an eternal diadem to sympathize we are isolated and alone each confined to our own prison thinking of the key and not of each other it is only in understanding our fellow man that we can be freed from our isolation damn yatta control we cannot leave the wasteland on our own but perhaps the giving up of control can help us navigate the Seas back home for those too lost in the wasteland being torn apart by their desires perhaps it is an ascetic self surrender and rediscovery of the spiritual journey that holds the key to our salvation i sat upon the shore fishing with the added plane behind me shall I at least set my lands in order the scene now shifts back to the Fisher King the king gives up hope that someone will complete the quest for the Grail but he decides to put the sad pieces of his kingdom back together in the best way he can this is Elias rejection of the idea that a savior must be mystical and all-powerful he looks pragmatically at the world and tells Europe how it must heal itself by letting time mend all wounds the last few stanzas break down into a babble of four different languages and through this we reached the end of the poem da da da da Matta [Music] Shanti is Sanskrit for the peace which passes understanding with this parting line Elliot is saying he's gone as far as words will allow him to go there is nothing left to be said it is possible that the person speaking these words has reached peace or Nirvana but if so it is not accessible or comprehensive all to anyone but that one individual it is something that can be experienced but it cannot be understood or explained five years later Elliot found the meaning the order and the peace he was looking for in the church he was baptized behind closed doors in secret in 1927 if it is peace this poem strives to attain then as Elliot says it is the peace which passes understanding it is private it is behind a closed door the final note of the wasteland is not one of fear or anxiety Eliot is leaving us with the hope that perhaps there is an ultimate peace and harmony to things even if it lies beyond our comprehension [Music] you

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Keywords: t.s. eliot, poetry, the waste land, the wasteland ts eliot, the wasteland summary, the waste land explained, the waste land meaning, Understanding Poetry | The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, burial of the

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Length: 20min 0sec (1200 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 17 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/thnk_more]

My take-away -

There is a peace and harmony that exists, even if it lies beyond our comprehension. T.S.Elliot (paraphrased message of SHANTIH (peace we can’t see) behind the poem, The Wasteland)

That’s amazing.

[u/noor1717]

I like the idea to sympathize but we are all too self serving and only into our own needs and desires we cant sympathize/empathize. I sometimes feel this in my own spiritual journey. Sometimes I am So focused on my own practice and where it is i lose that sympathy for other people.

I thought this describes our society quite well especially when he said people now have meaningless brief encounters. We dont have that ability to sympathize so we just get what we can from our encounters for ourselves and move on.