After finding your Waste Land Line Assignments, use the instructions and links below to complete your research on The Waste Land, taking notes in your Source Book. Title your Source Book entry “Shored Fragments: Lines ___-___”
Investigate in your assigned lines:
1. Allusions
2. Word Definitions
3. Important Translations
4. Questions
5. STOP BAD FIT—Most importantly, the “I” and “D,” which are Imagery and Diction.
6. Relationship to Modernism / Lost Generation / Valley of Ashes / Failure of American Dream / The Great Gatsby
7. T.S. Eliot’s Footnotes (but beware—he is possibly being cocky, conceited and tricky, and he only gives us a handful)
Please do not worry about figuring out everything; we want what you think is important in those 10-15 lines that will add to our understanding of the poem.
Website Resources:
Exploring The Waste Land This website is a learning resource allowing exploration of T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land. It uses a framed presentation of the poem with hyperlinked notes, definitions, translations, cross references, texts of works alluded to, commentary, and questions to the reader.
MAP–The Waste Land The Modern American Poetry Website (MAP) is an online journal and multimedia companion to Anthology of Modern American Poetry. The site includes historical background on poets, as well as analyses of the poems themselves.
The Fisher King This site will not be very helpful when you research your specific lines from The Waste Land, but it will be useful once we begin looking deeper at the Arthurian Grail Quest and why T.S. Eliot feels indebted to the works of Jessie L. Weston (which he includes in his footnotes to The Waste Land).
{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
Here’s a website I found that might be helpful; might have some more later:
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/English151W-03/wasteland.htm
These are the questions we responded to in class today. Thoughts? Ideas? Five points extra credit? Is there any middle way out of Eliot’s Waste Land?
1. Picture yourself sitting down in a smoky Parisian café in 1922 and reading The Waste Land in its entirety for the first time. What would your reaction to the poem be, without any knowledge of Fitzgerald’s plan to use ideas from it in his novel, Eliot’s life, the writers that will eventually go down in history as the Lost Generation, or any other ideas outside of the poem? Would you think it was a joke, a masterpiece, a satire, or something in between? Why?
2. After reviewing the poem as a class, what is your opinion of the poem as a whole? Do you have respect for what Eliot did, or do you consider it unnecessary and self-indulgent. Do you think we could have “enjoyed” the poem without any research? Do you think Eliot anticipated the method of analysis that we did as a class, or was he just writing to other well-read poets who he knew would “get” all his allusions, languages, etc? To reiterate the caption under Eliot’s picture when he graced the cover of Time Magazine: Is there “any middle way out of the waste land”?
In response to #1:
I figured if I were a young scholar sitting in a smoky, 1922 Parisian cafe, I’d probably be something like Audrey Hepburn’s character in the beginning of “Funny Face”: fancying myself too intellectual for my own good. Upon reading The Waste Land, I’d probably find it extremely confusing, and therefore, extremely profound (since I, in my naivite, would think that anything I couldn’t understand must be really deep). Then, pretending to understand what I had read, I’d talk about it with other people until I actually did understand it. After finding out what it means, I’d genuinely think it was profound since the concepts are so revolutionary and against everything current society stands for; but of course, at the same time, I’d feel a tad bit self-conscious because I’d be guilty of falling into the category of people Eliot criticizes.
I responded to the second question, mainly to the part about why Eliot wrote the poem and what he intended. So I thought that Eliot actually did not intend for anyone else to read or analyze his poem. If he had, he would have written it must differently, and he possibly would not have used different languages in his poem, and if he had intended it for others, he might have translated it for our convenience. As I mentioned in class, I am a poet, so I can understand why Eliot would not write this poem for others’ eyes or why he would ever be against writing those footnotes. Eliot possibly wanted his poem to remain somewhat of a mystery. He didn’t want to explain it (which could be why the footnotes are probably more confusing than the poem itself). That’s the real art behind poetry — what’s written in the poem is left for interpretation by the reader. Basically it’s for the poet to know and for you to find out. So Eliot probably wrote “The Wasteland” for himself more than anyone else.
ACTUALLY, I read something (from somewhere) that I thought was interesting. Apparently Eliot once said that “The Wasteland” was an elegy. The tone seems like it could be one, but I couldn’t find who it might be an elegy of. His father, maybe? Himself? I think he wrote this poem when he was still in recovery from his mental breakdown (against the advice of his doctor), so maybe he thought he was nearing the end of his life and decided to write himself an elegy? I don’t know.
Response to #1
France, a beautiful city, full of valuable and memorable architecture to see, why in the world would I be sitting in a Parisan cafe reading a random piece of some unknown author I never heard about? Even if I did get a chance to read it or even analyze it, I would be thinking, “What on Earth is this guy trying say?” Despite this reaction, I may ponder a little bit on his poem because it really irriates me. I think one of the biggest casue for this poem to be such an attraction to people is that the poem attracts its audience by stimulating many curiosity in people. This means that it really drives people crazy and frustrated about, espeically Literary figures that are intrigued by the uniqueness of the poem. Although, I may find this poem a joke at first, I may eventually see how many ideas and implications that were within the poem. So the poem would become famous eventually in my opinion.
Response to #2
I think that Eliot did not anticipate his poem to be read with so much analysis and I do not believe he meant for anyone to get all the allusions, and languages. Eliot’s primary goal in my opinion in writing the poem was writing it for himself rather than anyone else. As for the readers, I think Eliot was trying to have each person get their own interpretation of it and leave with their own opinions rather than having other’s opinions impressed onto them. In a way I think Eliot left the poem purposely ambiguous in a sense so people might not know exactly what he was talking about. We can see from Eliot’s own footnotes that he purposely left complicated phrases unanswered and explained others sarcastically. Also, I think Eliot did not even want to include the footnotes and it was something his publisher forced him to do which makes me think even more that he didn’t want anyone to understand his poem except himself.
Response to #2
I have respect for Eliot’s nerve to write such an epic poem; however, I also believe that he was somewhat self indulgent while writing the Wasteland. I seems as though he used the Wasteland as an outlet to vent his emotions and opinions of this world without any regards to his audience. For example, he included many different languages throughout the poem with no attached translations. Then, when someone asked him to write footnotes for the poem because of the confusion it gave people, Eliot responded with a set of footnotes that would only further the confusion and lack of understanding of the reader. Half of the footnotes are in another language and the other half feigns ignorance to connections between his poem and other literary/visual works of arts. Footnotes such has “I do not know where the origin of the ballad from which these lines are taken” (footnote 199) and “Tiresias..is yet just the most important personage in the poem” (footnote 218) should be taken wearily. First off, Eliot created the poem with such care in meaningful connections and allusions to other works that it seems unlikely that he would be ignorant of the origin of the ballad he borrowed lines from. In addition, Eliot meant the poem to be open ended and coming from many perspectives so to say that one character is the most important and connects everyone is quite a narrow minded or even false footnote. Again, I do not believe he intended anyone to fully understand the poem and left it somewhat open to several different interpretations.
In class, I answered question one, and my answers were fairly similar to those already stated above–confusion resulting from the esoteric literary allusions and erratic structure. However, I would like to comment now just on my impressions of the poem after reading and analyzing. Primary among these thoughts is my feeling that the whole poem has developed into something of a big joke. So maybe joke really isn’t the best term, but I find it difficult to imagine that even T.S. Eliot considered all the themes, symbolism, and allusions that have been referenced to the poem. It would be impossible for one man to come up with so many wonderful purposes in his writings, yet somehow, we as a literary community have managed to do just this. In my opinion, Eliot most likely wrote this poem not for himself only, but for his closest compatriots in the world of poetry. If the point of the poem is to connect to the ravaged world after World War I, why would Eliot not want his impressions of the war to be spread out? Perhaps on other poetic subjects where poets wax eloquent about love and death it could be acceptable that Eliot would not wish so much to have his poem read, but on such a topic as the current and prominent war–it’s rather unfeasible to think that Eliot wrote this poem exclusively for his own enjoyment. I still, however, recognize that Eliot resists having his poem interpreted, which is why I believe that he is laughing at us from the grave right now for thinking we have seen the true meaning (because there is no true meaning!). Even though he did write this poem to be seen by others, it’s merely another part of the poem to elucidate the meaning behind the words, an aspect meant by Eliot for others.
I wrote my response to the second question. After reviewing the poem as a class, I definetly have more of an understanding for most references in the poem that I had no clue about before. I am still somewhat confused on the whole concept, but i don’t feel that anyone could ever really understand everything that Eliot included. I do have respect for what Eliot did because it was his perogative to do what he wished with the knowledge he had gained throughout his life and career. I think that the poem would be too random to enjoy without the research that we performed, in order to understand it. However, I believe researching was part of the overall entertainment that the poem provided. I think that Eliot wrote the poem hoping that those that wanted to could research or use prior knowledge to interpret and understand it. In response to the magazine headline, I feel that there is no true ‘middle way’ out of the waste land, although you can ‘escape’ if you wish to. I believe that it would not be completely understood if you were to opt out part way through the poem, and that if you truely wanted to understand the poem in its’ intirety, you would have to stick it out all the way through.
I selected the second question:
Solely after reviewing The Wasteland as a class, I developed a larger appreciation for the poem and accrued an overall higher opinion of Eliot’s literary work than I had previously. Through the investigation of his footnotes, I was able to visualize the vast amount of outside references and the intriguing correlation of such to the themes illustrated in the poem. For instance, in the section entitled “A Game of Chess”, Eliot uses a multitude of historic females to exemplify his point towards the falsehoods and superficiality so common of women and the lack of sexual morals which is only continuing to increase within the modern societies of the world. In my opinion, none of the details included were self-indulgent on Eliot’s part because these very inclusions are what make The Wasteland a revered literary piece to this day. If we had not utilized research in the examination of the poem, it would not have been nearly as enjoyable because the reader could have passed an entire passage without comprehending the levels of importance embedded amidst the text. When Eliot initially wrote the poem, I believe he had intended it to be circulated and understood amongst the poetic community whom would appreciate his allusions. However, I think Eliot would have been absolutely thrilled to witness the populous submerging themselves within the poem because it is precisely the masses which he directs his philosophies towards.
number1:
If i were sitting in a parisian cafe in 1922 and were reading The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot for the very first time, i believe i would be extrememly confused. I do not feel that i would understand much, if not any of the entire 434 line poem. The poem refrences a lot of outside sources and requires a lot of outside understanding and research [that i do not have] in order to be understood. In my opinion, however; i do not believe that i would refer to Eliot’s poem as a joke. He obviosly put a lot of time and effort into writing it. Refering to it as a masterpiece may be a bit of a stretch though. As an artist i would think that you would want people to understand your work and see the message that you have hidden inside. Maybe not right at first, but i would think you would want to get some kind of message across to audience. But, then again, when looking at other artist’s work, like Picasso for instance, i do not always understand what he is trying to portray in his works either. So maybe The Waste Land, full of confusion and drama is a masterpiece to some extent. Or, maybe it really is just a really long poem full of Eliot’s secrets and thoughts and opinions that no one is supposed to understand or even comprehend.
In response to my name… it wouldnt let me post it with the name Brittni Glatz. ive been trying to post that paragraph since 5 this evening.
In response to number 2:
I believe that you can take out of The Wasteland as much or as little as you would like. Some of the references in the poem are common knowledge, and other sections do not need to be analyzed and can be taken at face value. Now I enjoy the poem more since I am aware of many of the references and time period of the poem. It is interesting making connections and attemping to perceive what T.S. Eliot did while he was writing it while recovering from his breakdown. If you take the poem even further you can dive into a plethora of possibilities and open ended sections that beg for analysis, which is seen by the many books which have been written on this poem. This open ended aspect of the book entertains the poetry elite and all those who find it compelling to find a deeper meaning to the poem. Also, Eliot’s request to not include footnotes shows that he did not want alienate his fellow poets and writers. I do not believe he was snobbish in the way he wrote the poem, since catering to all levels of expertise is near impossible.
~1
As I begin to read, there are huge glaring sections in which must be passed over. I wonder what in the world did I just read?
If I were to read this poem without any sort of aid (in a parisian café of course…) , I don’t think that I would hold this poem close for long. There is so much that would have to be passed over due to a lack of knowledge that I would have needed.
Without the additional knowledge, the story being told is no longer enjoyable. Thought I may find a few ‘juicy’ lines that I can make sense out of, that is just a fraction of the whole; the rest of the poem is just… gobblity-goop. I would think that the only way for a single reader to fully appreciate the poem would be to tap into Eliot’s mind and connect all of the missing content.
But alas, I have not mastered the ability of mind reading, so those hopes and dreams are crashed. I must seek out others that have read the poem… and slowly, very slowly piece together the sections of the poem.
So what happens once I think I have pieced together the puzzle of the poem? What do I do? Sit there? Bask in my knowledge? Laugh at others that are struggling with what I saw as the simplest elements of the poem? Oh no no. We still do not have Eliot’s true definition of the poem, and we never will, because this is a constant battle with new ideas. New ideas, new people, new relations. How can you possibly gather them all?
If I were in a smoky Parisian cafe, I don’t know why I would have a copy of The Waste Land in the first place.
But seriously as I was making the decision of how I perceive this poem (joke, masterpiece, satire) it somehow reminded me of….and this is a very loose comparison….of Family Guy. About every ten second of this show has some sort of pop culture reference that people would not understand unless they were familiar with the original reference, some more obscure than others. In the same way, The Waste Land has all sorts of biblical, historical, and cultural allusions that I definitely would not have understood without researching them first, and had I been in a cafe in 1922 I probably would have felt the same way. So I see The Waste Land as this serious looking “masterpiece” but poking fun at the past.
Response to # 2
In reading Elliot’s Wasteland, my first thought was “ Great, another one of those “enlightening” and overrated poems. I think Elliot’s writing “skills” are commendable, even though the meaning of the poem seem arbitrary. As was stated by previous people, Elliot might have written this poem for himself, and not for others, but I say, if it really was just for himself, he shouldn’t have published it. This justifies my idea of Elliot being rather self-indulgent because the poem was for him, but it gives him a sort of pride that most people reading it (MANY OF WHOM ARE QUITE INTELLECTUAL) cannot fully comprehend the meaning. Finally, the notion of formalism( analyzing it without paying attention to what the author wants something to mean) comes to mind; it seems ironic in Elliot’s poem because he wants people to be curious and take a stab at what the poem is trying to say.
*this was just my random stream of thoughts, so if the response doesn’t really answer anything ……
From the discussion in Period two, I thought about the languages a little more. It seemed to me when I read it, it wasn’t just foreign but Eliot’s weird language he wrote it in. The other thing that occured to me was that he almost dared people to piece together, really writing in code so that the message would be interpreted by those who would appreciate it. The only person who could find the “middle road” is probably Eliot, because I believe he wrote it for himself first.
If I were sitting in a parisian cafe in 1922 and were reading The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot for the very first time, I would be extrememly confused. Filled with cross references and hidden meaning I think that without any knowledge of Fitzgerald’s plan to use ideas from it in his novel, or Eliots life that I would not entirely understand the poem and would not appreciate it to it’s full potential.
In my opinion I do not believe that Eliot’s poem is a “joke”. Obviously there has been a lot of time and effort put into it. I also think that calling this a “masterpiece” may be a bit much. Wouldn’t you want people to understand your work? Understand the “hidden” meanings? Or is it simply something you do for yourself. In this case is it something Eliot did for himself. Something with no meaning to anybody but himself?
I do respect what Eliot did in writting the Waste Land. For a poem, it is well written with many different literary devices such as Personification and Imagry. I do think though, that this poem was written for an audience that has a strong poetic backgroung. For me, the poem was very confusing and rather hard to digest. Many parts made little or no sense to me. Further more the various languages written into it. Without the class analysis, I wouldn’t have gotten the big picture. Even now, after the class discussion, I still don’t truely understand some parts of the poem.
I believe this poem will live on, forever confusing its readers. I feel that this poem could be analyzed a thousand different ways depending on who is reading it. I’m sure this is not what Eliot intended for people to do when they read him poem. I think the poem is a product of his war experiences. I think people over think the poem, thus making it much more harder to understand.
If I were sitting in a smoky Parisian café reading The Waste Land for the first time, I would not feel incredibly fascinated or inspired. I do commend Eliot for the time and effort that he most likely put into this poem but since it doesn’t seem as if the poem was written for anyone other than himself, I can not say that this work deserves as much respect as other classical works, such as Catcher in the Rye. At least in Salinger’s book, the reader can interpret the author’s hidden messages and symbols after some detailed analysis. I think that Eliot wrote this poem only to show off a few sentences he knew in German and French and all the rest came later. Some of Eliot’s references probably had no clear literary function at first, and he let critics make the connections for him. There were too many (supposed) messages being sent to the reader at once: decline of spiritual values, excessive technological obsession, demoralization, etc. The Waste Land should have first been translated into (human) English and maybe broken up into five or six poems.
I think the poem is really freaking smart. It has a real ice berg effect in that all of that ice under the ocean, we can dive down and find it. Most of the ideas we come up with for all the meanings behind many of the events and symbols and all that stuff from our novels are only our ideas or the ideas of people before us. These ideas could be taken out of nowhere due to the open ended-ness of the stories. In the case of the Wasteland, almost all of Eliot’s subtleties have real, solid meaning behind them. We can examine it and find that his confusing words are references to other works and ideas. After what must have been a long time, and lots of readers with different backgrounds, people were able to decipher much of Eliot’s meanings and understand what HE meant when he wrote it.
I suppose if I was sitting down in a smoky Parisian cafe in 1922 and reading The Waste Land, my first thoughts might be that it’s hard to read with all the smoke bothering me, and then why the poet would ever call his poem, in essence, a dump. Anyways, after wondering why someone would leave the poem on the ground for me to step on, I would eventually read the poem, getting confused every few lines or so. Somewhere along the Fire Sermon portion, I’d stop to hear the sounds of Paris: the real Unreal City, I’d think. Finally when I’d finished reading, I’d wish the writer (who was he again? [flip to the front of the poem]…Te-Esse-E-lee-o[t]…hmm…sounds strange in French) would maintain the same narrator throughout the poem. I’d tell myself that I knew what he was getting at even though, I didn’t comprehend a single allusion. Finally, I would turn to the person sitting next to me and say in crude french, “Have you ever read this guy’s stuff? Kind of strange isn’t it?” He’d nod. Then the man would call over the waiter to ask for another drink. “Bien sur, Monsieur Eliot,” the teenage boy would respond.
After skimming through most of the responses (because none of my teachers decided to give me homework tonight and because I have no life), I realized how many people claim that they appreciate Eliot’s poem or they respect him for what he did. Then I wondered if those people would feel the same way about his poem if he had entirely explained his poem. If Eliot had written a ridiculously long essay on his thought processes while writing this essay — if he had told his audiences his purpose/intent in writing “The Wasteland” — would we still appreciate it the same way? Or would the mystery be completely be gone from the poem? We would not be able to interpret it in our own way, and once we read his explanations, we would have nowhere left to go. Nothing left to analyze. This is, of course, assumingly that he tells us all the symbols and allusions he includes. But most people said that they were confused about his essay. Would an explanation really have made this any better? In terms of analyzing this poem in class, OF COURSE it would have been better, but if you were sitting in that smoky Parisian cafe, shortly after reading the poem you would obviously not be able to understand its entirety (unless you study poems for a living). Like most poems, “The Wasteland” is meant to leave the reader wondering. I personally don’t think it was written for that purpose (to confuse the reader), but I think it was more of Eliot expressing his emotions at the time.
Eek. This comment is getting long. Ah well. I’ve ranted for longer on Facebook…
Let’s put ourselves in Eliot’s shoes for a moment. I like that idea that Mr. Quale expressed in class about everyone in the class creating our own “Wasteland poem.” We would just write, using all the experiences we would have up until that point — everything we know about T.V., music, books we’ve studied in class, IB in general, etc. etc. We would probably write using references from those things — maybe using some song lyrics, or some quote from “The Catcher in the Rye” or maybe even, if you take a foreign language class, some phrase in that language (konnichiwa
). Maybe Eliot didn’t mean to confuse his audience in that respect. Maybe he had previously studied myths or maybe he studied Latin, German, etc. Using all the experiences that HE had at the point in his life, he just wrote a normal poem. Most poets (I think) write to express themselves, not to confuse other people or to become famous or to send subliminal messages across the decades.
If I was in that smoky Parisian cafe in 1922, I would not think of it as a joke, a masterpiece, or a satire. I would think of it as exactly what it is: a poem.
#2: I believe that Eliot wrote The Waste Land originally for himself, then decided that it was good enough to publish. I also think that the middle way out of the waste land for Eliot was writing this poem. He needed to escape and release everything, and this was the only way he could do it. As part of his escape, Eliot used the excessive literary allusions in the poem to prove to himself he was still able to think and prove his intelligence. He wasn’t trying to prove his intelligence to the outside world, he was trying to prove it to himself.
I responded to the second question and one question that i thought was interesting was if the poem should be respected. I personally thought that this poem earns respect because it shows the reality of post World War I era. The poem mentions the cruelty of the world and shows a relation to how the destroyed European nations are like a wasteland. One piece that I thought was especially important from this poem is that in the ending, hope is mentioned through Fisher King. I think this shows Eliot’s prediction that the world will be saved even after a great destruction like World War I.
In terms of if the poem was intended for audience like us or educated poet, I believe that this poem was written for other literate poets, I think all the the allusions and connections to other literary pieces are too wide and unpredictable that only Eliot himself can understand the true meaning of this poem.
In response to the second question, when I first read The Wasteland, I could appreciate the poem in a “wow that is kinda interesting…I guess” light. I thougth that the class discussion helped me understand the context of the poem which only deepened my appreciation and respect for Eliot.The Wasteland is a part of who he is; a snapshot of what he thinks of society in his poetry career. I can only speculate who Eliot wrote it for, but I think that it was mainly himself and other learned scholars. The other scholars would understand all the imagery, and symbols from classics that others would miss. If you think about the focus of the poem, its a commentary on what we have as a society become. We have all become zombies walking from place to place living life without thought. Maybe that is why he wrote it, to scare the masses into thought but then again, they wouldn’t be able to begin understand it. Then again I am just part of the masses and that might not be his point at all.
From the second question, had i read the poem on my own all the references to the fisher king, greek mythology and other random works wouldn’t have made any sense to me. I believe Eliot did anticipate that additional research was necessary, hence the lack of information his own footnotes provided. For the common person, such as possibly Fitzgerald, the grail quest that the poem provides could have been inspiration enough to write the Great Gatsby on, a quest which involves many many layers that need to be unfolded to get to a ‘deeper’ meaning, and even then…you’re not entirely sure what you’ve gained from the poem.
In class, I responded to the first question. The more I think about this poem, the more I am amazed at what Eliot accomplished. I know that people probably think that I am crazy for saying this, but I think that Eliot was brilliant to publish this poem. It opened up a new world of thinking and presented the general public with an example of true literary freedom. When I first read this poem, I was astounded by the number of individual stories that Eliot was able to cram into this one poem. Yet, reading through it now, I realize that the stories all build into each other like a puzzle. Without one of the stories present, one might not be able to understand the rest.
Rounding back around to my answer to Mr. Quale’s question (sorry for the tangent), I think that if I had read this poem in a small Parisian cafe for the first time, I would have been amazed and confused. Knowing myself, I probably would have wanted to hunt Eliot down and conduct an interview to obtain the ability to fully understand the meaning behind his poem. However, in a small way, I don’t think that he wanted us to understand what he was thinking. I think that this poem was a chance for Eliot to vent. Of what he was venting, we may never know. However, one things stands for sure: Eliot was a literary genius of his time and maybe for only one reason in particular. He took so many different pieces, put them together, and we are still reading what he created in the year 2007.
One more thing…I think that I would have thought of this poem as a masterpiece in the 1920s. As a very confusing, but intriguing masterpiece.
Mr. Quale, I’m not sure what you mean by “middle way out” but if its what I think its means then I think its definately worth attempting a response…
I think the “waste land” is not something that we are in fact in right now. It is eternally just around the corner, something we are always heading for, about to achieve (if you can consider it an achievement), and often parts of it we do reach/achieve/whatever. But some of us will always find something more to prosper from. Its a matter of opinion and that may in fact be the middle way out, or more the middle way of never really getting in. While some dispair about the state of the universe and convince themselves that there is nothing left that is good, others will always find that something that will bring them wealth and opportunity, often at great costs to others.
Maybe that is in a sense a waste land, the only people who are happy who are the ones who must hurt others to be so… but i dont think thats the only way to be happy. there are other ways to achieve happyness, and as long as there are i dont believe we infact do life in the Waste Land
mr quale,
is it too late to do the extra credit??? i kinda forgot about it until now…..
okay thanks.