T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
Some biographical Notes:
- Harvard education- wealthy family from New England- born in St. Louis Missouri
- Wrote dissertation but did not defend it- a critique of the psychology of consciousness
- Held job at Lloyd’s bank in London
- Was an Anglican
- Ex-patriot- gave up his “American-ness”
- Met Ezra Pound in Paris
- Unhappy marriage to Vivien Haigh-Wood- didn’t believe in divorce- she died in 1947 and he remarried Valerie Fletcher in 1957
- He died of emphysema- was a heavy smoker
- Had a mental breakdown (had several) – went to rest house in Switzerland in 1921 and finished the Waste Land there (which he started in 1919)
- Two major stylistic methods- (1) Robert Browning- look at one character and exploring his or her twisted psyche; (2) more classical dramatic style ala Dante and Shakespeare
- Heavily influenced by Dante and French Symbolist Poets (i.e. Baudelaire)
Discussion Questions for T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”
We will be covering “The Waste Land” during our discussion this upcoming week. You will find questions below that may assist you in navigating through some of the poem’s complexities. We will attempt to cover many of these questions during section. Feel free to bring in responses you may have to any of these questions (or to other issues you locate in the text).
Some Waste Land Reminders: This is one of the most important poems of the 20th century. We will speak of it EXTENSIVELY in discussion! It is also one of the most difficult poems. Please keep certain things in mind while you are reading it: (1) pay close attention to the first line, “April is the cruellest month”- April is often the least cruel month, why is he beginning the poem in such a way. (2) when reading this poem we must be hyper-aware of its historical backdrop- WWI– Eliot published the poem in 1922, but it was written both during WWI and during its traumatic aftermath. (3) look at each section carefully and think about the titles of each section- what do the titles suggest? (4) this is an antipastoral poem, compare it to the “Spring and All” by Williams we read last week… how do they compare? (5) think about the interactions between men and women that Eliot depicts and try to reflect a little on how those interactions are played out (especially seen in “The Game of Chess”), (6) think about how this poem is both similar to and different from Pound’s Cantos… what does Eliot adopt from Pound and what does he abandon? (6) This poem is FILLED with allusions… what do these allusions do for your reading process? How do they serve as a supplementary text and why do you think Eliot used so many of them?
- A. The Burial of the Dead
(1) How does the section The Burial of the Dead actually exhibit life?
(2) How are the city and its inhabitants portrayed? Remeber the city in modernist writing is extremely important, taking on a life of its own….
(3) Excerpt to consider—Lines 60-76:
Unreal City, 60
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. 65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!
You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! 70
That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
O keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again! 75
You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”
B. A Game of Chess
1. What is the symbolic value of chess in this poem?
2. Are the woman in the chair (line 76) and the woman named Lil (line 139) the same character? What is the significance of the two dialogues in this section?
3. Excerpts to consider—Lines 111-136 & Lines 145-155:
“My nerves are bad to-night. 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 are in rats’ alley 115
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. 120
“Do
“’You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
Nothing?”
I remember
Those are pearls that were his eyes. 125
“’Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?”
But
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag—
It’s so elegant
So intelligent 130
“’What shall I do now? What shall I do?”
“’I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
‘With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?
‘What shall we ever do?”
***
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set, 145
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 four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don’t give it him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o’ that, I said. 150
Then I’ll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY 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’t.
But if Albert makes off, it won’t be for lack of telling. 155
C. The Fire Sermon
1. What traces of war and destruction do you find in section 3?
2. What function does Tiresias, the blind prophet of dual gender, serve in the poem (line 218)?
3. Excerpt to consider—Lines 218-230 :
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives 220
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays, 225
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest. 230
D. Death by Water
1. Why does Eliot transition from fire to water?
2. What does the narrator warn the reader against?
3. Excerpt to consider—Lines 319-321:
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward, 320
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
E. What the Thunder Said
1. Does Eliot leave room for hope by the end of the poem? If so, what lines depict that?
2. Excerpt to consider—Lines 412-418:
Dayadhvam: 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 prison415
Only at nightfall, aetherial rumours
Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus
D A
Excerpts extracted from T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in the 8th edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Twentieth Century and After
My response is in regard to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, The Burial of the Dead lines 60-76. This section highlights the idea of desolation and the “dead” appearance of society. Images like the “brown fog” and “sighs, short and infrequent,” as well as “dead sound,” all evoke the dying nature of the city. Although people are present and “a crowd [is] flowed over London Bridge,” the feeling evoked is that of depravity and decay. The short breaths of the people imply that the city is slowly losing its life, the brown fog will soon take over the city, and the short breaths will soon turn to none. Even when the speaker sees someone he knows, the conversation is morbid and one sided, with words like “corpse” and “disturbed” being used, implying that even this familiar face cannot give the speaker solace. The line where the speaker asks if the corpse has begun to sprout, evokes the idea of regeneration and rebirth. The fact that “corpse” appears in the same line as “planted” and “garden” implies that society has failed and the hope for rebirth and a new start is doomed. This section of “The Burial of the Dead” implies the slow, decaying nature of society and the speaker’s lack of hope for its revival.
My response is in relation to lines 412-418 of the “What the Thunder Said” section. Eliot does not leave much hope by the end of the poem, and there are examples in lines 412-418 that depict that. There is a theme of selfishness of people, as shown by the following lines: “We think of the key, each in his prison / Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison” (ll. 414-415). This means that there is not much hope for the world because people focus so much on finding the key that opens up their own prison and unlocks positive elements of their fate that this very phenomenon leaves people locked up within themselves and their own metaphorical prisons that they are trying to escape. Their prisons are “confirmed” in this way. The tendency of people to lack the motivation to truly think of others is highlighted when the words “aetherial rumors” are used to describe situations where people act selflessly. These situations are so unlikely that they are nothing more than rumors that can only be “revived for a moment” at “nightfall.” The reference to nightfall serves to show that the possibility for hope and change is as fleeting as are dreams that come to people during the night.
Regarding the second section: “A Game of Chess” I don’t think the woman in the throne and Lil are the same person. The language in the section that describe the first woman’s surroundings, the details Eliot chooses to include seem designed to demonstrate a sort of classiness, with it’s “candelabras” and “carved dolphins” and “antique mantel.” L
In contrast, the second part of the poem establishes its setting with the re-occurring line “Hurry up please its time,” which the footnotes say is an announcement of last call at a pub. The women talk of abortion, and having many children, and having a husband in the army; details pointing to this Lil being working class.
These two women seem to be on opposite sides of a socioeconomic spectrum. Also they are not especially flattering portrayals. The woman on the throne-chair seems frivolous; the woman having 5 children, trashy.
I agree with Meredith that this is a lot of figurative language discussing the morbid state of society, however, I read this section as a description of soldiers returning from war. Where it says “I had not thought death had undone so many,” this meant, to me, that he was shocked by how many had been affected by death through either direct killing or those who lost loved ones in the war. I decided these were soldiers crossing the bridge because he distinctly calls them men, and in World War I there were not women combatants (that I know of). Also, where it says their eyes fixed before their feet brings forth imagery of soldiers walking in line all watching right in front of them. Lastly, he refers to the battle of Mylae which was a naval battle during an ancient war. The only thing I can’t really figure out is the allusion to the dog. I figure s it must be something to do with not letting anything you love near the memories that the soldier has of killing or it will only dig up the past and let them see what he’s done.
I also see the large amount of references to death and mortality in Eliot’s The Waste Land, and agree that much of this is in reflection to World War I, which was coming to a close whole Eliot was constructing the poem. I think the poem starts out with the line “April is the cruellest month..” because to some the coming of spring is a sad time. I don’t know if this is entirely relevant but in psychology we learned that the majority of suicides actually happen in the spring as winter ends because during the winter there is always a glimmer of hope that things will get better in the new year when the sun starts to shine etc. But when things don’t get better and the sadness doesn’t “melt” with the snow, people often lose hope and feel a whole new degree of sadness sometimes leading to suicide. Eliot was trying to break the misconception that the spring is the happiest time of the year and the sort of romanticized idea that the sun and flowers will fix everyone’s problems.
In the section, The Burial of the Dead, it seems as if the images constantly portray dead or dull scenery. Although this is the initial reaction, if one looks carefully, it is clear that although the land may be dead, life still springs from it. For example, it says,”breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land” and “what branches grow/Out of this stony rubbish?” This is an interesting image because we usually do not associate things growing out of dead land or stony rubbish.
The city and its inhabitants are portrayed as a total wasteland, completely devastated by the war. It is a surreal, desolate kind of place populated by the dead.
In looking at lines 60-76 I think this part is the best at describing what was going on at this time and I feel like Eliot almost straight fowardly tells you what he saying, I feel like the allusion is gone at this point and it is easy to understand what he is saying, that this city like probably many are devastated by the war and all the effects that came after it. As for the stanza before this, I am not sure what all the Madame Sosotris is about and what it means during this time? were lots of people giving and getting tarot card readings, idk.
I would like to respond to the question regarding the first line of “The Burial of the Dead,” in which Eliot writes, “April is the cruellest month.” I think this line is intended to reflect the changing nature of society as Eliot sees it. April marks the beginning of Spring, when new life is forming and plants and animals that lay dormant during the winter regenerate themselves. Generally, this is perceived as a time of happiness and hope. However, Eliot sees the new innovations, or “life,” of the twentieth century as negative, and the remnants of a better time no longer have a place in this new, modern culture. Thus, April becomes a time of despair for all of the things that have been lost to the past and the harsh modern world that has taken the place of–as Eliot sees it–a better time.