Eliot’s Crisis of Meaning
As Budd Hopkins suggests in an article linked in the preceding section, Eliot’s “Waste Land” has the formal structure of a collage. We encounter an extraordinary variety of language, fragments from classical literature, scraps of popular songs, bits from overheard conversations. These are piled together, apparently at random, in a way that suggests the breakdown of cultural coherence. As the final lines comment, “These fragments I have shored against my ruins.” This lack of structure forces the reader into a role ordinarily assumed by the author: that of making meaning.
Reading: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (link). Note: you may find it valuable to listen to Eliot’s poem read by professional actors Jeremy Irons and Eileen Atkins: YouTube. They bring to life the very different “voices” that form the patchwork of Eliot’s poem.
Writing: Respond to ONE of the following prompts. Keep your response short, posting as a reply under the appropriate heading in the comments section:
- An American living in Europe (mostly London), Eliot was likely struck by the rigid class hierarchies of the old world. Where does class enter into The Waste Land?
- Early in the poem Eliot references the loss of life in World War 1. Quote a key moment and comment as to how the poem contextualizes the war.
- Having plundered Western European myth and literature, in the final section Eliot turns to Hindu scripture: Da, Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata. How is this similar to or different from the Orientalism we witnessed at the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, dating a century before Eliot’s poem?