Title
Eliot originally considered entitling the poem He Do the Police in Different Voices,[87] and in the original manuscripts the first two sections of the poem appear under this title.[88] This phrase is taken from Charles Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend, in which the widow Betty Higden says of her adopted foundling son Sloppy "You mightn't think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a newspaper. He do the Police in different voices."[87] In the end, the title Eliot chose was The Waste Land. In his first note to the poem he attributes the title to Jessie Weston's book on the Grail legend, From Ritual to Romance.[89]
Structure
Epigraph and dedication
Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, – he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath–
"'The horror! the horror!'"
Joseph Conrad, Heart of DarknessEliot's original choice of epigraph.[90]
The poem is preceded by a Latin and Ancient Greek epigraph (without translation) from chapter 48 of the Satyricon of Petronius:
- Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent: Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις; respondebat illa: άποθανεῖν θέλω. With my own eyes I saw the Sibyl at Cumae hanging in a bottle and, when the attendants asked her what she wanted, she replied, "I want to die."[91]
Eliot originally intended the epigraph to be a small section of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness describing the death of the character Kurtz. Pound suggested it be changed as he felt Conrad was not "weighty" enough, although it is unclear if he was referring to the author or the quotation itself.[90]
Following the epigraph is a dedication (added in a 1925 republication) that reads "For Ezra Pound: il miglior fabbro" ("the better craftsman"). Here Eliot is quoting both Canto XXVI of Dante's Purgatorio, where Dante pays troubadour Arnaut Daniel the same compliment, and Pound's The Spirit of Romance (1910), which contains a chapter with that title and which quotes that section of Purgatorio.[92][93] This dedication was originally handwritten by Eliot in the 1922 Boni & Liveright edition of the poem presented to Pound; it was included in later editions.[92]
I. The Burial of the Dead
The section title comes from the Anglican burial service. It opens with a description of spring as something to be dreaded, with the comforting static nature of winter giving way to the forcible activity of spring. Eliot moves to the more specific location of Central Europe around the period of the First World War, and adopts a prophetic tone describing a sterile desert. Quotations from the operatic love story Tristan und Isolde bookend a memory of the "hyacinth girl", with the narrator trapped in a static existence between life and death, unable to profess his love. The scene then moves to the fortune-teller Madame Sosostris, who is described in ironically down-to-earth terms, and the Tarot cards she draws foretell events in the rest of the poem. The final part of "The Burial of the Dead" is a description of London as Dante's hell, with inhabitants trapped in a death-like state following a meaningless routine.[94]
II. A Game of Chess
This section centres around women and seduction, with the title a reference to the Jacobean play Women Beware Women in which the character Bianca is seduced while her mother-in-law is distracted by a game of chess. Its first scene describes an elaborately decorated room recalling Classical lovers such as Mark Antony and Cleopatra or Dido and Aeneas. The narrative moves to more disturbing references, such as to Philomela who was raped and turned into a nightingale, and the poem depicts her as still suffering at the hands of an uncaring world. This moves to a conversation between an anxious woman and the thoughts of her husband, who does not reply—his thoughts are preoccupied with loss and death. The second part of the section is set in an East End pub and features a conversation between working-class Cockney women. They discuss childbearing, infidelity and abortion in a matter-of-fact manner, and appear to be trapped in loveless superficial relationships. The end of the section sees Eliot interleave the words of the barman calling last orders ("Hurry up please its [sic] time") and the last words of Ophelia in Hamlet before her suicide by drowning, signifying the inevitability of ageing and death.[95]
III. The Fire Sermon
A reference to Edmund Spenser's poem Prothalamion, which describes an elegant aristocratic summer wedding by the River Thames, contrasts with the decaying and polluted modern state of the setting. Similarly the beautiful nymphs of the past have been replaced by prostitutes, and the washing of their feet in soda water is ironically contrasted with the washing of feet performed by choir boys in some tellings of the Fisher King legend. This is followed by a brief description of a dirty London and Mr Eugenides, the one-eyed Smyrna merchant foreseen by Madame Sosostris. The narrative then moves to a description of a loveless tryst between a typist and a "young man carbuncular", both acting mechanically, their automatic motions underscored by Eliot's use of rhyme. They are observed by the figure of Tiresias, a character taken from classical myth who lived as a woman for seven years and then was blinded and given the gift of prophecy. Unlike the previous allusions to times past, Tiresias indicates that love has always been this dispassionate and squalid. The poem moves back to the Thames, again using allusions to the past to highlight its current state of decay and sterility, but the section ends on a possibly hopeful note with the words of St Augustine and the Buddha, both of whom lived lives of extravagance before adopting asceticism. It is only at this point that the reason for the section title is clear, "The Fire Sermon" being a teaching delivered by the Buddha.[96]
IV. Death by Water
This is the shortest section of the poem, describing the aftermath of the drowning of Phoenician sailor Phlebas, an event forewarned by Madame Sosostris. His corpse is still trapped in a whirlpool that serves as a metaphor for the cycle of life and death, and serves as a warning to pursue a meaningful life.[97]
V. What the Thunder Said
The poem returns to the arid desert scene visited in Part I. Rain has not arrived, despite the promise from thunder and the approaching spring. A description of a journey across the desert is interspersed with references to the death and resurrection of Jesus, implying that the journey has a spiritual element. The journey ends at a chapel, but it is ruined. Rain finally arrives with the thunder, and its noise is linked with text from the Hindu Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, joining Eastern religion with Western. The thunder implores the narrator to "give", but the associated imagery suggests he may already be dead; to "sympathise", but he contends that every person is trapped in their own self-centred prison; and to "control", which is explored with the metaphor of a sailor co-operating with wind and water. The narrator ends up fishing at the sea shore, having travelled across the desert. He considers taking some form of action in his final question "Shall I at least set my lands in order?" but does not resolve to do anything. The poem ends with fragmentary quotations perhaps suggesting the possibility of new life, and finally the line "Shantih shantih shantih" ("Peace peace peace"), the formal ending to an Upanishad.[98]
Notes
The text of the poem is followed by several pages of notes by Eliot, purporting to explain his own metaphors, references, and allusions. These were included in order to lengthen the work so that it could be published as a book, as well as to pre-empt accusations of plagiarism which his earlier work had been charged with.[67][78] Pound later observed that the notes served to pique the interest of reviewers and academic critics.[78] However they are considered to be of limited use for interpreting the poem, and Eliot's own interpretations changed over the succeeding decades.[99][100][101] Eliot later expressed some regret at including the notes at all, saying in 1956 that they had prompted "the remarkable exposition of bogus scholarship".[4][102]
Style
"What is that noise?" The wind under the door. "What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?" Nothing again nothing. "Do "You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember "Nothing?" I remember Those are pearls that were his eyes. "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
"A Game of Chess", lines 117–130[103]
The style of the poem is marked by the many intertextual allusions and quotations that Eliot included, and their juxtaposition.[104][105] In addition to the many "highbrow" references and quotations from poets such as Baudelaire, Dante, Ovid, and Homer, he included several references to "lowbrow" genres, such as an allusion to the 1912 popular song "That Shakespearian Rag" by Gene Buck, Herman Ruby and Dave Stamper.[106][107] The poem contrasts such elements throughout: "Ornate vocabulary gives way to colloquial dialogue, lyrical moments are interrupted by sordid intrusions, the comic and the macabre coexist with the solemn words of religious instruction, one language is supplanted by another, until in the final lines of the poem the fragments are collected together."[105]
The Waste Land is notable for its seemingly disjointed structure, employing a wide variety of voices which are presented sometimes in monologue, dialogue, or with more than two characters speaking.[108] The poem jumps from one voice or image to another without clearly delineating these shifts for the reader, creating the paradoxical effect of a poem which contains deeply personal subject matter being simultaneously an impersonal collage.[109] As Eliot explained in his 1919 essay "Tradition and the Individual Talent", he saw the ideal poet as a conduit who creates a piece of art that reflects culture and society, as well as their own perspective and experiences, in an impersonal and craftsmanlike way.[110]
The poem plays with traditional forms of metre and rhyme, often implying blank verse without strictly committing to it (especially through quotations of works that are themselves written in such a metre). Lines are often fragmented, and verses are generally of unequal length, although there are instances of regularity—for example, the first two verses of "The Fire Sermon" are formed like Petrarchan sonnets.[111][112] During the editing process, Pound would highlight lines that were "too penty" (i.e. too close to iambic pentameter), prompting them to be changed to less regular rhythms.[113] Eliot disliked the term "free verse", however, believing it impossible to write verse that is truly "free".[114]
