Assignment of paper no. 9
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Topic: Critical analysis of Wasteland..
Name:Ekta Jayswal
Class: M.A.[SEM:- 3]
Roll No:- 11
Paper No.9:- The Modernist Literature
Enrollment No: PG2069108420180027
Batch:2017/19
Email Id: ektajayswal12@gmail.com
Submitted to:- Dr. Dilip Barad
S.B.Gardi English Department [M.K.B.U.]
Words:- 1344
Plagiarism:-
*Critical analysis of Wasteland...
#About T.S.Eliot:-
The Waste Land is a long poem by T. S. Eliot and widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century. It is a central work of modernist poetry.Thomas Stearns Eliot, was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and "one of the twentieth century's major poets". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25, settling, working, and marrying there.
*It is a very long poem about four hundred forty lines in five parts entitled...
1] The Burial of the dead
2] A game of Chess
3] The Fire sermon
4] Death by water and
5] What the thunder said
#Introduction of Wasteland:-
∆ The wasteland seems trackless and endless and the odds insurmountable, but if we have the right prompts and support we can gradually begin to make sense of things, and as we do so, the intensity of our suffering gradually loosens.
∆ "The Waste Land" has long been considered T. S. Eliot's masterpiece. In its five sections, he delves into themes of war, trauma, disillusionment, and death, illuminating the devastating aftereffects of World War I. The poem's final line, however, calls for peace with the repetition of "shantih" (the Sanskrit word for "peace").
∆ Part I opens with the famous line, "April is the cruellest month." The speaker, Marie, is a young woman who bears witness to the physical and emotional devastation caused by the war.
∆ Parts II and III describe the inside of a wealthy woman's bedroom and the garbage-filled waters of the Thames, respectively.
∆ Part IV eulogizes a drowned man named Phlebas.
∆ In the fifth and final part of the poem, the speaker "translates" the thunderclaps cracking over an Indian jungle. The poem ends with the repetition of the Sanskrit word for peace: "Shantih shantih shantih."
#The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. It is a masterpiece, long, complex poem about the psychological and cultural crisis that came with the loss of moral and cultural identity after World War I. When it was first published, the poem was considered radically experimental. Eliot dispenses with traditional verse forms and instead juxtaposes sordid images of popular culture with erudite allusions to classical and ancient literature and myths.
The title is indicative of Eliot’s attitude toward his contemporary society, as he uses the idea of a dry and sterile wasteland as a metaphor for a Europe devastated by war and desperate for spiritual replenishment but depleted of the cultural tools necessary for renewal.
The poem is deliberately obscure and fragmentary, incorporating variant voices, multiple points of view, and abrupt shifts in dramatic context. The motif of moral degeneration, however, is prevalent throughout the poem, the premise being that contemporary Europe, obsessed with novelty, trends, materialism, and instant gratification, lacks the faith and substance to reaffirm its cultural heritage, to reestablish the sense of order and stability that historical continuity once provided.
In an attempt to counter the cultural deficit of the present with the rich cultural heritage of the past, Eliot combines images from pagan rituals and religious texts with ancient fertility rituals and allusions to legends of the Grail. These images of ceremony and tradition are set against bleak images of modern life, where spiritual death breeds cultural death, and the ashen landscape reflects a barren world void of transcendental value.
The poem is an elitist document. Eliot provides copious footnotes, and the text is loaded with difficult literary, historical, and anthropological allusions; it is meant to be understood only by a few. As an account of the dilemma faced by the West of its being threatened by the loss of its privileged, white, patriarchal position of cultural dominance in the first half of the twentieth century, The Waste Land is indispensable.
#Summary:-
The poem is divided into five sections.
These parts combine in the poem’s overall montage to create a meaning that encompasses all of them. Because the poem is so complex, that meaning must be left to the individual reader; however, many students of the poem have suggested that, generally, Eliot shows his readers the collapse of Western culture in the aftermath of the war.
In the first, “The Burial of the Dead,” the speaker is an old Austro-Hungarian noblewoman reminiscing about the golden days of her youth before the disasters of World War I. Part 1 is a natural beginning for Eliot’s overall panorama because the speaker, Marie, describes her memories of a key period in modern history. Clearly, her life has been materially and culturally rich. Now in old age, thoughts of the past seem to embitter her, and she spends much of her time reading. The following stanzas describe the visions of the Sibyl, a prophetess in Greek mythology, and compare these to the bogus fortune-telling of a modern Sibyl, Madame Sosostris. The section’s final stanza imagines a fog-shrouded London Bridge as a pathway in the Underworld, where souls fleetingly recognize one another.
The second section, “A Game of Chess,” is set in the boudoir of a fashionable contemporary Englishwoman.A narrator describes the sensual surroundings of a wealthy woman’s bedroom—the ornate chair in which the woman sits, the room’s marble floor and carved fireplace, her glittering jewels and heavy perfumes. She is bickering with a man, her husband or her lover, and complains that her “nerves are bad to-night.” Then a contrasting setting appears: a London pub. Two women are gossiping in Cockney English about a friend’s marriage gone bad.
The third, “The Fire Sermon,” mixes images of Elizabeth’s England, the Thames and Rhine rivers, and the legend of the Greek seer Tiresias. A description of the River Thames begins. The narrator juxtaposes the pretty stream that Renaissance poets saw with the garbage-filled canal of the twentieth century. Most of the section tells the story of an uninspired seduction. The speaker, ironically, is the Greek sage Tiresias, who, in legend, was changed from a man into a woman. In this androgynous mode, Tiresias can reflect on both the male and the female aspects of the modern-day affair between a seedy clerk and a tired typist. This section ends with snippets of past songs about the Thames and the Rhine.
The fourth, “Death by Water,” is a brief portrait of a drowned Phoenician sea-trader. The brief stanzas of picture Phlebas, a Middle Eastern merchant from the late classical period. The tone
is elegiac: The speaker imagines the bones of the young trader washed by the seas and advises the reader to consider the brevity of life.
The fifth, “What the Thunder Said,” combines the above themes with that of religious peace. The final section of part 5, is set in a barren landscape, perhaps the Waste Land itself, where heat lays its heavy hand on a group of anonymous speakers. They seem to be apostles of some sacrificed god, perhaps Christ himself. The opening stanza’s description of confused “torchlight on sweaty
faces” in a garden and an “agony in stony places” tends to suggest this Christian interpretation. Hope, however, has fled the holy man’s followers, who wander through the desert listening to thunder that is never followed by rain.
Nevertheless, the thunder holds some small promise. The poem shifts setting again. Now the thunder crashes over an Indian jungle while the speaker listens and “translates” the thunderclaps. The thunder speaks three words in Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language, which is also the language of Buddhist and Hindu scriptures.
The first word is “Datta” (“given”), the second is “Dayadhvam” (“compassion”), and the third is “Damyata” (“control”). In this three-part message from the natural world, which tells of God’s gifts of compassion and self-control, the speaker finally finds cause for “peace”—the “shantih” of the closing line.
#Conclusion:-
The Waste Land is a tricky compilation of Eliot's meanderings and responses to current events, mythology, and obscure texts. In The Waste Land, Eliot quotes from Shakespeare several times, with most of the quotations coming from or allusions to The Tempest. For instance, lines 48 and 125 of...
#Work Sited by:-
https://www.enotes.com/topics/waste-land/critical-essays
Thank You...
Click here...
Topic: Critical analysis of Wasteland..
Name:Ekta Jayswal
Class: M.A.[SEM:- 3]
Roll No:- 11
Paper No.9:- The Modernist Literature
Enrollment No: PG2069108420180027
Batch:2017/19
Email Id: ektajayswal12@gmail.com
Submitted to:- Dr. Dilip Barad
S.B.Gardi English Department [M.K.B.U.]
Words:- 1344
Plagiarism:-
*Critical analysis of Wasteland...
#About T.S.Eliot:-
The Waste Land is a long poem by T. S. Eliot and widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century. It is a central work of modernist poetry.Thomas Stearns Eliot, was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and "one of the twentieth century's major poets". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25, settling, working, and marrying there.
*It is a very long poem about four hundred forty lines in five parts entitled...
1] The Burial of the dead
2] A game of Chess
3] The Fire sermon
4] Death by water and
5] What the thunder said
#Introduction of Wasteland:-
∆ The wasteland seems trackless and endless and the odds insurmountable, but if we have the right prompts and support we can gradually begin to make sense of things, and as we do so, the intensity of our suffering gradually loosens.
∆ "The Waste Land" has long been considered T. S. Eliot's masterpiece. In its five sections, he delves into themes of war, trauma, disillusionment, and death, illuminating the devastating aftereffects of World War I. The poem's final line, however, calls for peace with the repetition of "shantih" (the Sanskrit word for "peace").
∆ Part I opens with the famous line, "April is the cruellest month." The speaker, Marie, is a young woman who bears witness to the physical and emotional devastation caused by the war.
∆ Parts II and III describe the inside of a wealthy woman's bedroom and the garbage-filled waters of the Thames, respectively.
∆ Part IV eulogizes a drowned man named Phlebas.
∆ In the fifth and final part of the poem, the speaker "translates" the thunderclaps cracking over an Indian jungle. The poem ends with the repetition of the Sanskrit word for peace: "Shantih shantih shantih."
#The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. It is a masterpiece, long, complex poem about the psychological and cultural crisis that came with the loss of moral and cultural identity after World War I. When it was first published, the poem was considered radically experimental. Eliot dispenses with traditional verse forms and instead juxtaposes sordid images of popular culture with erudite allusions to classical and ancient literature and myths.
The title is indicative of Eliot’s attitude toward his contemporary society, as he uses the idea of a dry and sterile wasteland as a metaphor for a Europe devastated by war and desperate for spiritual replenishment but depleted of the cultural tools necessary for renewal.
The poem is deliberately obscure and fragmentary, incorporating variant voices, multiple points of view, and abrupt shifts in dramatic context. The motif of moral degeneration, however, is prevalent throughout the poem, the premise being that contemporary Europe, obsessed with novelty, trends, materialism, and instant gratification, lacks the faith and substance to reaffirm its cultural heritage, to reestablish the sense of order and stability that historical continuity once provided.
In an attempt to counter the cultural deficit of the present with the rich cultural heritage of the past, Eliot combines images from pagan rituals and religious texts with ancient fertility rituals and allusions to legends of the Grail. These images of ceremony and tradition are set against bleak images of modern life, where spiritual death breeds cultural death, and the ashen landscape reflects a barren world void of transcendental value.
The poem is an elitist document. Eliot provides copious footnotes, and the text is loaded with difficult literary, historical, and anthropological allusions; it is meant to be understood only by a few. As an account of the dilemma faced by the West of its being threatened by the loss of its privileged, white, patriarchal position of cultural dominance in the first half of the twentieth century, The Waste Land is indispensable.
#Summary:-
The poem is divided into five sections.
These parts combine in the poem’s overall montage to create a meaning that encompasses all of them. Because the poem is so complex, that meaning must be left to the individual reader; however, many students of the poem have suggested that, generally, Eliot shows his readers the collapse of Western culture in the aftermath of the war.
In the first, “The Burial of the Dead,” the speaker is an old Austro-Hungarian noblewoman reminiscing about the golden days of her youth before the disasters of World War I. Part 1 is a natural beginning for Eliot’s overall panorama because the speaker, Marie, describes her memories of a key period in modern history. Clearly, her life has been materially and culturally rich. Now in old age, thoughts of the past seem to embitter her, and she spends much of her time reading. The following stanzas describe the visions of the Sibyl, a prophetess in Greek mythology, and compare these to the bogus fortune-telling of a modern Sibyl, Madame Sosostris. The section’s final stanza imagines a fog-shrouded London Bridge as a pathway in the Underworld, where souls fleetingly recognize one another.
The second section, “A Game of Chess,” is set in the boudoir of a fashionable contemporary Englishwoman.A narrator describes the sensual surroundings of a wealthy woman’s bedroom—the ornate chair in which the woman sits, the room’s marble floor and carved fireplace, her glittering jewels and heavy perfumes. She is bickering with a man, her husband or her lover, and complains that her “nerves are bad to-night.” Then a contrasting setting appears: a London pub. Two women are gossiping in Cockney English about a friend’s marriage gone bad.
The third, “The Fire Sermon,” mixes images of Elizabeth’s England, the Thames and Rhine rivers, and the legend of the Greek seer Tiresias. A description of the River Thames begins. The narrator juxtaposes the pretty stream that Renaissance poets saw with the garbage-filled canal of the twentieth century. Most of the section tells the story of an uninspired seduction. The speaker, ironically, is the Greek sage Tiresias, who, in legend, was changed from a man into a woman. In this androgynous mode, Tiresias can reflect on both the male and the female aspects of the modern-day affair between a seedy clerk and a tired typist. This section ends with snippets of past songs about the Thames and the Rhine.
The fourth, “Death by Water,” is a brief portrait of a drowned Phoenician sea-trader. The brief stanzas of picture Phlebas, a Middle Eastern merchant from the late classical period. The tone
is elegiac: The speaker imagines the bones of the young trader washed by the seas and advises the reader to consider the brevity of life.
The fifth, “What the Thunder Said,” combines the above themes with that of religious peace. The final section of part 5, is set in a barren landscape, perhaps the Waste Land itself, where heat lays its heavy hand on a group of anonymous speakers. They seem to be apostles of some sacrificed god, perhaps Christ himself. The opening stanza’s description of confused “torchlight on sweaty
faces” in a garden and an “agony in stony places” tends to suggest this Christian interpretation. Hope, however, has fled the holy man’s followers, who wander through the desert listening to thunder that is never followed by rain.
Nevertheless, the thunder holds some small promise. The poem shifts setting again. Now the thunder crashes over an Indian jungle while the speaker listens and “translates” the thunderclaps. The thunder speaks three words in Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language, which is also the language of Buddhist and Hindu scriptures.
The first word is “Datta” (“given”), the second is “Dayadhvam” (“compassion”), and the third is “Damyata” (“control”). In this three-part message from the natural world, which tells of God’s gifts of compassion and self-control, the speaker finally finds cause for “peace”—the “shantih” of the closing line.
#Conclusion:-
The Waste Land is a tricky compilation of Eliot's meanderings and responses to current events, mythology, and obscure texts. In The Waste Land, Eliot quotes from Shakespeare several times, with most of the quotations coming from or allusions to The Tempest. For instance, lines 48 and 125 of...
#Work Sited by:-
https://www.enotes.com/topics/waste-land/critical-essays
Thank You...
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