Thursday, June 3, 2021

Written assignment:20 Cen Lit - 1

 


NAME : Mahida Bhumika Prakashbhai


M A Sem - 2


ROLL NUMBER : 4


ENROLLMENT NUMBER :3069206420200021


SUBJECT : Paper 106: The Twentieth Century Literature: 1900 to World War II 


ASSIGNMENT TOPIC : Critical analysis of "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot 




INTRODUCTION: 

 

T.S.ELIOT :


Thomas Stearns Eliot OM was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Considered one of the 20th century's major poets, he is a central figure in English language Modernist poetry. 


T.S. Eliot was best known as a leader of the Modernist movement in poetry and as the author of such works as The Waste Land and Four Quartets . 


T.S.Eliot known for his most famous poem…


⚪ The waste land ⚪


The Waste Land is widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. While it is not considered as Eliot's masterpiece by many critics, it is undoubtedly his most famous poem. 



  • The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot: Critical Analysis 


Eliot's The Waste Land is an important landmark in the history of English poetry and one of the most talked about poems of the 20th century. It is a long poem of more than four hundred lines in 5 parts entitled: 1) The burial of the Dead; 2) A Game of Chess; 3) The fire Sermon; 4) Death by Water; 5) What the Thunder Said


The Waste Land, a poem in five parts, was  establishing the form of a fragmented modern poem. These fragmented poems are characterized by jarring jumps, in perspective, imagery, setting, or subject. Despite this fragmentation of form, The Waste Land is unified by its theme of despair. Its opening lines introduce the ideas of life's ultimate futility despite momentary flashes of hope. The poem goes on to present a sequence of short sketches following an individual's baffled search for spiritual peace. It concludes with resignation at the never ending nature of the search. The poem is full of literary and mythological references that draw on many cultures and universalize the poem's themes. According to legend, only the pure of heart can attain the Grail. In the version of the Grail myth that Eliot draws on, a wasteland is awaiting a miraculous revival-for itself and its failing ruler, the Fisher King, guardian of the Holy Grail. The Waste Land appeared in the aftermath of World War I , which was the most destructive war in human history to that point. Many people saw the poem as an indictment of the postwar European culture and as an expression of disillusionment with contemporary society, which Eliot believed was culturally barren.


The theme of the poem is the spiritual and emotional sterility of the modern world. Man has lost his passion, that is his faith in God and religion; his passion to participate in religion and this decay of faith has resulted in the loss of vitality, both spiritual and emotional. Consequently, life in the modern wasteland is a life-in-death, a living death, like that of the Sibyl at Cumae. According to Eliot's philosophy, in so far as we are human beings we must act and do either evil or good, and it is better to do evil than to do nothing. Modern man has lost his sense of good and evil, and this keeps him from being alive, from acting. In the modern desolate, there is a life in death, a life of complete inactivity, listlessness and apathy. That is why winter is welcome to them, and April is the cruelest month, for it reminds them of the stirrings of life and, "They dislike to be roused from their death in life." 


The poem thus presents "a vision of dissolution and spiritual drought". This spiritual and emotional sterility of the denizens of The Waste Land arises from the degeneration, vulgarization, and commercialization of sex. Eliot's study of the fertility myths of different people had convinced him that the sex act is  the source of life and vitality, when it is exercised for the sake of procreation and when it is an expression of love. But when it is severed from its primary function, and is exercised for the sake of momentary pleasure or momentary benefit, it becomes a source of degeneration and corruption. It then represents the primacy of the flesh over the spirit, and this results in spiritual decay and death.


The title "A Game of Chess" suggests that sex has become a matter of intrigue, a matter of moves and counter- moves, a source of momentary pleasure, a sordid game of seduction and exploitation of the innocent. There is the fashionable society woman who, despite all her pomp and show, despite all the luxury with which she is surrounded, is bored and hysterical as a consequence. Her love, too, suffers from mental vacuity and is unable to keep up even small conversation.


The theme of The Waste Land is essentially the spiritual experience of man; it has to be related to its background. In the world of today, one cannot ignore the social, secular, commercial and technical compulsions of the modern world. Eliot has referred to the past in order to show the similarity of the problems of both ages and how the experience of the past can help in finding solutions to the problems of our time.



Moreover, the past has another advantage over the present. It showed the courage and vitality of the human spirit; it had the capacity to do things both good and evil. People then were not inert, lazy and bored. Elsewhere, Eliot wrote that the quality which distinguishes humanity is its capacity to do good or evil. Vigor and vitality are the secret of any civilization or a great period in history. In the modern age, spiritual paralysis has overtaken man. This is due to our secular democracy, commercial interests and mechanical and technological progress which has eroded man's faith in religion, moral values and individual development and achievement. Man may be an atom in this great universe, but he is an intense atom, capable of yielding energy and power. It is this latent power which needs to be discovered and utilized.



Let's we talk about the symbols which used in "The Waste Land":


  • Critical Analysis of Allusions and Symbols: 


There are four wastelands in literary history. The First Waste Land is of King Oedipus  of  Thebes,  which  shows  Oedipus  complex  i.e.  sexual  intercession  between mother  and  son.  The  Second  Waste  Land  is  of  King  Fisher,  who  became  impotent   due  to  some  immoral  activity.  The  third  Waste  Land  is  the Biblical Waste Land; it is concerned with the sufferings of people who worshipped idols. The fourth or  modern  Waste Land  is written by T.  S. Eliot which  signifies  the sins and fire of lust in modern society. Well at the end of every waste land we find a solution and penance of rebirth or regeneration. Similarly, the modern waste land by T. S. Eliot also ends in the ray of hope; here T. S. Eliot gives us a message that the three "DA's", Datta, Dayadhvam and Damyata  are the solutions  to  save  the modern  civilization  from chaos and ruin.


  • Symbols and Allusions in First Section "The Burial Of The Dead": 


In  literature,  April  is  considered  the  month  of  rebirth  or  regeneration  but  for waste-Landers April is the cruelest month as they are not willing to revive. In line 20 "son of man” symbolizes the Holy Christ. In line 22 "heap of broken images' ' symbolizes loss of  spiritual  values  in  the  modern  man.  In  line  23  "dead  tree"  symbolizes  complete barrenness of modern civilization. In line 25 "red rock" symbolises Christian Church. In lines 35, 36 and 37 "Hyacinth" is a plant which is a symbol of sensuous love. In line 52 "one-eyed merchant” symbolizes the  modern man whose commerce  eye is opened but the religious eye  is closed.  In line 60  "Unreal  City"  symbolizes London  city, this is  also an allusion taken  from Baudlaire’s  poem in  which this  phrase refers  to Paris.  Line 62,  "A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many," is parallel  to  Dante's line in Inferno. Line 64, "Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled," is allusion from Dante's Divine Comedy. Line 68, "with a dead sound on the final stroke of nine" is an allusion towards the boring mechanical life of waste landers and "final stroke of nine" symbolises the death time of Christ. There is another allusion from the opera of Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde in lines 32, 33 and 34 which are

     " Der Heimat zu Mein Irisch Kind Wo weilest du? "




  • Symbols and Allusions in Second Section "A Game Of Chess":  


This section is about the rap of a young girl and problems of married life in lower class families.  The title  of  this section  is allusive  which is  taken  from Middleton's  play "Women  Beware  Women". In  line 77  "The Chair  she sat  in"  is an  allusion taken  from Shakespeare's  play  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  Lines  92  and  93  are  allusion  taken  from Aeneid in which the ceiling of a banquet hall of Queen Dido of Carthage is described, the lines are "Flung their smoke into the laquearia Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling "




  • Symbols and Allusions in Third Section "The Fire Sermon": 



This section is about the sex perversities in modern man, and tells about the rape of three daughters of River Thames.  The  title of  the poem is allusive and is  taken  from the  Sermon  of  Lord  Buddha.  Lines  177  and  178  are  about  the  pollution  of  the  river Thames,  these  lines  symbolises  spiritual  degeneration  of  the  modern  civilization.  In lines 176, 183 and 184 "Sweet Thames" is allusion from Spenser's Prothalamion. In line 182  "water  of  Leman”  is  another  allusion,  the  reference  is  to  Lake  Leman,  where Bonnivard  was  imprisoned.  Line  191  "Musing  upon  the  king  my  brother's  wreck"  is allusion taken from Shakespeare's play "The Tempest".  In line 204 "Jug Jug jug jug jug" is  a  French  term  which  symbolises  sexual  intercourse.  In  line  207  "Unreal  City” symbolizes London  city, this  is also  an allusion  taken  from  Baudlaire’s poem  in which this phrase refers to Paris. In lines 218, 229 and 243 "Tiresias" is another allusion taken from Sophocles'  Oedipus  Rex.  Line 221,  "Homeward, and  brings the sailor  home  from sea", is an allusion  taken from Stevenson's play Requiem. Lines  277,  278,  290  and 291 are a reference to Wagner's Opera. In line 279, "Elizabeth and Leicester", is a allusion to Queen Elizabeth and Leicester sailing upon the river Thames in the past time. Line 292 "Trams and dusty trees” is a  symbol  of  the  progress of  materialistic culture  in  London. Lines  307,  309  and  310  are  allusions  from  St.  Augustine’s  confession,  who  prayed  to God to save him from the fire of lust. Line 308, "Burning burning burning burning" is an allusion to Buddha's fire  of lust and hatred. 



  •  Symbols and Allusions in Fourth Section "Death by Water":


This  is  the smallest  section of  the poem;  Eliot wants  to tell  us  that we  are  like dead bodies although  we are physically alive, yet spiritually dead. Water is a symbol of rebirth, life  and  purification  but  for  waste-landers it  has become  a source  of death.  In line  312  "phlebas”  is  a  symbol  for  20th  century  modern  man,  in  the  same  line "Phoenician" is a symbol for London city. Line 317 "He passed the stages of his age and youth” is allusion towards the captivation of the image of nice Osiris who gets old as he rises and falls on the waves, later he is reborn. 




  • Symbols and Allusions In Fifth Section "What The Thunder Said":


This  is  the  last  section  of  the  poem  and  about  how  the  modern  man  can  get deliverance.  The  title  symbolises  hope  and  rebirth.  In  line  327,  "thunder  of  spring” symbolizes rebirth  of  Holy Christ.  Line 328,  "He  who was  living is  now dead" is  about the Fructification of Holy Christ. Line 354, "And dry grass singing” is a symbol for minor spiritual  revival.  Line  358,  "But  there  is  no  water"  symbolises  that  in  order  to  gain spirituality  one  has to  face hardships.  Line  373,  "Falling  towers” stands  for  Christian Churches. In line 411, "I have heard the key” is an allusion to the story in Dante's Inferno. Key  symbolises  one's  release from  one’s  own  ego.  Line  416,  "Revive for  a moment  a broken  Coriolanus"  is another allusion  borrowed  from Shakespeare's  play Coriolanus. In  line  418,  "The  boat  responded”  is  an  allusion  from  Wagner's  Opera,  Tristan  and Isolda.  Line  427,  "Poi  s'ascose  nel  foco  che  gli  affina"  is  an  allusion  borrowed  from Dante's Purgatory, this line means please remember my pain. In line 431 "Hieronymus" is  an  allusion  from  Kyd's  Spanish  Tragedy.  In  lines  402,  411,  418  and  432  "Datta, Dayadhvam and  Damyata" these  words  are allusions  towards Indian  Mythology.  Datta means to  give,  Dayadhvam  means to  sympathize and Damyata  means  to  control. Eliot wants to say that deliverance can be achieved by acting upon  these  three  doctrines i.e. to give, to sympathies  and  to control. Line 428, “Quando  fiam  uti chelidon O swallow swallow”  is  an  allusion  towards  the  story  of  Philomela  and  her  sister  and  their transformation in to nightingale and swallows respectively.  



  • Conclusion :


Eliot's  allusive  and  symbolic  technique  is  far  reaching.  He  uses  more  allusions and symbols than that of John Milton. He wants to relate the present to the past, in order to convey some  didactic purpose from  the  past incidents.  Through these allusions  and symbols he  forecasts the  future of  modern man  and modern  civilization. Modern  man can attain deliverance by acting upon the message of Thunder that is  give, sympathize and control.  He  quotes  the  references of  more  than  thirty  writers.  Mostly  he  takes  those allusions from the past  which symbolize spiritual hollowness,  degeneration  in free sex and sterility.  



Refferences:







  • Words

2320

  • Characters

13873

  • Sentences

144

  • Paragraphs

41



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