Assignment Paper number 106

Name: Nirali Madhabhai Dabhi

Batch: M.A Sem. 2 (2022-2024)

Enrollment Number: 4069206420220006

Roll Number: 13

Subject code: 22399

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

Email Address: niralidabhi95@gmail.com

Submit to: Smt S.B. Gardi, Department of English, M.K.B.U

Brief Introduction of Author:

T.S.Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, of an old New England family. He was educated at Harvard and did graduate work in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and Merton College, Oxford. He settled in England, where he was for a time a schoolmaster and a bank clerk, and eventually literary editor for the publishing house Faber & Faber, of which he later became a director. He founded and, during the seventeen years of its publication (1922-1939), edited the exclusive and influential literary journal Criterion. In 1927, Eliot became a British citizen and about the same time entered the Anglican Church.He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948; from then until his death he achieved public admiration unequalled by any other 20th-century poet.

Introduction of Poem:

"The Waste Land" is a poem by T.S. Eliot, first published in 1922. It is considered one of the most important and influential poems of the 20th century. The poem is known for its complex structure, its use of multiple voices and languages, and its exploration of themes of disillusionment, fragmentation, and despair in the aftermath of World War I. In this thematic study, I will examine some of the major themes in "The Waste Land" and how they contribute to the overall meaning of the poem.

Themes:

1. Life in Death and Death in Life

2. Sexual perversion

3. Loss of faith and moral values

4. Lack of human relationships

5. Death

6. Rebirth

7. The Seasons

8. Lust

9. Water

10. History

The critics have commented on the theme in different words: "vision of desolation and spiritual drought" (F. R. Leavis); "the plight of the whole generation" (I. A. Richards).

1. Life in Death and Death in Life

Eliot has stated the matter quite explicitly in one of his essays. In his ‘Baudelaire’ he says: ‘I think, that Baudelaire has perceived that what distinguishes the relations of man and woman from the copulation of beasts is the knowledge of God and Evil (of moral Good and Evil which are not natural Good and Bad or puritan Right and Wrong). Having an imperfect, vague romantic conception of Good, he was at least able to understand that the sexual act as evil is more dignified, less boring, than as the natural, ‘life-giving’, cherry automatism of the modern world … So far as we are human, what we do must be either evil or good; so far as we do evil or good, we are human; and it is better, in a paradoxical way, to do evil than to do nothing: at least, we exist.’

 The last statement is highly important for an understanding of The Waste Land. The fact that men have lost knowledge of good and evil, keeps them from being alive, and is the justification for viewing the modern waste land as a realm in which the inhabitants do not even exist.

This theme is stated in the quotation which prefaces the poem.

"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis

vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:

Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo."

This is life-in-death, a life of complete inactivity, listlessness and apathy. That is why winter is welcome to them and April is the cruellest of months, for it reminds them of the stirring of life and, they dislike to be roused from their death-in-life.

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

The Waste Land is primarily regarded as a poem that epitomises the chaotic life of both individuals and society in the twentieth century. Thematically, it reflects the disillusionment and despair of the post World War I generation. 

2. Sexual perversion

According to Eliot, sex is an important aspect of life. It is an expression of love and means of procreation. Today, sex has been perverted from its proper function and is utilised for animal pleasure and monetary benefits. It has, therefore, become a source of degeneration and disease. It has also led to the erosion of moral values and become a hurdle in man's spiritual progress. Easy sexual relationships are found in all sections of the society. Eliot cites the instance of a German princess in the first part of the poem. This is the parallel to the love affairs of Queen Elizabeth with the Earl of Leicester in the Tudor period. There is also another instance of freedom of sex in high society. Eliot mentions it in the career of the lady of the situation. In the second part of the poem, the perversion of sex, prevails among the lower access of society. Eliot mentions the story of Lil and the experience of three daug relationships between the typist girl and her boyfriend. In the poem, three daughters of Thames. Another example is that of mechanical sex another example is a homosexual relationship exemplified by Mr. Eugenides. Eliot sums up the story of European lust through the line of The Fire Sermon:

"To Carthage then I came

Burning burning burning burning"

He means that the whole of Europe is being destroyed by the fire of sexuality.

3. Loss of faith and moral values

In ancient times, the source of inspiration for life and achievement was faith. People really believed in Christian values. Tradition increases the importance of moral conduct. Elderly people were respected. Character and saintliness were regarded as important assets. Moreover, more important than money and position were character and achievement. Today the values have changed. Money is the god of modern people. Older people are hated. Christians go to the church as a matter of routine. There is a gulf between profession and practice. Hypocrisy is at a premium. Flattery is more important than merit. The result is that Christian faith and compassion are no longer regarded as objects of life. This has resulted in general deterioration of standard of life and yard-sticks of reputation:

"And upside down in air were towers

Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours

And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells."

4. Lack of human relationships

In older times, people believed in intimate human relationships. There was the joint family system, under which resources were cooled and the needs of all were supplied. Today there is the fashion of nocular families. In olden times there were certain loyalties to the community and loyalty to the nation. Such loyalties no longer exist. People have become self-centred and egoistic. There is no sentiment of sympathy and compassion for the members of distant families and the community. Each one thinks only of his own interest and how he can gain at the expense of others. Exploitation is the order of the day. Eliot mentions it in the last Section. As the poet feels that we are like Coriolanus and the embodiment of selfishness. Each one is imprisoned in his own self. We have lost the key to human sympathy and brotherhood:

"We think of the key, each in his prison

Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison"

5. Death

Two of the poem’s sections -- “The Burial of the Dead” and “Death by Water” --refer specifically to this theme. What complicates matters is that death can mean life; in other words, by dying, a being can pave the way for new lives. Eliot asks his friend Stetson: “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, / Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?” Similarly, Christ, by “dying,” redeemed humanity and thereby gave new life. The ambiguous passage between life and death finds an echo in the frequent allusions to Dante, particularly in the Limbo-like vision of the men flowing across London Bridge and through the modern city.

6. Rebirth

The Christ images in the poem, along with the many other religious metaphors, posit rebirth and resurrection as central themes. The Waste Land lies fallow and the Fisher King is impotent; what is needed is a new beginning. Water, for one, can bring about that rebirth, but it can also destroy. What the poet must finally turn to is Heaven, in the climactic exchange with the skies: “Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.” Eliot’s vision is essentially of a world that is neither dying nor living; to break the spell, a profound change, perhaps an ineffable one, is required. Hence the prevalence of Grail imagery in the poem; that holy chalice can restore life and wipe the slate clean; likewise, Eliot refers frequently to baptisms and to rivers – both “life-givers,” in either spiritual or physical ways.

7. The Season

"The Waste Land" opens with an invocation of April, “the cruellest month.” That spring be depicted as cruel is a curious choice on Eliot’s part, but as a paradox it informs the rest of the poem to a great degree. What brings life brings also death; the seasons fluctuate, spinning from one state to another, but, like history, they maintain some sort of stasis; not everything changes. In the end, Eliot’s “waste land” is almost seasonless: devoid of rain, of propagation, of real change. The world hangs in a perpetual limbo, awaiting the dawn of a new season.

8. Lust

Perhaps the most famous episode in "The Waste Land" involves a female typist’s liaison with a “carbuncular” man. Eliot depicts the scene as something akin to a rape. This chance sexual encounter carries with it mythological baggage – the violated Philomela, the blind Tiresias who lived for a time as a woman. Sexuality runs through "The Waste Land," taking center stage as a cause of calamity in “The Fire Sermon.” Nonetheless, Eliot defends “a moment’s surrender” as a part of existence in “What the Thunder Said.” Lust may be a sin, and sex may be too easy and too rampant in Eliot’s London, but action is still preferable to inaction. What is needed is sex that produces life, that rejuvenates, that restores – sex, in other words, that is not “sterile.”

9. Water

"The Waste Land" lacks water; water promises rebirth. At the same time, however, water can bring about death. Eliot sees the card of the drowned Phoenician sailor and later titles the fourth section of his poem after Madame Sosostris’ mandate that he fear “death by water.” When the rain finally arrives at the close of the poem, it does suggest the cleansing of sins, the washing away of misdeeds, and the start of a new future; however, with it comes thunder, and therefore perhaps lightning. The latter may portend fire; thus, “The Fire Sermon” and “What the Thunder Said” are not so far removed in imagery, linked by the potentially harmful forces of nature.

10. History

History, Eliot suggests, is a repeating cycle. When he calls Stetson, the Punic War stands in for World War I; this substitution is crucial because it is shocking. At the time Eliot wrote "The Waste Land," the First World War was definitely a first - the "Great War" for those who had witnessed it. There had been none to compare with it in history. The predominant sensibility was one of profound change; the world had been turned upside down and now, with the rapid progress of technology, the movements of societies, and the radical upheavals in the arts, sciences, and philosophy, the history of mankind had reached a turning point.

Eliot revises this thesis, arguing that the more things change the more they stay the same. He links a sordid affair between a typist and a young man to Sophocles via the figure of Tiresias; he replaces a line from Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” with “the sound of horns and motors”; he invokes Dante upon the modern-day London Bridge, bustling with commuter traffic; he notices the Ionian columns of a bar on Lower Thames Street teeming with fishermen. The ancient nestles against the mediaeval, rubs shoulders with the Renaissance, and crosses paths with the centuries to follow. History becomes a blur. Eliot’s poem is like a street in Rome or Athens; one layer of history upon another upon another.

(Word count-2060)