Critical evaluation of “The Waste land”

Critical evaluation of “The Waste land”

Ø About the author:

          T.S. Eliot, the greatest modern English poet, was an American by birth and an Englishman by adoption. Born at St.Louis, Missouri, U.S.A, he became a naturalized British Subject in 1927. As such he had the blending of the best of the American blood and the English intellect. He combined in himself strange and opposing characteristics. He came to possess a many sided personality. He was a classicist, an innovator, a critic social reformer and a mystic all combined into one.

          T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is by far the most representative poem of the 20^th century. It exposes the very soul of the modern generation with all its horrors moral, spiritual and intellectual bankruptcy, disillusionment and waste. Eliot wrote the work not merely to understand the war but he wanted to show spiritual degradation through this poem.

“The Waste Land” contains five parts like

Ø The Burial of the Dead

Ø A Game of chess

Ø The fire sermon

Ø Death by water

Ø What the thunder said etc.

          “The Waste Land” is a multi-layered poem in which several things can be included to study critically, they are given below

Ø Title of the poem

Ø Theme of the poem

Ø Myth in the poem

Ø Symbolism in the poem etc.

          Now let’s have a glance on these above indicated points in detail.

Ø Title of the poem:

          T.S. Eliot has represented his reaction in the form of this poem entitled “The Waste Land”. It is a symbolic poem composed in the style of poetic esotericism, “Formally” the symbol has been described as a much of ideas and a poetic cryptogram. As such it is the poem of myth and symbols of a series of trains of thoughts whose parts look unconnected with one another.

          The title of the poem “The Waste Land” has been inspired by Miss Dessie L. Weston’s book from Ritual to Romance. It refers to a waste land described in one of the Grail Romances. The Land was ruled by the fisher King.

          He along with his knights ravished curtail maidens who were guardians of the Grail mysteries. Because of that outrage, he become impotent and fell ill, and his land become waste materialistic world as the waste land, and its ruler as the modern materialistic man. He has profaned the mysteries of life and being, namely the soul and become spiritually impotent and has become waste spiritually. Therefore, it can be said that the title of this poem “The Waste Land” is appropriate and very well chosen by Thomas Stern Eliot.

Ø Themes of the poem:

“The Waste Land” possesses many theme and all these themes have been very well elaborated by T.S Eliot, who conveys these all themes through symbolism and of course with the help of various mythical technique, here in this poem “The Waste land”, T.S Eliot indicates his ideas so it is very much difficult to understand this poem at a first reading but an individual has to read twice or thrice then and then he/she can grasp the central idea of the poem.

Here are several themes, which can be observed

·        Death

·        Rebirth

·        Love

·        Lust

·        Water

·        Spiritual degradation

So now let’s discusses these themes in detail.

v Death:

Death is the major theme of this poem as two sections of this poem ‘The Burial of the dead’ and ‘death by water’ refers or indicates to this theme. What complicates matters is that death can mean life so in other words one cans say that by dying, a being can pave the way for the new lives. Therefore the death is the central theme of this poem.

v Spiritual degradation:

T.S Eliot has expressed what he felt about his land in The Waste Land and how people gradually lost faith in God and spiritual decay is the main theme of the poem as because of it only his land is waste land. In modern society there is a decay and spiritual degeneracy whenever the sexual function is prevented. So Spiritual Degradation can be taken as the main idea of this poem.

v Rebirth:

Here Rebirth can be a major theme which is found in this poem. The Christ images in the poem, along with many other religious metaphors, causes rebirth and resurrection as central theme of this poem.

v Love:

Love is the main theme of this poem. Here in the poem many references can be noticed such as Tristan and Isodle in ‘Burial of the Dead’ and Cleopatra in a ‘Game of Chess’ and to the story of Tereus and Philomela suggests that love in the waste land is often destructive.

v Lust:

Here T.S Eliot has very well depicted the theme of lust through this poem. T.S Eliot depicts the sin as something a akin to rape this chance sexual encounter carries with it mythological beggage.The violated Philomela, the blind Tiresias who lived for a time as a woman. Sexuality runs through the waste land taking centre stage as a cause of calamity in the ‘The Fire Sermon’.

v Water:

“The waste land” lacks water and water also promises rebirth at the same time however water can bring about Death. T.S Eliot sees the card of the drowned Phoenician sailor and later titles the fourth section of this poem ‘Death By water’ when the rain finally arrives at the close of the poem it does suggest the cleansing of sin, the washing away of misdeeds and the start of a new future, however with comes thunder and therefore perhaps lightening.

Ø Myths in the Waste Land:

There are many myths which can be observed in this poem. T.S Eliot’s The waste land is an important land mark in the history of English poetry and one of the most talked poems of the same Age. Here T.S Eliot described the mythical background in his poem. This mythical technique can be elaborated as given below.

·        The Grail Legend

·        The King Fisher

·        Myth of Tiresias

·        Myth of Vegetation and fertility etc.

Now let’s illuminate these myths in detail.

v The grail Legend:

Here in this poem this myth is visualized as The Grail was the cup or plate used by Christ for his last supper, in that cup the blood of the Savior was gathered when he was crucified. The Myth about this vessel was that at have acquired medicinal and miraculous properties so the result is that it became an object for purity or one kind of devotion and worship. The lance used to pierce the sides of Christ and kept with it. But a time the original Grail was mysteriously disappeared and many of the bold Knights staked their lives and them searching for this vessel. It was generally believed that the grail was sometimes could be found in the sky as the floating saucer but it could only see by those, Knights who were virginal beauty.

v King Fisher:

According to this myth King Fisher was the prince named King Fisher. It was one of the regions where Grail worship had been anciently vogue, and a temple Known as Chapel Perilous, still stood there, broken and dilapidated, as a mournful memorial of what once was, but later had ceased to be. It was said that the lost Grail was hidden in this chapel. At that time the king himself had become a physical wreck, maimed and impotent, as a result. It was whispered, of a sin committed by his soldiery in outraging the chastity of a group of nuns attached to the Grail chapel.

The impotency of the Fisher King was reflected sympathetically in the land of which he was the head and ruler. It had become dry and barren, the haunt and home of want and famine. The King, however, was waiting with hope, despite his illness, that one day the Knight of the pure soul would visit his star-crossed kingdom, march to the Chapel Perilous, answer questions and solve riddles.

v Myth of Tiresias:

Here in this poem this myth often comes up to the end of this poem. Tiresias is represented as a bi-sexual in The Waste Land as he was blind but he has the gift of prophecy and immortality. Many stories are same like Tiresias story. According to one story this wise Theban soothsayer in his youth once saw the goddess Athena naked in a pond and goddess struck him blind but his mother was a friend of hers so she bestowed upon him.

Ø Symbolism:

Here in this poem there are many symbols which can be elaborated in a separate essay because here T.S Eliot has used several kinds of myths and collage of images which causes some problem to understand this poem.

v Water:

Here in this poem Water a predominant symbol of birth, death and resurrection appears through the poem as in the opening water signifies the giver of life. Yet it also stands for death. “Fear death by water”, or those are pearls that were his eyes. The symbolic meaning depends with a deceased Phoenician.

v The king Fisher:

So, here Eliot shows the Fisher King as symbolic of humanity robbed of its sexuality potency in the modern world and connected to the meaninglessness of urban existence.

There are other symbols like

Ø Drought

Ø Animals

Ø Landscape

Ø Thunder

Ø Religion etc.

To Sum up:

So, here this poem The Waste Land is symbolically very rich poem and it has many interpretations so we rarely find such a variety of symbols except in T.S.Eliot’s Wasteland. Living beings, animal or insect have been the important symbol. Therefore, this poem can be elaborated from various perspectives.