2. The Waste Land
Waste Land is a modern epic.
Waste Land: an important 20th century
poem and a central work of modern poetry.
In place of traditional work ,with a unified
themes and a coherent structure, Eliot
produced a poem that seemed to
incorporate many unrelated ,little known
references to history ,religion , mythology
and other disciplines.
3. The Waste Land
Eliot not only add references from
different disciplines but also use
different languages.
Published three years after first
World War(about the spiritual,
moral and physical destruction
caused by first world war).
4. The Waste Land
The Waste Land presents the moral
decay of post-World War l .
5. The Waste Land
Eliot cited two books from which he
drew references and create
symbolism.
• Jessie L. Weston’s “From Ritual to
Romance”.
• Sir James G. Frazer's “The Golden
Bough: A Study in Magic and
Religion”
6. The Waste Land
The Title
the title refers to a myth
from “ From Ritual to Romance”.
The title stands for infertility.
Indicating the need for re-birth.
7. The Waste Land
There are five sections of the poem:
The Burial of Dead
A Game of Chess
The Fire Sermon
Death by Water
What the Thunder Said
8. First section: Burial of the Dead
The Burial of the Dead stands for
spiritual depravity and death of
the waste landers or should say
stands for their living death.
As without morality and
spirituality the waste landers are
just like zombies ,bodies without
souls.
9. Burial of the Dead
TEXT
“April is the cruelest month”
April which is the beginning of spring
season stands for re-birth , spiritual re-
birth.
As Chaucer presented,
“When April with his showers sweet
with fruit
10. Burial of the Dead
The drought of March has pierced unto
the root “
“To generate therein and sire the
flower”
“Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage”
Here these lines present April as a
pleasant season , here it stands for re-
birth of nature , and spiritual re-birth as
people long to go to pilgrimage , but
when it comes to modern man, there is
11. Burial of the Dead
No urge for spiritual re-birth or revival.
For modern man April is “the cruelest
month "because requirements gone change
,they don’t like re-birth whether it is of
nature or of spirituality . In waste land ,the
waste landers gone habitual to waste their
life , gone habitual to an infertile life . Now
the urge for Holy days turn into the urge for
holidays.
12. Burial of the Dead
TEXT
“Lilacs out of the dead land , mixing
Memory and desire , stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.”
Here we find a bit , why April is “cruelest
month” “mixing of memory and desire”
because when it comes to re-birth that rebirth
will bring things back to its birth then also to its
death . Waste landers ,after such a long period
of destruction and death(World war l),don’t
have urge for spiritual re-birth , they are okay
13. Burial of the Dead
With a dead deserted life(there are no
chances of death for a dead one but re-
birth do have ?).
TEXT
“Earth in forgetful snow ,feeding
A little life with dried tubers.”
They like winter ,stands for spiritual
decay and physical pleasures . They get
14. Burial of the Dead
Comfort , pleasure and warmth of life in it.
The waste landers are found of physical
pleasures and joys than of spiritual
pleasures.
[Modern man want to get lost in physical
pleasures and want to live a forgetful life
because self realization or spiritual revival or
re-birth may make them to realize and think
about what they lost, and about there
15. Burial of the Dead
Present infertile deserted miserable
state.]
From the topic of season poem shifts
towards the childhood memories of a
woman "Marie”.
“Bin gar keine Russin , stamm’ aus
Litauen , echt deutsh.”
16. Burial of the Dead
“ I am not Russian; I come from
Lithuania, a real German.”
And when we were children , staying
at the arch-duke’s ,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled
And I was frightened .He said , Marie,
Marie , hold on tight. And down we
went.
17. Burial of the Dead
In the , mountains , there you feel
free.
I read , much of the night , and go
south in the winter”.
Lamentation: Marie describes her
memories of past
18. Burial of the Dead
In that section first thing that we
notice is a comparison between
past and present.
Marie is talking about her past and
present.
She presents her past as a golden
period .
19. Burial of the Dead
In past there are close relations “
staying at the arch duke’s my
cousin’s”, “Marie , Marie hold on
tight”(holding tightly religious
values?)
Another thing which make past a
golden period is active functioning
of life “ he took me out on a sled”.
20. Burial of the Dead
While in present state is a sort of
passive state “ I read , much of the
night” and a sort of rootlessness as
there is no mention of any sort of
relation.
“go South in the winter” to enjoy
holidays in winter while in past
people used go to pilgrimage in the
season they like the best.
21. Burial of the Dead
Remembering glorious
past(lamentation).
Nature of family relation in past
and present.
Passive deserted state of modern
man.
22. Burial of the Dead
TEXT
What are the roots that clutch , what
branches grow out of this stony
rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say , or guess , for you
know only
A heap of broken images , where the
sun beats ,
23. Burial of the Dead
And the dead tree gives no shelter ,
the cricket no relief ,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
Only there is shadow under this red
rock(come in under the shadow of
this rock)”
24. Burial of the Dead
“what are the roots that clutch , what
branches grow out of this stony rubbish”
Here is the indication of rootlessness of
modern world .
Roots stand for fertility
Modern man living a rootless life , there
are no religious roots no family roots ,
life on a decentered plant
Without roots what sort of fertility one
can think about.
25. Burial of the Dead
As all roots turn into “ a stony heap
of rubbish”
For modern man religious values and
beliefs no more than a heap of
rubbish.
When roots turn into rubbish fertility
turn into deserted state. So the out
come of religious disintegration is
immorality and spiritual decay .
26. Burial of the Dead
Why modern world is a waste land
because it lost its roots.
“ And the dead tree gives no
shelter,,,,no relief , there is a shadow
under this red rock”.
Meaninglessness of life without
religious belief.
Solution of all problems of modern
man is in religion in spiritual revival.
27. Burial of the Dead
Frish weht der wind
Der Heimat zu
Mein Irisch Kind
Wo weilest du?
You gave me hyacinths first a year ago; They call
me the hyacinth girl. 'yet when we came back ,
late ,from the hyacinth garden , your arms full
and your hair wet , I could not speak, and my
eyes failed , I was neither living nor dead”.
28. Burial of the Dead
This passage is from Wagner’s Opera
(tale popular during 12th c in Anglo-
Norman literature) named as
“Tristan and Isolde”(two guilty
lovers) indication of forbidden sexual
relation , which is common in
modern world.
Spiritual decay.
29. Burial of the Dead
TEXT
“Madam Sosostris , famous
Clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in
Europe ,
With a wicked pack of card ,
30. Burial of the Dead
Madam Sosostris ,a fortune-teller
,herself not okay “nevertheless is
known to wisest women”
Ambiguity about the fortune of
modern man.
31. Burial of the Dead
“ the drowned Phoenician Sailor “
“Here is Belladonna”
“ I do not find The Hanged Man”
“fear death by water”
When it comes to her cards
There is a card indicates destruction
There is card about “Belladonna”
lady of rocks and lady of sex.
32. Burial of the Dead
There is a card about water but
even on a dead deserted land
water not stands for life but for
death.
“The Hanged Man”(Christ ,
religion) card is missing ,
indication spiritual disintegration.
33. Burial of the Dead
“Unreal City”
“ A crowd of people over London Bridge
, so many . I had not thought death had
undone so many.
Sights , short and infrequent , were
exhaled ,
And each man fixed his eyes before his
feet.”
34. Burial of the Dead
Unreal City : London, a place without
real values.
A crowd of living dead bodies.
People without soul
People physically alive but spiritually
dead
Modern world a crowd of zombies.
London a place populated by ghosts
35. Burial of the Dead
“There I saw one I knew . And stopped
him , crying: ‘ Stetson!
You who were with me in the ship at
Mylae
That Corpus you planted last year in
your garden ,
Has it begun to sprout ? Will it bloom
this year ? “
36. Burial of the Dead
Pointing towards the “Mylae battle",
took place in 260 BC ,the fist Punic War,
and the first real naval battle between
Carthage and Roman Republic.
Questioning the use of war , outcome of
war , which is nothing but destruction ,
what one can get out of plantation of
corpse.
37. Burial of the Dead
“You ! Hypocrite lecteur!– mon
semblable—mon frere!”
(you hypocritical reader , fellow man
, my brother)
The section concludes with a famous
line from the Preface to Baudelaire’s
“Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil)” , a
symbolic collection of poetry.
38. Burial of the Dead
We are all Steston , spiritually
dead and physically alive bodies.
Speaking to all waste landers ,
modern man.
