Introduction:
“The Waste Land” is the most important and the greatest achievement of T. S. Eliot. It symbolises the modern civilization which is compared to a waste land. It was written in 1921 and published in 1922. At the time of its composition, Eliot was a philosopher poet through and through. He was also a lover of esoteric poetry. Having viewed the modern materialistic civilization from the viewpoint of spiritualism and Christian Existentialism, he has represented his reaction in the form of this poem entitled The Waste Land.
Theme of the Poem:
The Waste Land offers a criticism of life in the sense of an interpretation of its problems. In this poem there is a painful consciousness of the sickness and the fever and the fret of contemporary civilization. It goes beyond a mere diagnosis of the spiritual distempers of the age. It is a lament over man's fallen nature, a prophecy and a promise. One of the important themes of the poem is a vision of dissolution and spiritual drought. This spiritual drought arises from the degeneration, vulgarization and commercialization of sex. Another important theme of the poem is sexual perversion among the middle - class people. This is seen in the mechanical relationship of the typist and the clerk. The typist gives herself to the clerk with a sense of total indifference and apathy. There is neither repulsion nor any pleasure.
Rhythm and Versification:
The poem except for the quotations consists of iambic verse lines of unequal length characterized by striking speech rhythms. Here and there the poet has employed thyme for a sudden tightening, for a cumulative insistence, or for an abrupt change of mood. In conversational passages the speech rhythms get down to colloquial level. But when Tiresias meditates, the rhythm rises to the level of noble thoughts. On the whole, Eliot's versification and rhythms are highly striking.
A Stream of Consciousness:
The poem consists of fragmentary passages, literary quotations and allusions. There is an apparent lack of logical relationship among them. The reason is that the whole poem is a stream of consciousness in verse of one personage, Tiresias. He is the protagonist. He is almost immortal, blind and bisexual. He is the hidden poet and much learned. He calls memories, meditates, etc.
The Title:
The title of the poem is said to have been suggested by Miss Weston's book From Ritual to Romance. Eliot had read in it of the waste land of King Fisher whose kingdom had been laid waste by his own sexual sins and those of his soldiers. This suggested to the poet the title of the poem, for to him all Europe appeared to be a spiritual waste land, laid waste by the sexual sins of the modern man.
The Epigraph:
The epigraph is drawn from Petronius’ satire Satyricon. This satie narrates the story of the sibyl of Cumae. In Greek mythology, sibyls were women of prophetic power, that of Cumae being the most famous of them. She was the beloved of Apollo who granted her the gift of immortality, but without eternal youth. The result was she grew old and withered with the passing of time and longed for death.
A Fine Document of Social Criticism:
This poem presents a series of trains of thought in the mind of a social observer. The primary theme which stirs Eliot's poetry into intellectual movement is the barrenness of man's contemporary spiritual estate. We feel that in this poem the poet has taken upon himself the burden of experiencing the world for his generation. The Waste Land along with The Hollow Men is considered as the most convincing presentation of social aimlessness.
The Use of Subjective Symbols:
Eliot has used a good number of subjective symbols in the poem. The first cardinal symbol is the Waste Land symbol. It stands for the modern materialistic civilization. The second cardinal symbol is ‘rock’. It first stands for matter and then for materialism. The third cardinal symbol is ‘water’. It stands for selfless love of man and God, and represents it as the water of human kindness and compassion. The fourth cardinal symbol is ‘unreal city’. It stands for the modern society of unsympathetic, selfish, people of sophisticated manners.
Bases of Symbolism:
The doctrine of spiritualism asserts that in the universe all the material forms are unreal. The immaterial soul is the only reality and it has real existence apart from matter. The doctrine of Christian Existentialism holds that man must raise his soul above the sins of the flesh and the temptation to worldly wealth. For the path of upright life leads the soul of God. But the doctrine of materialism denies the independent existence of the soul as apart from the matter. It also strictly prohibits noble spiritual pursuits, declaring them to be useless.
The Mythical Background:
Miss Weston's book supplied him with the legend of the Grail and the Fisher King, and from The Golden Bough he derived his knowledge of a number of vegetation and fertility myths and rituals, especially those connected with Attis, Adonis and Osiris.
Diction and Language:
Eliot makes frequent use of new words, strange instances and subtle allusions in most of his poems. The very chaos of allusions recalls memories from Dante, Jacobean drama, Buddhism, mythology, anthropology. The Golden Bough, From Ritual to Romance and the Upanishads, very effectively convey even to the uninitiated reader, the sense of the barrenness and decay of a chaotic civilization. One is struck by the vigour and beauty of much of the details, the ironic pictures of modern manners, the superb mingling of satiric vulgarity and sensuous delicacy, prophetic earnestness, variety of imagery and rhythm. Repetition of images is another of the devices used in the poem and it is the means of carrying on the symbolism from section to section. Words are but imperfect medium to communicate the complexity of the civilization that Eliot is trying to portray. Eliot tried to create new concepts assisted by echoes of tradition, the feeling for syllabic and rhythm or what he called auditory imagination.
Conclusion:
Finally it can be observed that The Waste Land is the most notable single poem of the modern age. It is lament over man's fallen nature, a prophecy and a promise
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