Learning Paths » 5A Interacting
T.S.Eliot is the most representative poet of modernism , was born in 1888 and died in 1965 , and laid the basis for a revolution in poetry. He was born in
America and later was asked to become an English citizen. He lived at the end of XIX and the begin of XX century. A lot of works were published in that
period , but we are gonin to discuss about "The Waste Land" published in 1922. Waste is the italian for "desolata/o, che non produce". There is a quotation
in latin, and the subtitle is preceded from a number (I) , this element makes us understand that the text is arranged into different sections , of which "The
Burial Of The Dead" is the first. The latin quotation is taken from a Petronio's work : the "Satyricon". A possible translation of the quotation in English
may be : "For once I saw with my own eyes The Cueam Sibyl hanging in a jar , and when the boys asked the Sibyl:What do you want? She answered: I want to
die". The tipic of death is already present in the quotation , but it is a rather difficult to notice it because it is hidden from two languages : latin and
Greek. Reading the first line the reader is curious to give an answer to the following answer : why is april the cruellest month? Usually April is considered
the month of regeneration and spring (since April is the month of spring). This is the first strange piece of information that T.S. Eliot provides us. The
reader should notice that in the first line T.S.Eliot uses intertextuality , he (T.S.Eliot) refers to J. Chaucer (defined the poets' poet). Chaucer believed
that April was the swettest month of regeneration , rebirth in the cycle of nature ; on the contrary T.S.Eliot defines April the Cruellest month , the worse
month ; instead of giving rebirth to flowers it (April) feeds flowers "out of the dead land". There is a particular species of flower quoted in the text :
Lilacs (colour : violet) the colour of funeral ritual. Probably from this piece of information Grover Smith argues the thesis following the which The Waste
Land summerizes the Grail legend. In this case T.S.Eliot would have used intertextuality , referring to Jessie L. Weston's "From Ritual To Romance"; Jessie
L. Weston's thesis is that the Grail legend was the surviving record of an initiation ritual. The Identification of the Grail story with the common myth of
the hero assailing a devil-dragon underground or in the depths of the sea completes the unifying idea behind The Waste Land. The reader also would like to
find an answer to another question : How can a dead land generate flowers? The question is a paradox , a sterile land cannot produce any flowers. T.S.Eliot
personify land using a verb , dead , which usually is referred to human being. April fuses past and future , so the concept of ime conveyed is a simultaneous
concept of time ; present is the result of past memories and future expetation. T.S.Eliot gives the reader another strange piece of information : "Winter
kept us warm". Generally winter is cold , not warm , so Why does T.S.Eliot says that winter is warm? It is another paradox. In winter people are looking for
warm , so winter keeps people warm because it (winter) keeps people close. In winter snows , and snow usually covers everything , seems to let people forget
of everythin else. April is not the month of regeneration , spring , and hopness ; in T.S.Eliot everything is turned up. April is described as the month of
death. From the beginning the poet captures the reader attention , because the poet is unusual and atypica ; after giving the sense of desolation , T.S.Eliot
introduces summer and gives us some memories. Memories of a woman and a man , who were in Germany (there is also a German quotation). The juxtaposition of
scenes ( example : the spring scene is juxtaposed to the scene of winter , like in Virginia Woolf) convayed the atmosphere of ansiety , the idea of not
understanding , displacement , difficulty , paradoxical. In summer two child surprised from rain stopped in a collonade , and later the sun returned and the
two child have a coffè and talk for hours. During their staying at the archduke , they had a nice time going on a sled in the mountains , the only place
where you feel free.