The Waste Land is a poem written by TS Eliot in 1922.

The first section has the title "The Burial of the Dead". It a has different levels of meaning. The first is a naturalistic level which refers to a metamorphoses process about life, dead and rebirth; the second is a religious level: "burial of the dead" refers to service of funeral in Anglican rite which is called "The Order for The Burial of the Dead"; the third level refers to vegetations rites in which the burial of effigies of a king is consider a sacrifice to rebirth. "The Burial of the Dead" is a metaphor of hallow men, unable to live life.

The first scene opens with a month, April. In the ordinary people vision it is the month which signs a new start, a rebirth of nature. This image is take by Chaucer, who in Canterbury Tales describes April as the sweetest month. In The Waste Land, Eliot turns upside-down this perspective: April is cruel because promises a regeneration at existence levels which won't arrive.
Lilacs refers to dead, are indeed used in funeral service.
The land mixes memorial and desire, Eliot is in line with modernist concept of time and with the way of think.
The paradoxical sentence "Winter kept us warm" refers to people attitude to stay inside and protect at home, without face the life but hidden it.
The image of snow is typical of Modernism, in this text the snow is "forgetful". There is a dead 's atmosphere, though the language refers to nature the land is waste and fruitless.

Follow the second scene which hasn't a logical link with the first.
The summer surprise the protagonists, the surprise symbolized that people are not aware of what happens around, showers of rain are typical in England's habits that not change people's life.
The "Hofgarten" refers to Eliot's biography, he visit Munich in 1911 his first European trip.
In this part is evident the use of collage technique which bring the poem to be intertextual.
Are presented a character without roots, symbol of what is man in that period.
Is presented a picture of that time aristocracy taken probably in a book which is found by Eliot that exploited it.