“THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD”

LAST SCENE

The first section of “The Burial Of The Dead” ends with the image of an unreal city. The unreal city is the modern London and Eliot wants to describe the financial part of this city refers to time and space.

Eliot talks about a crowd that flows over London Bridge: people pass but they are like ghostly figures. He compares modern people to the “ignavi” in Hell: both are disorientated and haven’t hopes. Eliot inserts a quotation taken from Dante’s inferno “I had not thought death had undone so many” but the relevant word is “sighs” because it symbols very well their condition.

There is an atmosphere of death and it is accentuated by the “dead sound” of Saint Mary Woolnoth. It is like a funeral.

The speaking voice recognizes a person (maybe Ezra Pound) in the crowd and calls her "Stetson". The voice continues saying “you who were with me in the ships at Mylae!”: here the novelist refers to a battle during the Punic War. This line is very important because it underlines Eliot’s concept of time: simultaneous concept of time and he totally disregards chronological references.

The last part of the scene ends with an ancient rituals of fertility and the last line is a quotation taken from Baudelaire’s “I Fiori Del Male”.