What The Thunder Said T.S.Eliot

Exercises page 559

>> a. The journey of Christ's disciples to Emmaus after the Resurrection from line 39 to line 45: "Who is the third..", "there is always another one...", "But who is that.."

b. The approach to the Chapel Perilous in the Holy Grail legend from line 57 to line 60:" Over the tumbled graves..."

c. The present decay of Eastern Europe from line 46 to line 56: "What is that sound..", "Falling towers...".

>> The images associated with sterility are described from line 10 to line 38.

>> The Thunder's advice is a suggestion to give alms, to have compassion and to practice self-control, in order to live a better life.

>> These fragments are an example of intertextuality. T. S. Eliot quotes Dante, a nursery rhyme, Pervigilium Veneris and G. de Nerval. According to me "these fragments" help the poet to renew himself. He uses them against "his ruins", to regenerate.

>> In the concluding lines the Thunder is inviting people to make the waste land a better land, in order to live a better life with no suffering, and no effort. The last lines are written in Sanskrit because it is the language of the Hindu religion, to which the Waste Land refers.

>> I think that Eliot's poetry really represents a different and a new way to make poetry. Sometimes it is difficult but always interesting. He uses intertextuality, quotations and language in general in an astonishing way.

>> I think that, the obscurity in Eliot's poetry is caused by his attempt to reproduce the barbaric civilization of his time. To do that there is a suppression of links, connections and explanations.

>> She underlines that he is able to just-apposes scenes. She has to leap from line to line, she has to fly to follow Eliot's poetry. She seems to be deeply impressed by the poet, who makes her "spin madly through mid-air"

>> Either Eliot or Joyce or Woolf try to find an objective truth. They use language in a new way to express their negative point of view on modern civilization. They describe the decay and the paralysis of their world. They rebel against the traditional way of writing, developing a new style. They all use new technical devices: Eliot uses the just-apposition of scenes, Joyce uses the stream of consciousness technique and Woolf use the interior monologue.