Questions page 559.

>>Underline examples of alliteration, repetition and onomatopoeia.

Alliteration: “Prison and palace” (l. 5), “without water” (l.14)

Repetition: “After the torchlight red on sweaty faces/After the frosty silence in the gardens/After the agony in stony places” (l. 1-3); “Here is no water but only rock/Rock and no water and the sandy road” (l. 10-11)

Onomatopoeia: “Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop” (l. 37), “Cracks” (l.52) 

Comprehension

>> Focus on the three themes of the section, as explained in the introduction. Find references to them in the text.

The reference to the journey of Christ’s disciples to Emmaus (an old town in Palestine) after the Resurrection can be seen on lines 39-42 when is quoted somebody who’s walking, along a white road, “beside you”. This episode  is linked to the resurrected Christ when the disciples did not recognize him; the approach to the Chapel Perilous in the Holy Grail legend can be seen on lines 57-60 where is described the landscape surrounding the Chapel, and the present decay of Eastern Europe is evident on lines 84-86, where the poet speaks about a prison referring to our days.

>> Circle all the images associated with sterility.

“no water but only rock/Rock and no water and the sandy road” (l.11and followings)

“Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand” (l.16)

“Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit” (l.18)

“But dry sterile thunder without rain” (l. 21)

“And dry grass” (l. 34)  

Interpretation

>> What is the Thunder’s advice?

The Thunder’s speech is a warning to people where he says what man have to do to come out from desolation.  "Give, Sympathize, Control" (the translation from the Sanskrit "Datta, Dayadvam, Damyata" ) are his advices. “You have to give, to be pity and you have to be well behaved” is the meaning of the three imperatives he uses.   

>> What do you think “these fragments” are?

The fragments are texts taken from literary tradition, for example fragment from  children’s song, from Dante, and from Elizabethan drama.

>> The journey has come to an end. What final message is conveyed in the concluding lines? Why do you think the last words are in Sanskrit?

The final message brings the hope for renewal: the king offers some consolation: “These fragments I have shored against my ruins,” he says, suggesting that it will be possible to continue on despite the failed redemption.

Sanskrit is the oldest language known: in this way Mr. Eliot shows the timelessness and universality of what he’s affirming because those are good values valid for ancient times as well as for contemporary times.

>> What is your reaction to Eliot’s experimental poetry and the mass of notes you need (or don’t need) in order to understand it?

I found Eliot’s poetic language quite complicate and very difficult to understand. Of course I needed explicatory notes to try to give a meaning to his work.

>> Eliot wrote that modern poetry must be difficult, as he himself explained:

What causes obscurity in Eliot’s poetry?

As the poet wrote here above obscurity is caused by the fragmentation he gives to his style. In his language the reader is not able to find out links between sentences or concepts. The difficulty is also linked to Eliot’s wide employ of symbolism, which is not immediately understandable by the reader.   

>> Read how Virginia Woolf described her own experience of reading Eliot. >> What does she underline of Eliot’s style?

She underlines the beauty of Eliot’s style but also the complexity of his poetry: she feels “precarious” in reading it as she would be afraid of choosing just one interpretation.

>> In what ways are the modernists Eliot, Woolf and Joyce similar?

They are similar from the technical point of view: all give voice to the inner part of their characters (through comparable technical means stream of consciousness, interior monologue, dramatic monologue) eliminating narrator’s presence and all give importance to reader’s position and interpretation.