T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

•-       poem: multileveled form of poetry

•-       juxtaposition of scenes: creates a dramatic effect

•-       myth: fundamental principle

•-       myth and atmosphere: structuring principle

 -     themes: it refers to a land without life

•-       STRUCTURE: it opens with the quotation from Petronio's Satyricon in the Greek language, where the reader can come across "Sybillas Cumanas" words. In the quotation the Sybille is asked by some young people what she wants, and she answered "I want to die".

T.S. Eliot adds a dedication to Ezra Pound who he calls "il miglior fabbro". From the narrative method now poetry has moved to the mythical method and as a result of the juxtaposition of a series of scenes.

How are the scenes kept together? By the atmosphere and myth, and ritual adds unity to the point.

•-       Poetry puts images at the centre of poetic language: modernist kind of experimentation to make the reader see, hear, touch what he was reading, rather than simply reading à language of sense impressions

•-      Differences between image poetry and symbolist: imagists sought analogies between literature and sculpture; symbolists sought analogies with music

•-     Structure: consists of 5 sections; the first one is called "the Burial of the dead".

Eliot's own notes explain his many varied and multicultural allusions, quotations and half-quotations. The poem also makes references to the legend of the Holy Grail, to the ancient vegetation myths and fertility ceremonies, the death and resurrection of Christ, the story of the Fisher King, a variety of mythological and religious material and prophetic figures, such as the Greek Sybil, Ezekiel, Buddha and Tiresias, the blind Greek prophet who was both man and woman.

The Burial of the dead: it comes of a ritual of the Anglican church and it refers to a ritual that entered religion from primitive right (the effigy of a God who was buried in the ground to pray for a good crop). They also refer to the concrete burial of dead people in metaphorical way; people that look for protection of any possibility of living.

•è Eliot is turning all the traditional concepts up into down because he uses Intertextuality: he uses Geoffrey Chaucer "Canterbury Tales" where Chaucer says that April is the prettiest month; Eliot changes it into the cruellest month because it promises a generation that does not come.

•è Why did Eliot quoted Chaucer? Because Chaucer is the poet's poet and he was the first poet to use English as a poetical language.