T. S. Eliot

The Waste Land

"one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Published in 1922 in The Criterion and dedicated to Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land is 433 lines long, and includes five parts. It involves lots of borrowings from 35 different writers and 6 foreign languages, so it is obscure and hard to understand. It is broadly acknowledged as one of the most recognizable landmarks of modernism.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

* Described as a "drama of literary anguish," it presents a stream of consciousness in the form of a dramatic monologue, and marked the beginning of Eliot's career as an influential poet. * With its weariness, regret, embarrassment, longing, and awareness of mortality, Prufrock has become one of the most recognized voices in 20th-century literature

Theme: The wasteland

* It showed the spiritual breakup of the post-war generation and an urban civilization, * and the despair and depression after the first World War, * and the decline of the western culture which had lost its roots, meaning , significance and purpose. * It is regarded as a reflection of the 20th-century people's disillusionment and frustration in a sterile society. * It also brings self-awareness of the spiritual thirst, * and search for salvation for the West through revival of religion and change in the individual.

Poems

* The Waste Land (1922) * Ash-Wednesday (1930) * Four Quartets (1943) * "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" * "The Hollow Men"

Purpose of The Waste Land

* To convey the soul's and civilization's sense of emptiness, confusion, and aimlessness after WWI * To provide a means of regeneration for the soul and civilization * To revitalize poetry

Premise of The Waste Land

* We need to accept that all wars are one war, all battles are one battle, all journeys one journey, all rivers one river, all rooms one room, all loves one love, and ultimately, all people one person. * All of the specific examples of these things in the poem are in every case representative of their kind.

The Meaning of The Waste Land

* convey the state of post-war civilization and the soul through "the heap of broken images" * transcend the ego by identifying with the continuity of significant tradition, of the inherited wisdom of the human race