Waste Land

By T. S. Eliot

According to Wikipedia, "The Waste Land is a 434-line Modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity-its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its elegiac but intimidating summoning up of a vast and dissonant range of cultures and literatures-the poem has become a familiar touchstone of modern literature. Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month" (its first line); "I will show you fear in a handful of dust"; and (its last line) the mantra in the Sanskrit language "Shantih shantih shantih." Thomas Stearns Eliot (September 26, 1888 - January 4, 1965) was an American-born English poet, playwright, and literary critic, arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. The poem that made his name, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock started in 1910 and published in Chicago in 1915-is regarded as a masterpiece of the modernist movement. He followed this with what have become some of the best-known poems in the English language, including Gerontion (1920), The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seltzer Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781455401895

T. S. Eliot

THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1888. He moved to England in 1914 and published his first book of poems in 1917. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Eliot died in 1965.

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The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot

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1922

Table of Contents

The Waste Land

I. The Burial Of The Dead

II. A Game Of Chess

III. The Fire Sermon

IV. Death By Water

V. What The Thunder Said

Notes On The Waste Land

I. The Burial Of The Dead

II.  A Game Of Chess

III.  The Fire Sermon

V. What The Thunder Said

THE WASTE LAND

"Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis

vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:

Sibylla ti theleis; respondebat illa: apothanein thelo."

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee

With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,

And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,                            10

And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.

Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.

And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,

My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,

And I was frightened. He said, Marie,

Marie, hold on

Reviews for Waste Land

[sylvester_olson · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Yeah, I'm going to be that guy who gives T.S. Elliot 2 stars. Sorry, Mr. Elliot. I'm not a fan of non-narrative poetry. I gave it my best shot, but quite honestly it read like complete gibberish to me.

[deckla_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I can't help it, I have always loved T.S. Eliot's diction and modes of expression. Now I have it in e-book form. I know Thomas Stearns isn't the best model for human behavior, but he surely could express himself. This poem, an elegy, a summoning of Buddhist and Christian traditions, a description of the ruptures of civilization, couldn't be more timely.

[michael5rimmer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood. - T.S EliotLess understanding on my part, though some communication on Mr. Eliot's, so by his owndefinition, The Waste Land must be genuine poetry. If that sounds less than enthusiastic, it's probably a reflection of my disappointment at not being totally blown away by what is generally reckoned to be one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century. I'm sure the deficit is on my side, and I'll certainly return to this poem as there are undoubtedly depths I've not plumbed.Four stars, nonetheless, because there's some nice stuff about the cruelty of April, drowned Phoenicians, and overheard gossip about abortions.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Blijft een weerbarstig werk. Met de begeleidende commentaar komt de rijkdom wat beter tot zijn recht, maar het hermetisme bemoeilijkt de lectuur toch iets teveel. De persoonlijke interpretatie van Paul Claes (de impotentie van Eliot) op het einde overtuigt niet helemaal.

[dasam-5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As is true for most readers, when I first encountered The Waste Land in the 1960s, I found myself in a very foreign poetic land. I read the annotations and explications. I listened to my professors. I reread and mad innumerable margin notes. I felt the poem's power and despair. But its meaning seemed hard to parse.

Now, decades later, rereading yet again, I know the poem and the poem knows me. We still live in The Waste Land. The loss of all mooring after WWI still remains a debris we drift with. But the poem itself seems very approachable now, its discordant ballet of voices powerful as ever, but its sense much more apparent to me.

You must read and reread this poem. My critical opinion of it had moved over time to it being overrated---but now, no. It is a seminal poem of the last century. And its relevance today is profound.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While I liked all the classical references (and Tiresias was familiar to me, having just recently reread Oedipus Rex!), I didn't really understand this poem. However, the rhyme and meter are enjoyable so I will be trying this again!

[fuzzi_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was my second attempt to read a book by this author, and I did not appreciate it. To be fair, I'm not much of a poetry fan, so if you like poetry, you might like this.