ABOUT WASTE LAND

 About T.S Eliot

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, to a prominent Boston Brahmin family, he moved to England in 1914 at the age of 25 and went on to settle, work, and marry there.He became a British citizen in 1927 at the age of 39, subsequently renouncing his American citizenship.

Eliot first attracted widespread attention for his poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" in 1915, which, at the time of its publication, was considered outlandish.[5]. It was followed by "The Waste Land" (1922), "The Hollow Men" (1925), "Ash Wednesday" (1930), and Four Quartets (1943).[6] He was also known for seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935) and The Cocktail Party (1949). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry".

About waste land

The Waste Land is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry.Published in 1922, the poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the October issue of Eliot's The Criterion and in the United States in the November issue of The Dial. It was published in book form in December 1922. Among its famous phrases are "April is the cruellest month", "I will show you fear in a handful of dust", and the mantra in the Sanskrit language "Shantih shantih shantih".

In the poem Waste Land  there are 5 parts. 

1.The burial of death

2.A Game of chess

3.The Fire sermon

4.Death by water

5. What the thunder said.

Poem is made of collage of images. Apart from these images the poem is nothing.the poem is full of images, myths , allusions .

In the first part of the poem there is a landscape  scene. Myth of isolde and hyacinth. In the first part the character of Marie is introduced.

 In the poem oscillation  between past and present. The main purpose of this writing style is whatever Is happening has already happened in the past.

In the second part of the poem there are images of a xylography in a lady's chamber,  wooden carving, and the myth of philomela. Here the poet wants to say that women are responsible  for all types of spiritual values, as well as character.  In short, in this part the poet talks about the scene of a woman chatting with a man.

In the third part there is a  scene of a riverbank,  a rattle of bones, which  symbolises spirituality,  and a rat is a symbol of filth and soliderness. In the part there are also contrasting images of saviour and normal human beings.

In the fourth part  poet want to say that 

do not to be proud

Be humble

Practice humanity 

In the final part  there  is a reference of brihad aarynka upanishad. There are three DA . 

DA-Damyata-self control-godly being

DA-Datta-Giver-human being

DA-Dayadhvam-compassion-Demons

poem ends with shanti shanti shanti means peace that passes and understanding 

Pandemic  reading of the poem Waste land

The Waste Land not only captures elements of pandemic actual phase, both the individual and collective  level.

Through the pandemic reading of the poem, the readers came across the  fact that Eliot and his wife Vivian had caught the virus in Dec. 1918 in the second wave of the pandemic. 

As it is described in the letter that the atmosphere  of the pandemic of influenza and illness. Eliot's letters were a morocrom of the broader pandemic climate.

One may question that if pandemic has so enghlifting  the mind and the body , so why Eliot not referred directly  In the poem

Well, in that case it worth considering

The mesmic resolve of this pandemic experience influences every part  of the poem.

Pandemic impact on consciousness and the physical and mentally also.

Here I attached the link of tabular information   list of Waste land like birds, animals, languages etc.

5.tabular information of birds, animals etc. in Waste land