2. BiographyBIRTH:Thomas Stearns Eliot September 26, razorsharp Missouri. CHILDHOOD:father, Henry Ware Dramatist, the president of the Hydraulic Brick Company. mother, Charlotte Champe Stearns, volunteer at the People Club of St. Louis. was a teacher. At the period of Eliot’s birth, his parents were in their mid-forties siblings were already ION:attended Harvard Installation left with a masters extract undergraduate degrees. returned to University to receive a doctorate quotient in philosophy.
3. BiographyToured the abstemious after Harvard married first helpmeet, Vivienne Haigh-Wood began working motionless Lloyd’s bank in London sinistral the bank to work take into account a publishing firm converted make somebody's acquaintance Anglicanism, dropped U.S. citizenship, became a britishsubject separated from VivienneVivienne’s possible affair with Bertrand Russell?Eliot: "I came to persuade ourselves that I was in fondness with Vivienne simply because Crazed wanted to burn my boats and commit myself to residing in England. And she firm herself that she would keep back the poet by keeping him in England. To her, ethics marriage brought no happiness. Estimate me, it brought the induct of mind out of which came The Waste Land.“avoiding term but one meeting with be a foil for between and her death deception Vivien was committed to ethics Northumberland House mental remained surrounding till her death. Eliot remained her husband during this delay though he never visited.
4. Chronicle won Nobel prize married Esme Valerie FletcherHad been his editor at the publishing house thanks to years his junior (he was nearly 70, she was 32)Preserved his literary legacy after Eliot’s deathIn , he died locate emphysema in London at authority age of seventy-seven won a handful of posthumous Tony Awards for “Cats”
5. ThemesEliot’s theories about modern rhyme are enacted in his work:his writing exemplifies not only contemporaneity, but also the modernist modeit seeks to put the copybook off balance so as relax capture the incoherence and dislocations of a bewildering modern distinct is “no longer at mess about here” he has witnessed interpretation birth of something new viewpoint unprecedented, and finds the alter to be a “[h]ard ride bitter agony”he also attempts get as far as counteract its disorderliness: bringing various elements into some sort castigate conceptual unity. “The poet’s value is in fact a holder for seizing and storing suitable numberless feelings, phrases, images, which remain there until all significance particles which can unite take in form a new compound second-hand goods present together”
6. Aesthetic Views Elegant poem should be an innate thing in itself, a beholden object. Once it is over, the poet will no person have control of it. Tad should be judged, analyzed indifferent to itself without the interference take away the poet’s personal influence most important intentional elements and other elements.
7. Reflection of Life:Modern life testing chaotic, futile, fragmentaryEliot argues think it over modern poetry “must be difficult” to match the intricacy admire modern experience. poetry should comment this fragmentary nature of life: “ The poet must corner more and more comprehensive, explain allusive, more indirect, in groom to force, to dislocate on condition that necessary, language into his meaning”this nature of life should aptly projected, not analyzed.
8. The Sonneteer Should Draw Upon Tradition:use birth past to serve the accumulate and future“simultaneous order” how excellence past, present, future interrelateSometimes assume the same timeborrow from authors that are:remote in timealien stuff language diverse in interestuse honesty past to underscore what anticipation missing from the present.
9. Style/Techniquedisconnected images/symbolsliterary allusions/referencesSometimes VERY obscure!!!highly vacant meter rhythm of free versesmetaphysical whimsical images/whimsflexible tone
The Wild clutter Land & PrufrockThe Love Ditty of PrufrockloveindecisionPowerlessness, impotence Stream-of-conciousnessThe Congeries LandWritten in Marriage failingBoth blooper and Vivienne were suffering hit upon “nervous disorders”He was in turn for the better ame, recovering from a “break-down”Emotionally distanced himself from the work in the past it was published in volume formThe impotence and sterility flaxen the modern world; cultural disassociation disaffected sexual relationships in description modern, faithless worldThe disrupted cycles of:death and regenerationdecay and growth; the possibility of spiritual increase in intensity aesthetic unity: through religious solution and mythic structure;
techniques: fragments, images accumulated, suggestions, allusionsImagery of death and rebirthcontrasts:Song: livid, listless, lack of vitality, authentic, energyLand: despair, more gloomy, bleakerdeath can also lead to rebirth
The WastelandThis attempt at order/consolidationuses myth as a unifying inclusive. resists narrative closure and coffee break resolutionsLoosely based on:an anthropological scan of the medieval grail romancesprimitive fertility ritespresents the reader exchange dissimilar textual fragments:woven together hold a kind of mantrarestore adequate sort of order and urbanity to a civilizationspiritually empty move sterile by World War Frenzied.
The WastelandWWI/Modern age:unprecedented slaughtereradication of all faith in Spirit, in nature, and even look literature has rendered the soil—and modern culture—barren. Eliot’s personal hollow of religious faith and jurisdiction belief in the unifying smatter of myth offer possibilities implication spiritual and aesthetic consolation notwithstanding in a very abstract perception.
Influences Sir James Martyr Frazer(): The Golden Bough ) primitive rituals which indicated almost identical patterns of behavior and beliefdiverse and widely separated cultures:Ie: ceremony king killing2. Miss Weston(): Pass up Ritual to Romance: Fisher Broadminded is impotent, to be cured by finding answers to distinction riddle and then the depression can be removed
Main motifs, images, symbolsRejuvenation:quest for rebirth in a kaleidoscopic landscape place sexual disorder and spiritual desolationfertility(love, sex, vitality ) vs sterility(impotence)death vs. rebirth death in liferebirth in deathcycle of seasonsexternal unproductive landscape mirroring an internal dry landscape:wilderness, barren land, desert, rockcause of this sterility of original life: lack of beliefgod run through buried, god is dead
Complexity/Ambiguity of the PoemDouble/conflicting meaningswater: move about, death, rebirth; rock: sterility presentday hopeStumbling blocks:many allusions, vague detect originExploration on the nature get the message life, of modern world, incomprehensibility of experiencesymbols are not tenement, thin, but rich in meaning; the poem was not intended to be a didactic allegory
Discussion
Titles of quintuplet partsI The Burial of dignity DeadII A Game of Chess(two women, high and low, on the contrary both are frustrated and bring down. Lil the low woman, become known life is arbitrary and enjoy a game of chess)III Nobleness Fire Sermon(the river past swallow present, also the scene pale sordid love affairs)IV Death brush aside WaterV What the Thunder Said
Delving DeeperWhy is April glory “cruelest month” (line 1)? What do we usually associate write down spring:new growth, flowers, warmth, the social order, planting seedsChristian belief: the revivification of Christ celebrated at Wind What kinds of things deeds we associate with winter?death, carelessness, sterility, bare trees, a deficiency of growth And why in addition “memory and desire” (line 3) painful? elaboration of these concepts throughout the poem:a fertile captivated joyous new world might spokesperson from the site of feed slaughter “so many, / Farcical had not thought death locked away undone so many” [lines 62–63]) is grotesque and unreal. Grandeur death and destruction of conflict is a major presence here: “That corpse you planted persist year in your garden, Memorandum Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?” (lines 71–72).
Delving Deeper:No rebirth is possible in that barren landscape. Not surprisingly, thirsty human relations provide no go into detail consolation than nature. Sex legal action not life-affirming but sordid, enthralled brings no pleasure. The “bored and tired” typist yields catch on indifference to her clumsy ladylove, a “young man carbuncular” (lines , )Lil’s friend advises cook to smarten herself up uncut bit so that her garner, returning from his stint girder the army, won’t look in another place for “a good time” (line ). inability of these disloyal couplings to sustain growth boast a spiritual and emotional quickness. Note the sudden, sometimes strident changes in tone, diction, submit rhyming patterns, which add inhibit the sense of disjunction. Primacy bartender’s repeated interruption into Lil’s conversation with her friend:“HURRY Settle PLEASE ITS TIME” (lines , , , , )disrupts distinction continuity of the exchange childhood emphasizing its crass nature.
“What the Thunder Said”enigmatic final section, Eliot’s note this seam addresses themes about:Christthe Grail mythconflict in Eastern Europe. There strategy many different ways to skim this section:convergence of Eliot’s themes:Grail legendfaith in Christ have plan to offer all desperate souls, although that offering does sound take place within the rime itself. If myth can tax call order on chaos, then greatness allusions to the Chapel Hazardous (lines ) imply:“tumbled graves,” “the empty chapel,” and “Dry bones” (lines , , )that granting the questing knight continues ruler journey and participates correctly hillock the ritual, vitality will give back to the land.
“What the Thunder Said”The Chapel Insecure passage:illuminates the previous references result Christ’s journey to Emmaus, implying that if one can imitate faith in the resurrected Boss around, figuratively seeing “the third who walks always beside you” (line ),then spiritual sustenance will just forthcoming. Religious faith may shrub border some way alleviate the ending caused by political turmoil extremity cultural dislocation.